paleo ideology vs. Catholicism
This is something that's been bugging me for a while, and I need to get some of my thoughts out of my head and into written form in order to process them better.
I know a couple of people who are both serious Catholics and semi-seriously into "paleo", the no-grains, no-dairy, high meat, high fruit, etc; you can Google it if you're interested. It's getting more prominent; very prominent Catholic blogger Jennifer Fulwiler, for example, has endorsed the so-called Perfect Health Diet, which bills itself as "refined Paleo" because it allows rice, but it definitely doesn't allow wheat. Wheat, in any kind of paleo diet, is the devil.
The Eucharist is made from wheat and nothing but wheat.
This troubles me.
I got really inspired to write this post when I read this post about a seminarian (!) who lost 115 pounds following a strict paleo diet and who placed a sticky note in Latin (!) upon his mirror stating "”Panis penguinum fecit te.” He gives the translation "bread makes you fat." (Edit: fpb has confirmed my suspicion that this is bad Latin, and actually means "Bread makes you a penguin". He wanted "panis fecit te pinguem".) At the end of his interview, he says, in all caps, "STAY AWAY FROM BREAD! IT MAKES YOU FAT!"
It really startled me. I got this image of him, as future priest, intoning the words of the Mass... things like "through Your goodness we have received the bread" and "this spotless victim, the Holy Bread of eternal life" and then, after Mass, saying to a parishioner inquiring after weight loss, "STAY AWAY FROM BREAD! IT MAKES YOU FAT!"
Do people seriously NOT see the disconnect? Apparently not. Compartmentalization strikes again!
(I found the link through Catholic Hunter Gatherer, who uses the subtitle "Orthodox Catholicism, Heterodox Food." Which I suppose is meant to be edgy, but again, are you thinking about the words coming out of your mouth? Who was it that said it is not what goes into a man but what comes out of him that defiles him? It seems like it was Someone Important... but then that guy compared Himself to Bread all the time, so what does HE know?)
Before I go further let me say that there is a difference between diet as diet--simply what you put into your mouth, which in most cases of foodstuff choices, is morally neutral in itself--and the ideology behind a diet. While I think there are very few, possibly no, foodstuff choices incompatible with Catholicism (indeed the epistles emphasize that we should not be scrupulous and judgmental of the dietary choices of others, specifically mentioning vegetarian diets), ideologies can certainly be incompatible with it. And there's a lot in the paleo ideology that concerns me. Maybe especially BECAUSE it's such a subtle, minor thing, and unlike some vegan/vegetarian ideology, paleo gurus don't try to claim that eating grains is immoral, just that it is inherently harmful and unnatural for humans to eat grains (and other things, including alcohol, but grains are the big one).
Here's the crux of the matter: paleo ideology, like most dietary ideology, makes objective truth claims about the natural state of the human person and what is best for it. This is the area where they rub up against Catholic teaching on the same point. Do they clash?
What do paleo gurus teach about bread and its unnaturalness, toxicity, and danger?
What does the Church/the Scriptures teach about bread and its centrality, holiness, and value?
Can these two teachings be reconciled?
I don't believe they can.
I don't think paleo ideology is compatible with the Bible full stop and thus it's incompatible with anyone whose religion claims to take anything other than the most relativistic understanding of the New Testament, but I prefer not to get into arguments with non-Catholics about religious matters like this because it involves way too much term defining and it's not something I feel called to do. Unlike many contemporary Christian religions, Catholicism does and always has taken a high degree of concern regarding what is natural; it's a key theme. And the Church also stresses that faith and reason cannot be in conflict, that body mind and spirit are gestalt--it's unCatholic to try to reconcile the two teachings as "Oh, bread is physically toxic but spiritually beneficial". That's why I don't think this subtle point is harmless.
Basically, and this is really stark, to proclaim belief in the paleo belief that bread/grains inherently damages the body, is to say the Eucharist inherently damages the body. It is to say that when Jesus says "I am the Bread of Life" he is actually saying "I am the Unnatural Toxin of Life".
