by Carol Cummings
Garbage in, garbage out. This phrase relates to our decisions about what we watch on television, what we read and the music we listen to. It also relates to what we put into our bodies as fuel. Remember Morgan Spurlock’s documentary on fast food? He famously displayed jars containing fast food items that did not decay. Taking in an average of 5,000 calories each day, Spurlock gained 24.5 pounds and during his 30-day diet of fast food.
One New York artist took this idea a step farther through an experiment with a fast-food hamburger meal. In the fall of 2010, the news about Sally Davies and her experiment hit the web.
Six months earlier, she had purchased a fast food meal and kept it. She took a photo of it every week. The photos, truth be told, are pretty boring. It appears that nothing is happening. But I think that may be the key: NOTHING HAPPENED!!!
Week after week, the burger and fries looked exactly the same. Though Davies reported that the bun became hard, no mold appeared. The fries didn’t shrivel up to nothing. It stopped having a smell. Bugs were not even attracted to this meal.
Davies is not the first person to have conducted this experiment, but her six months’ worth of photographs drew media frenzy. The fast food establishment, not surprisingly, was less than thrilled with the attention, reporting that no preservatives were used in this meal.
No preservatives? Seriously? Then how do you explain the mold-free meal? The lack of smell? No bugs? One theory is that the salt and the fat are the culprit.
What does this experiment say about what we are putting into our bodies each day? Our bodies are the temple of God, and we should honor Him by everything we do with our bodies and everything we put into them. What lessons are we teaching our preteens about healthy living? What examples are we setting for nutrition, balanced meals, a healthy weight and a life that includes exercise?
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
