I step out into the garden... it is mid-morning, and the sun has started to warm the soil. The bees and other pollinators are just waking up and getting busy with their daily work. This time of year, I find myself wandering into the garden during the odd little snippets of time I have between tasks and projects... and inevitably I work my way, almost subconsciously, over to the berry patch.
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After a winter of preserved foods and an early spring of greens and asparagus, there is nothing quite like the flavor of a freshly picked strawberry or raspberry, sun-warmed and vine-ripened. The colors and textures just say “eat me!” like nothing else in the early-season garden.
As I stand here, wondering at the shades of bright red and purple black to give the sun just a few more seconds to warm the berries all the way to their core, I can’t help but think of one of my favorite lines from CS Lewis’s, The Magician's Nephew:
“They were the most beautifully shiny little things you can imagine. If Polly had been a very little younger, she would have wanted to put one in her mouth.”
Maybe, at 44, I’m still slightly less mature than young Polly, or maybe I’m just a little less jaded, but I definitely have the belief that the brightly colored, shiny objects in front of me need to go into my mouth.
The color of our food tells us a story about what nutrients are in it, but they are meant to attract us. Those bright colors are God’s multivitamins, signifying deep nutrition. The kind that satisfies more than just our tongues; it satisfies our body’s deep need for vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients to give it the building blocks it needs to sustain robust life.
We have all heard the advice that we should “eat the rainbow” (and no, regardless of what you have seen on the internet, Skittles do not count here). But did you know just how important this is?
According to Harvard Medical School, the different colors in food stand for different important phytonutrients that play major roles in our health, helping to protect us from toxins and threats in our environment and lifestyle that could end in chronic disease.
They report that:
- Red: Rich in the carotenoid lycopene, a potent scavenger of gene-damaging free radicals that seems to protect against prostate cancer as well as heart and lung disease.
- Orange and yellow: Provide beta-cryptothanxin, which supports intracellular communication and may help prevent heart disease.
- Green: These foods are rich in cancer-blocking chemicals like sulforaphane, isothiocyanates, and indoles, which inhibit the action of carcinogens (cancer-causing compounds).
- Blue and purple: Have powerful antioxidants called anthocyanins, believed to delay cellular aging and help the heart by blocking the formation of blood clots.
- White and brown: The onion family contains allicin, which has anti-tumor properties. Other foods in this group contain antioxidant flavonoids like quercetin and kaempferol.
God saw these nutrients as so important that he even built a marketing plan into their creation. Not only do they taste amazing and fill our physical needs, but they look great too!
Just imagine looking at a fresh, ripe orange peach... that color is gorgeous. Or the darkest of red cherries. Or that perfect yellow plum whose juice is perfectly balanced, sweet and sour.
Can you think about the way those fruits look without your mouth starting to water? Our minds have been programmed with a desire for these beautiful foods. It is a good desire with a proper outcome. In a very basic sense, we say... “Looks good, tastes good, makes me feel good."
You don’t have to have read the studies or the nutrition facts or be following a special healthy diet... our bodies just know.
Like everything good in life, there are also counterfeits. The food industry learned long ago that we have an internal drive, a motivating desire to put those sweet, brightly colored things in our mouths... and they haven’t let that knowledge go to waste. Ever wonder why so many candies are shaped and colored like fruit? Why does the junk food industry fight the idea of getting rid of food dyes?
These candies are brightly colored like fruit, taste sweet like fruit and have flavors that resemble fruit... but they are completely devoid of the deep nutrition that fruit has and our bodies need.
They give our bodies the opposite of nutrition, instead introducing unhealthy sugars, artificial flavors and colors that our bodies must work to detoxify. Instead of phytonutrients protecting us from the dangers and toxins in the world around us, these fakes actually become the toxins, making us sicker than we were before we consumed them.
Maybe even more insidious of a substitute are the cardboard-like versions of these fruits and veggies at our local grocery store. It is obvious to most of us that candy and junk food is not a healthy food option. No one eats candy and thinks they are eating something that is making them healthier. But what about those strawberries that only have an outer rim of red, being completely white and crunchy inside, and taste more like cardboard than a real, fresh, garden-grown strawberry?
Where the candy is a counterfeit, the tasteless, vitamin-less fruit and veggies at many stores are more like a hologram... the look of something without the real benefit. You may think you are eating something that is good for you, but your tongue knows the truth, and so does your body. It doesn’t satisfy either.
In our modern life, more and more of the things that are nutrient-dense to our souls are falling by the wayside to cheap substitutes that are either poisoning us or are leaving us to feel empty and unfulfilled. Long chats with a friend over coffee have been replaced with quick, to the point texts. Working alongside your children in the family garden and kitchen, have been replaced with quick snatches of conversation as we drive from one place to another. Family storytelling and singing together around the fire have been replaced with watching stories from a stranger’s life on our own personal screens. The connection of being part of a real-life, physical community has been replaced by online groups and social media.
And our souls feel the lack. Like our bodies, we leave our souls trying to detox the poison we are feeding them. They give us “check engine” signs of depression, lack of motivation, anger and feelings of disconnection and hopelessness and in response, we just keep feeding them experiences that are only holograms of truly healthy things.
And we wonder at the epidemic of mental health problems and addiction problems we see around us. People are toxified and malnourished, and yet we just keep shoveling in more of the same candy and tasteless blackberries to try to self-medicate the problems that are starting to manifest themselves.
But candy is easy. It is always available. And in the absence of truly great, fresh fruit, it tastes even sweeter than the alternatives. Usually, candy doesn’t have any work associated with it. No risk. You don’t have to plant and tend your berry bushes, prune them or harvest them. There are no thorns, no scratches. Candy is cheap, in every sense of the word.
It is easy to put on a movie for the kids, to hand them a device. It is easy to scroll social media from your couch and stay in the safety of your own comfort zone. It is easy to “help” in an online group by giving your opinions. But the results leave us feeling discontented and maybe even slightly toxified, and it isn’t doing our children any favors either.
The real nutrition in life requires cultivation. Time and energy put in, and some scratches along the way; tired days and discomfort in the heat. But in the end, the rich fruits of fellowship, belonging, love and respect are worth every drop of sweat, and every scratch, and all the waiting.
Take a hard look at the fruit in your life. Is it real? Is it abundant? Is it beautiful? Or is it a very easy and convenient fake that you are a little scared to give up?
My friend, can I encourage you (and myself) to give yourself and your family the gift of true nutrition in a world that offers more and more counterfeits? To choose the hard and uncomfortable things now that will actually fill us with joy and peace later. To remove the devices and put down your phone and cultivate a real and deep relationship with your young children. To say “no” to yet another after-school commitment and instead spend a summer cooking dinner together in the kitchen as a family and eating together at a table. To volunteer at a real-life, in-person place where you are serving other humans and their messy and difficult lives. To actually turn your heart toward the redemption and love of a Savior.
And maybe to plant a few fruit trees and berry vines at the back corner of your yard.
Here’s to a summer of deep nutrition for your body and your soul!