It's blasphemous, and the only thing keeping it from being morally culpable blasphemy is that I don't think most paleo Catholics/Christians have bothered to think this one through (partially because they've fallen into the trap of compartmentalizing their spirituality from the rest of their life). I can understand why a certain type of serious Catholic would be attracted to paleo--this is just anecdata, but the ones I know into paleo tend to be intellectual/geeky, distrustful of government, distrustful of mainstream scientific thought, constantly chasing after "hidden truths" (which is gnostic/occult and should always be kept under strict regulation), and keen on going "back to nature" and "back to tradition". What's ironic is that many of these same people openly distrust evolution--the central justification for paleo!--for much the same reasons as they are attracted to paleo: they don't trust mainstream scientific thought!
It's different, by the way, from celiac disease. As the name suggests, this is a DISEASE. A rare allergy or intolerance to a certain substance does not in anyway indicate that consuming that substance is unnatural.
My problem is that I never know how to bring the subject up when I hear Catholics start enthusing about various paleo/gluten-free diets, in which the mantra "wheat is EVIL", under various guises, gets tossed around liberally. I usually just stay silent.
I think I'm going to try this thought-provoker: "Why do you think God would choose a inherently toxic, inherently damaging, inherently unnatural and anti-human substance to be the matter for the transubstantiation into the Body of Our Lord? If wheat is bad for humans, why did Jesus call Himself the Bread of Life?"
Edit: I went looking to try to find some paleo responses to this question. I found some. They all increased, not decreased, my suspicion that paleo-as-ideology is incompatible with orthodox Christian faith. At best, they are advocating relativism or the idea that the Bible can be compartmentalized and not applied to all areas of your life; at worst (but more honest), they are saying yes, they contradict, and paleo is right, Christianity is wrong.
The most awful, terrible, crude, and rude response reward goes to Diana Hsieh, who, in response to a truly beautiful, measured, inspiring and challenging comment from a Catholic, writes the following disgusting tripe: "Well, Barlow, I’ll make a modest proposal. I propose that you eliminate the symbolic cannibalism of the Eucharist from your diet. Even apart from the absurdly mystical mumbo-jumbo of transubstantiation, eating your man-god is just plain gross."
My husband snarked, "Hey Diana, it's not mumbo-jumbo, it's hocus pocus. Get it right!"
But snark aside, what utter vile and inflammatory anti-Catholic filth. Anathema sit.
Pass the bread and wine, I need it.
I know a couple of people who are both serious Catholics and semi-seriously into "paleo", the no-grains, no-dairy, high meat, high fruit, etc; you can Google it if you're interested. It's getting more prominent; very prominent Catholic blogger Jennifer Fulwiler, for example, has endorsed the so-called Perfect Health Diet, which bills itself as "refined Paleo" because it allows rice, but it definitely doesn't allow wheat. Wheat, in any kind of paleo diet, is the devil.
The Eucharist is made from wheat and nothing but wheat.
This troubles me.
I got really inspired to write this post when I read this post about a seminarian (!) who lost 115 pounds following a strict paleo diet and who placed a sticky note in Latin (!) upon his mirror stating "”Panis penguinum fecit te.” He gives the translation "bread makes you fat." (Edit: fpb has confirmed my suspicion that this is bad Latin, and actually means "Bread makes you a penguin". He wanted "panis fecit te pinguem".) At the end of his interview, he says, in all caps, "STAY AWAY FROM BREAD! IT MAKES YOU FAT!"
It really startled me. I got this image of him, as future priest, intoning the words of the Mass... things like "through Your goodness we have received the bread" and "this spotless victim, the Holy Bread of eternal life" and then, after Mass, saying to a parishioner inquiring after weight loss, "STAY AWAY FROM BREAD! IT MAKES YOU FAT!"
Do people seriously NOT see the disconnect? Apparently not. Compartmentalization strikes again!
(I found the link through Catholic Hunter Gatherer, who uses the subtitle "Orthodox Catholicism, Heterodox Food." Which I suppose is meant to be edgy, but again, are you thinking about the words coming out of your mouth? Who was it that said it is not what goes into a man but what comes out of him that defiles him? It seems like it was Someone Important... but then that guy compared Himself to Bread all the time, so what does HE know?)
