LISTEN: Diet, Disease, & Weight Loss, Part 3 (Overcoming the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony #8 with Daniel Whyte III)

Welcome to the Overcoming the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony podcast, a companion podcast to the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony message series. The purpose of this podcast is to share with you, from a biblical perspective, the means by which we can combat and overcome the sin of gluttony and its outcome of obesity.

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Our passage from the Word of God today is Numbers 11:21-23 which reads: “And Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them? And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.”

Now, let’s look at gluttony and its effects in the news: According to statistics, ‘More than half of those affected by obesity (around 50-60 percent) have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). In cases of severe obesity, this figure is around 90 percent. OSA is a very serious breathing disorder. OSA occurs when excess fat in the neck, throat, and tongue block air passageways during sleep. This blockage causes apnea, which means a person stops breathing for a time. A person with OSA may have hundreds of apnea episodes each night. Apnea episodes reduce the amount of oxygen in a person’s blood.’

In this podcast, we are going through the book, The RAVE Diet and Lifestyle: The Natural Foods Diet With Meals that Heal, by Mike Anderson. He writes in Chapter 1: Diet, Disease, & Weight Loss (Part 4):

The Magic of Whole Plant Foods

The best, simplest and most cost-effective way Americans can vastly improve their health and prevent our major diseases is to radically increase their consumption of whole, natural plant foods. Unlike foods that may have a single “good” nutrient that comes in a package of bad nutrients, whole natural foods do not have such tradeoffs. Whole foods are good for the whole body. They are not just “heart-healthy,” they are healthy for the heart, the brain, the arteries and all organs. They are “entire” body-healthy.

How good are whole foods? We are just at the beginning of our understanding. Let me give you an illustration. In the 1970s, there was a study conducted in which animals were fed two percent of their diet from red dye, sodium cyclamate or an emulsifier. The animals that were fed just one additive showed no harmful effects at all. The animals that were fed two of the additives showed balding fur, diarrhea and retarded weight gain. But the animals that were fed all three additives were dead within two weeks.

In a similar fashion, it was recently reported that Parkinson’s disease has been linked to the exposure of not one, but a combination of pesticides, namely paraquat and organophosphate.

What this illustrates is that toxins, when taken together, amplify their toxicity in a synergistic and logarithmic fashion.

In a similar – but beneficial – way, nutrients work together in the same way, e.g., calcium with magnesium, vitamin E with selenium, protein with B6 and so forth. There are also thousands of antioxidants that work together in a synergistic fashion which multiplies their health-enhancing effects. A tomato, for example, contains over 10,000 different phytochemicals. The possible combinations and permutations of nutrients once inside the body are simply mind-boggling. And, at this point, we have only a child-like understanding of how these nutrients work together in literally hundreds of thousands of combinations.

There have been a number of studies that show when a single chemo-preventive nutrient is fed to animals it had no effect on the incidence of cancer. But when two or more nutrients were combined, the cancer growth was sharply cut. What these studies examined was just a few nutrients, not the thousands and thousands of combinations that go on inside your body every day in the real world.

Remember when vitamin C was the rage? Everyone was taking vitamin C tablets like they were going out of style. Then it was discovered that vitamin C wasn’t very well absorbed unless a couple of bioflavonoids were present (hesperidin and rutin). So the manufacturers re-tooled and added these bioflavonoids to the pills and everything was supposed to be Ok again. Except it was later discovered that despite the presence of these bioflavonoids, the body couldn’t absorb vitamin C very well unless calcium was present, as well. So the pills were re-formulated with bioflavonoids and calcium. So, while the public remained confused – but nonetheless kept swallowing their vitamin C tablets – they continued to overlook a source of vitamin C that had all the elements together and allowed optimal absorption of the vitamin: citrus fruits, such as oranges and grapefruits – as well as a myriad of other plant foods bearing vitamin C! While “blind” scientists were baffled trying to come up with one or two or three key ingredients that would allow the body to effectively absorb vitamin C in pill form, people forgot that nature had already come up with a solution to this problem in the form of whole plant foods, which contain thousands of nutrient profiles scientists are still in the dark about.

The point is this: When scientists try to isolate a single nutrient or even a handful of nutrients, this is not only overly simplistic, but also doomed to misleading results and failure. In fact, this kind of analysis is like the six blind men trying to understand the nature of an elephant. While science will continue to identify key nutrients in foods, it is a certainty that science will never understand how the millions of nutrients interact with each other. The mathematical possibilities are simply too immense.

When I say there is “magic” in whole foods, I’m talking about what we do not understand about whole foods – and that is far more than we do know.

What we do know, however, is that they are good for us – in fact, far and away much better for us than anything ever created by science. What we do know is that we should eat a wide variety of foods because each food has its own nutrient profile and this profile will interact with other foods containing their own profile and together, they will multiply, in logarithmic fashion, each other’s protective benefits.

When a diet is practically devoid of whole plant foods, only trouble can result. In such a situation, Americans are turning to supplements in order to bolster an inadequate diet – but supplements cannot possibly replace the potency of whole foods containing a multitude of nutrient profiles we haven’t even a clue about. In every study ever conducted which compared supplements with whole plant foods, supplements could not hold a candle to the power and potency of whole foods. A recent study showed that taking supplements, containing lycopene from tomatoes, did nothing to lower the risk of prostate cancer, whereas whole tomatoes, containing a complex profile of nutrients, did lower the risk. How it lowered the risk, scientists haven’t a clue because nature is far too complex to be understood with our crude tools. And, once again, this illustrates the failure of trying to isolate a single nutrient as a cure to a disease and sell it to the public as a “magic bullet.”

The bottom line is that no matter how hard they try, scientists cannot capture the “magical” nutrient profiles of whole foods in a pill and that magic can only be passed into your body by eating them.

— PRAYER —

Now, in this series, as we focus on overcoming the sin of gluttony, and managing our bodies as God intended, we must not lose sight of the most important part of our existence — our spiritual life. Even those of you who are fit, who eat right, and who exercise regularly must still address the condition of your soul. You may keep your body in perfect condition till the day you die, but you will still die — we all will, and the only thing that will matter is the condition of your soul. Is your soul in shape? Is your soul in right standing with God?

The only way to make sure of that is to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and the consequences of sin. He alone can save your soul, put you in right standing with God, and ensure that you do not perish in Hell. Now, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, here is how you can trust Him today.

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at [email protected] and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.