My review of Eat with Joy

[Bob]

Rachel Marie Stone contends that we are often conflicted about one of the most basic of human activities--eating! We all get hungry, we all want to eat good, tasty food, yet we complain about weight, calories, the kinds of things in our diet. Following authors like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, she adds a Christian perspective on food as a gift from God to be enjoyed in its appropriate place in our lives. What I love about this is that Stone emphasizes things like the healing power of sharing food in community, the richness that comes to our experience when we slow down to really enjoy the taste and texture of the things we eat, what is added to our lives when some of the food we eat is food we've grown ourselves or otherwise has not been processed before we've prepared it. She also writes thoughtfully about becoming aware of how our food is raised and produced and particularly the care of animals that produce our milk, eggs, and meat.

What I also like is that this author is realistic about how change occurs--in baby steps. She does not call for drastic steps or make one feel guilty about what they are not doing. Rather, she suggests practical steps like starting with one "prepared from scratch" meal a week.

Each chapter concludes with wonderful prayers that can be used before meals, several recipes, and action points from the chapter. At the conclusion of the book, she quotes Norman Wirzba, saying that food is "God's love made edible." Reading this book just may make that love more real to you.