Before I go further let me say that there is a difference between diet as diet--simply what you put into your mouth, which in most cases of foodstuff choices, is morally neutral in itself--and the ideology behind a diet. While I think there are very few, possibly no, foodstuff choices incompatible with Catholicism (indeed the epistles emphasize that we should not be scrupulous and judgmental of the dietary choices of others, specifically mentioning vegetarian diets), ideologies can certainly be incompatible with it. And there's a lot in the paleo ideology that concerns me. Maybe especially BECAUSE it's such a subtle, minor thing, and unlike some vegan/vegetarian ideology, paleo gurus don't try to claim that eating grains is immoral, just that it is inherently harmful and unnatural for humans to eat grains (and other things, including alcohol, but grains are the big one).
Here's the crux of the matter: paleo ideology, like most dietary ideology, makes objective truth claims about the natural state of the human person and what is best for it. This is the area where they rub up against Catholic teaching on the same point. Do they clash?
What do paleo gurus teach about bread and its unnaturalness, toxicity, and danger?
What does the Church/the Scriptures teach about bread and its centrality, holiness, and value?
Can these two teachings be reconciled?
I don't believe they can.
I don't think paleo ideology is compatible with the Bible full stop and thus it's incompatible with anyone whose religion claims to take anything other than the most relativistic understanding of the New Testament, but I prefer not to get into arguments with non-Catholics about religious matters like this because it involves way too much term defining and it's not something I feel called to do. Unlike many contemporary Christian religions, Catholicism does and always has taken a high degree of concern regarding what is natural; it's a key theme. And the Church also stresses that faith and reason cannot be in conflict, that body mind and spirit are gestalt--it's unCatholic to try to reconcile the two teachings as "Oh, bread is physically toxic but spiritually beneficial". That's why I don't think this subtle point is harmless.
Basically, and this is really stark, to proclaim belief in the paleo belief that bread/grains inherently damages the body, is to say the Eucharist inherently damages the body. It is to say that when Jesus says "I am the Bread of Life" he is actually saying "I am the Unnatural Toxin of Life".
It's blasphemous, and the only thing keeping it from being morally culpable blasphemy is that I don't think most paleo Catholics/Christians have bothered to think this one through (partially because they've fallen into the trap of compartmentalizing their spirituality from the rest of their life). I can understand why a certain type of serious Catholic would be attracted to paleo--this is just anecdata, but the ones I know into paleo tend to be intellectual/geeky, distrustful of government, distrustful of mainstream scientific thought, constantly chasing after "hidden truths" (which is gnostic/occult and should always be kept under strict regulation), and keen on going "back to nature" and "back to tradition". What's ironic is that many of these same people openly distrust evolution--the central justification for paleo!--for much the same reasons as they are attracted to paleo: they don't trust mainstream scientific thought!
It's different, by the way, from celiac disease. As the name suggests, this is a DISEASE. A rare allergy or intolerance to a certain substance does not in anyway indicate that consuming that substance is unnatural.
My problem is that I never know how to bring the subject up when I hear Catholics start enthusing about various paleo/gluten-free diets, in which the mantra "wheat is EVIL", under various guises, gets tossed around liberally. I usually just stay silent.
I think I'm going to try this thought-provoker: "Why do you think God would choose a inherently toxic, inherently damaging, inherently unnatural and anti-human substance to be the matter for the transubstantiation into the Body of Our Lord? If wheat is bad for humans, why did Jesus call Himself the Bread of Life?"
Edit: I went looking to try to find some paleo responses to this question. I found some. They all increased, not decreased, my suspicion that paleo-as-ideology is incompatible with orthodox Christian faith. At best, they are advocating relativism or the idea that the Bible can be compartmentalized and not applied to all areas of your life; at worst (but more honest), they are saying yes, they contradict, and paleo is right, Christianity is wrong.
The most awful, terrible, crude, and rude response reward goes to Diana Hsieh, who, in response to a truly beautiful, measured, inspiring and challenging comment from a Catholic, writes the following disgusting tripe: "Well, Barlow, I’ll make a modest proposal. I propose that you eliminate the symbolic cannibalism of the Eucharist from your diet. Even apart from the absurdly mystical mumbo-jumbo of transubstantiation, eating your man-god is just plain gross."
My husband snarked, "Hey Diana, it's not mumbo-jumbo, it's hocus pocus. Get it right!"
But snark aside, what utter vile and inflammatory anti-Catholic filth. Anathema sit.
Pass the bread and wine, I need it.