“The commonality between the brain’s reaction to cupcakes and drugs.”
I love to cook but not to make any cakes, pastries, candies, or any of the dainties and desserts of any kind. I personally do not have a sweet tooth—something I probably inherited from my dad. I looked up what ingredients cup cakes are made and as to why the brain would react to it as did to drugs. While there are now vegan cupcakes, etc., the general ingredients are highly refined flour, milk, eggs, butter, salt, baking powder, sugar, vanilla extract, and all kinds of frosting and icing recipes which are made of more of these high cholesterol, high fat, high sugar, and high-empty calorie ingredients. Need we inquire further as to why the brain acts similarly to these “goodies” as with drugs? But of course, both act as powerful and hurtful stimulants!
“The only way to returning to normality is probably dieting for a long time to lose the body weight and not eat junk food.”
If one read for himself with an unprejudiced mind, refusing to listen to all the tirades against E.G. White and her voluminous, progressive writings on this particular topic nearly 160 years ago (See Counsels on Diets and Foods and Counsels on Health, etc.), he would have long benefited from the true light of health reform of the third angel’s message long before modern food and health sciences ever found out. She wrote:
“Our bodies are built up from the food we eat. There is a constant breaking down of the tissues of the body, every movement of every organ of the body requires its share of nutrition. The brain must be supplied with its portion; the bones, muscles, and nerves demand theirs. It is a wonderful process that transforms the food into blood and uses this blood to build up the varied parts of the body; but this process is going on continually, supplying with life and strength each nerve, muscle, and tissue.” – Counsels on Health, pp. 114, 115.
“More startling, when they took away the junk food from the rats, and replaced it with healthier chow, the obese rats went on something like a hunger strike. For two weeks they refused to eat hardly any thing at all. They went on a voluntary starvation diet.”
We’re onto something here from these obese rats. Those who have this problem, or something close to it, may take a 2-week fast, a sort of voluntary starvation diet—not entirely dispensing with all food but getting rid of all junk food, asking God for the empowering grace of God in Christ to be able to do so. This fast is necessary in order to rid the body of the accumulated toxins and fats and then to start on the healthy diet on a sort of a “blank slate.” A support group with similar goals will even be more helpful.
Those who do not “pig out” on junk food but are the “sophisticated, high class diners” are called gourmands or connoisseurs as they only dine on “gourmet foods.” Wesbter says a gourmand is “one who delights in luxurious food; an epicure.” Epicurean, says the same authority, is “a follower of Epicure, especially a sensualist.” In the final analysis, it will be found that there is a strong correlation between a sensuality and spiritualism for both depend, if not deify senses over conscience and the Word of God.
Sensible health reformers who practice the third angel’s message of a balanced health reform know that this comprehends the eight laws of health, namely: —proper nutrition, adequate exercise, water, sunshine; self-control in every thing, fresh air, adequate rest, and complete trust in God’s Word. Adam and Eve’s original diet, the simple diet of Elijah and John the Baptist’s, and that of Christ and His disciples will never make it on the Food Network or the Travel Channel—much less the translation diet—which approaches as closely as possible the original diet given to Adam and Eve before the fall—nuts, fruits, and grains. Vegetables, called “herbs” (plants, margin) in the Authorized Version were added only after the fall. Gen. 3:18.
The “commonality” between the three addictions of drugs, alcohol, and food is that they produce the same “changes in the brain’s reward system.” In fact, the signs of withdrawal anxiety from deprivation from junk food was observed to be similar to drug and/or alcohol withdrawal syndromes.
The term “rewarding foods” is actually synonymous to “comfort food,” which is, and let’s say it, “junk food.” Junk is junk no matter what is done to cover it up. We are what we eat. It is disturbing but not surprising that all kinds of euphemistic terms are used to hide the truth. Some say that we should let people eat and do what they want to because “it is their choice.” True, but our efforts here is not to condemn, force, scare, deceive, or bait any one into making any choices against their rational will but to bring forth vital truths so that they can make better-informed choices. We are not satisfied with merely the good; we a want better, and of course, the very best. Infinitely much more so does our Creator and Redeemer—regarding our diet, health, happiness, and salvation!
“There could be something in the accumulated fat itself that alters the brain’s threshold, setting up a vicious cycle of overeating, yet not feeling satisfied.”
From the very beginning, when God allowed men to eat temporarily eat of flesh foods, He immediately classified that which was clean from the unclean (Lev. 11: 1-47; Deut. 14: 1-20; Gen. 7:2). He strictly specified that fat and the internal organs of the animal, including its brains, strangely called “sweetmeats,” were to be discarded and burned! As it was always burned in the animal sacrifices, (Exo. 29:13; Lev. 4: 26), it was a symbol of sin, and figurative of pride (Ps. 119: 69, 70).
In addition, modern science, which is largely atheistic, has long established that many diseases are stored in it the fat and definitely clogs the arteries. It is a killer through and through. Since the antediluvians started gorging on animal meat, turning them into more animal-like than angelic until the earth was filled to overflowing with their violence and moral decadence, untold billions have, and continue to die from cardiovascular diseases, cancers, tumors, and all kinds of diseases caused by ingesting animal fats and flesh. That the brain of man is affected by this abomination is an understatement.
“Highly rewarding foods—quite literally, sausage, cheese cake and other highly processed foods.”
