For Covenant students without a meal plan, it is difficult to spend hours preparing and eating and cleaning when there are much more pressing things to do. Eating, we reason to ourselves, is a necessary time-consumer because it gives our body the needed sustenance for everything else we do in any given day, but taking the time to enjoy the process of eating is a luxury we often cannot afford.
Cooking and eating with others is especially challenging; rarely, if ever, do the schedules of housemates line up so that they are all in the same place—for more than a few minutes—at meal times. Because of all these complications, we eat out, buy frozen microwavable meals, throw together unwholesome and uncreative culinary pieces that become staples of our weekly diet, and, most importantly, we cook quickly and we eat alone.
As I’ve already alluded to, it is easy to think of cooking for ourselves as necessary but not ideal. In my busiest days, I think of sleep this way, too. If only I didn’t have to sleep, I’ll dreamily fantasize, I’d get so much more done. Sleep seems like such a waste of time. But when I’m in my right mind, sleeping is one of my favorite things to do; I literally can’t get enough of it. This isn’t a perfect comparison, but maintaining a healthy diet is just as important as having good sleep hygiene. But other things get in the way, and we have to make a choice: restrict or reorganize all our waking commitments, or cut down on sleep and meal times—those necessary evils.
Though they exist to give us rest and energy, for many of us sleep and food are the first to go when the pressures of school and work and life hit hard.
But if we are content in our culinary patterns of mediocrity, and, for Pete’s sake, we are surviving pretty darn well on eggs and rice thank you very much, why change? It is certainly true that one could “survive” on eggs and rice alone, but, again, when we think of eating only as a necessary condition for one to be alive, we slip into unhealthy patterns.
I’d like to make the case that food—what we eat and how we eat it—is worth prioritizing in our lives. Our dietary choices most obviously impact the physical well-being of our future selves (i.e. help cause or prevent various conditions and illnesses), but our choices also affect our physical well-being in the present. A wholesome diet can change the way we interact with the world: we gain more energy, confidence, attentiveness, and motivation in everything we do on a daily basis. Wholesome food can make us stronger and more fit to be who we want to be, while food that lacks nutritional value drains us more than we realize.
One of the best ways to develop a wholesome diet is to become a food learner. Take the time (yes, choose to spend time on this) to do your own shopping, read recipes and lists of ingredients, read the nutrition facts, watch famous chefs and YouTube moms, shop and cook with your friends, listen to advice from others, take risks and try new things. In essence, a great way to become a better eater is to know what you are putting in your body.
However, the value of eating goes much beyond food. Food can be a tool through which we are emotionally and relationally rejuvenated. When we eat food, we are forced to stop and allow our bodies to be fed slowly. This is especially true when we have to cook for ourselves. It is sometimes frustrating to have to schedule hours of the day to cook and eat, but if we break through all of the pressures around us, we can see that this is a good thing. The making and eating of food allows us to set aside everything we are stressed about and breathe. Eating reminds us in very vivid ways that we are fallible and limited; like everyone else, we must stop and eat. Nobody is above eating, and that is such a gift.
Moreover, the very nature of food invites us into relationship with one another. Food everywhere, not just at Costco, is found in bulk, and we all have to eat it, so why not just share? In many cultures, food equals love—giving food as a gift means that you care about that person’s physical well-being and that you want to spend time with them. In this way, the making and sharing of food is closely tied to hospitality; when you invite someone into your home, you feed them, because food is meant to be eaten with the people you love.
Americans are not immune to this value, either. If we’re honest, we long to be welcomed into a home and served a home-cooked meal, especially as college students on a budget. This is because eating a nutritious meal with the people we love satisfies a deep relational need. So why don’t we prioritize this? Because of the time, there just isn’t enough time.
This is one of the reasons that our common practices of eating are so tragic; not only do we eat stranger-made food as quickly as we can, but in doing so we deprive ourselves of the relational food we need. In fact, we only feed our loneliness.
This is not to say that any of this is easy; we live in a society that increasingly pushes efficiency and productivity over rest and contemplation, and the importance of the individual over the importance of community. In the heat of the moment, slowing down might not seem worth it, but, as my mom would always say to me, “No need to inhale your spaghetti, Jacob, it’s not going to run away from you.”