Posted on 05/22/2009 7:44:53 AM PDT by mnehring
Ancient Israel was far from "the land of milk and honey," and instead people suffered from the lack of a balanced diet, according to a theologian.
Dr Nathan MacDonald, an Old Testament lecturer at St Andrews University, used biblical texts and archaeological evidence to study the ancient diet.
He has concluded that there were frequent famines and people's meals often lacked vitamins and minerals.
--snip-- ...In North America, books based on the diet of the Bible such as What Would Jesus Eat? and The Maker's Diet are bestsellers.
Dr MacDonald explained: "Though many people have thought otherwise, the evidence is that the diet in biblical times was not very healthy.
--snip-- ...."Except for times of famine and food shortage - which were relatively frequent - it provided the necessary calories, but was lacking in certain key vitamins and minerals.
"A number of books propound a biblical diet because it is thought to be a low fat, high fibre diet.
"True, many Israelites rarely ate meat, but vegetables and fruit also featured far less than they needed to. In reality, it was not a balanced diet."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Some of them did the Popeye diet—they ate nothing but olive oil.
Quite ironic a Dr. MCDONALD would be studying food.
Not only are the Nannies upset that WE “don’t eat right”, now they’re complaining over the diet of those who lived two thousand years ago!
Animals,Fish ,Grain,Fruit sounds like a recipie to get man at least to the 21st century.
“”The Bible never purports to provide dietary advice. Even the biblical food laws serve very different purposes than modern nutritional advice,” he said. “
That’s basically what I was going to say.
I guess God was wrong then when he gave them the first diet.
Ach du lieber, I am posting as my son. Ever since he got his own FR account I’ve had to sign in every time or I’m posting under the moniker of a teenager.
I do all my grilling over fire and brimstone.
I think this is more of pointing out how people get hoaxed into unhealthy patterns, in this case, by slapping "Jesus" on the cover of a book.
Or, people are reading into a cultural practice of the time a scientific or nutritionist text, something the original intention may have nothing to do with. For all we know, many of those dietary laws where to keep them from trading with people who wished them harm or they where about keeping only livestock that where easily mobile for their future of continual movement.
Leave it to the BBC to work in that last paragraph...
Yeah, but that olive oil was always hanging out with Bruno. I'm not sure that was extra virgin olive oil.
Must be why they’re all dead now.
Well, they lived 900 years and did a lot of beggatin.
Check out Genesis, there was no meat eaten, fruits, nuts and vegetables.
How long did Methuselah live?
For that matter, Sweet Pea was probably a diabetic.
I don’t eat a BC diet, but I do try to keep a BC body style : basically, stay lean, toned but not over-muscled and bulky. Exercise includes a lot of walking and general calisthenics using the body as resistance. And as much gardening as I can get in. People who knew me before as heavy think I’ve gotten too thin, but I feel better this way.
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