The researchers say that these “highly rewarding foods” might “cause changes in the brain’s reward system for satiety (satisfaction).” They must certainly be referring to the brains of unsanctified minds because these foods are no longer attractive, desirable, much less “highly rewarding” to those who have been awakened to the evils of these foods, and who, by discipline and patience, have had their taste buds become readjusted to finding delight in partaking of the natural products of the earth—quite literally, nuts, fruits, grains, and vegetables prepared as naturally as possible, free from animal grease!
If there was any other thing the Creator designed and prepared for the endless satisfaction or satiety, and delight of Adam and Eve in their perfect health and in their perfect relationship with one another, other than their Garden of Eden home, it was food! They were not created appetite-less. Gratification was not yet sinful. On the other hand, they had the highest, most intense, and perfect appetite and desire for gratification because it was yet uncorrupted by sin! So important was this food and diet that it was clearly described as part of creation narrative. Gen. 1: 29-31.
Adam and Eve were not created unconditionally immortal. Immortality alone belongs to God. They had to eat and continue partaking of the fruit of the tree of life aside from the other foods God gave them, if they were to continue living eternally. This was the reason both were immediately “cast out of the Garden” after their transgression, with “cherubim wielding a flaming sword— “to keep them away from the Tree of Life.”
Now, as sinners, they were barred from the partaking of that tree whose fruits God invested with power to perpetuate life. This is our assurance that there is no such thing as an “immortal sinner.” All will die for “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “The wages of sin is death,” meaning, all men are mortals, his nature having become sinful and fallen, the body corruptible, subject to decay at death—returning to dust from whence he was made from, and the breath of mysterious life returning to the Life-giver.
Even Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament, and the 144,000 formed in the closing hours of earth’s history who will not “taste death,” are mortals, hence, subject to death. They experience translation, not resurrection, not because they are immortals but because God revealed that this is His decision that redounds to His glory. They, too, had/have to experience the change of mortal to immortality and corruptible to incorruption at translation. God performs that work. But even before “by one man sin entered into the world and death passed into all men,” in his perfect state man was not created with inherent immortality. The very first sermon on the “immortality of the soul,” that is, the living person, was preached by no less than Satan to Eve in the Garden of Eden when he tempted her. She believed the lie, yielded, and fell.
Adam and Eve were made in the image and likeness of the Creator. Their bodies definitely included all the endlessly amazing systems and functions of all the organs of the human body, as modern science is still discovering during these closing hours of earth’s history—and they have barely scratched the surface. Our first parents had to eat: they needed a mouth and all the organs of the digestive system. They were commanded to “go forth and multiply and replenish the earth” before the fall after being united in the first marriage ever performed. They had to have reproductive organs specific to their genders else they could not have children and fulfill the God’s command.
It is therefore with utmost caution and greatest fear that I even attempt to pose this question in the train of the inquiry of this topic: were all their body organs part of the Creator as well—or was “the image and likeness” limited only to the physical form and the moral character? This might be one of the genuine conundrums, a very serious question with no known human answers. I do not know and will not presumptuously hazard speculating any further on it (Deut. 29:29) and highly doubt whether anyone has any Scripturally-sound answer.
But this much we are informed in the Holy Scriptures: Our body is the temple of God and the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 3: 16, 17; 6: 19, 20. When the Creator incarnated into “the body prepared for Him” (Heb. 10:5; cf. Ps. 40:6) four thousand years after being prophesied as “the promised Seed” (Gen. 3: 15) and “was born of a woman according to the law” (Gal. 4:4) nine months after being “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:35) and forming “as the Holy Thing )One)” in the womb of the virgin Mary, He was circumcised and registered on the books on the eighth day according to the Old Testament law, therefore, a male Baby boy. Luke 2: 21.
The gospel prophet declared that He, in His incarnated nature, would be “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53). He was hungry and satisfied with human food, thirsty, and was quenched with water everybody drank else the 40-day fast from food and water in the Wilderness would have been a non-event and Satan would not have attempted to tempt Him at all with “turning stones into bread.” Matt. 4: 1-11. Paul by inspiration says, “He was temped in all points as we are yet without sin” (Heb. 4: 15), and “was made in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8 3).
He wept (John 11:35) and agonized with superhuman agony, particularly in Gethsemane and Calvary (Matt. 26: 36-45). Although we have no record that He laughed—at least, during His intense three and half year ministry of fulfilling His work and mission of introducing the Father, the gospel, and training of the disciples who would carry forward His work on earth at His departure, we have the Old Testaments saying God Jehovah “laughed at the foolishness of the wicked” Ps. 37:13; 52: 6; 58:8; Prov. 1: 26.
The Scriptures are silent on His growing up years as a Child except for these: “And the Child grew and waxed in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him.” Luke 2: 40 cf. Ps. 71: 6, 7. Therefore, in His adopted human nature, Jesus Christ,” the Son of man,” “the Son of Mary, “the Son of David,” must have had the same human body with all its organs and all its appointed functions else it isn’t true that was “touched with the feelings of our infirmities.”
But what was the original food, diet, of man created in the image and likeness of His Maker? A delicious, palatable, attractive, nutritious diet! See Isa. 55:2; Gen. 1:29, 31.
“God has furnished man means for the gratification of an unperverted appetite. He has spread before him the products of the earth—a bountiful variety of food that is palatable to the taste and nutritious to the system. Of these our benevolent heavenly Father says we may freely eat. Fruits, grains, and vegetables, prepared in a simple way, free from spice and grease of all kinds, make, with milk or cream, the most healthful diet. They impart nourishment to the body and give a power of endurance and vigor of intellect that are not produced by a stimulating diet.” My Life Today, p. 132.
(to be continued)