Vegan Jesus Followers Podcast

When we started the transition from a western carnivorous diet to a WFPB diet, we struggled with giving up certain processed foods like chips, cookies, chocolate, and crackers. Why couldn’t we just stop with just eating one cookie or a few chips? Why did we want to eat the whole bag? We bought a book entitled, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, by Michael Moss and learned from it that our addiction to processed foods was not all our fault. The food industry has a big part in this processed food addiction. An addiction is an inability to stop using a substance or engaging in a behavior even though it is causing psychological or physical harm. The term addiction does not only refer to dependence on substances such as heroin or cocaine. Some addictions also involve an inability to stop partaking in activities such a gambling, eating, or working. Addiction to food is included in this definition. The food industry has invented foods and flavors in an attempt to sell more of their products and get us hooked on them in order to increase sales. To help with this they have turned to the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia to study the science of why we are so attracted to sugar. The Monell Center tested 356 children, ages 5-10 to determine their bliss point for sugar. The bliss point is the precise amount of sweetness, that makes food most enjoyable. The bliss point is a powerful phenomenon and dictates what we eat and drink more than we realize. There are five primary tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami. Fat isn’t one of these. And yet, fat has remarkable powers that the processed food industry relies heavily upon. It can transform a food from dry and listless into a silky smooth, texture-rich, savory delight. It improves tenderness, color and mouth-feel. In addition, it increases the shelf-life of a multitude of products from days to months. And it increases profit margins on cheaper cuts of meat because there is less meat and more fat. Scientist Adam Drewnowski determined that unlike sugar, fat has no bliss point. The more fat there was, the better. The highest levels of fat that were tested, in this case heavy cream, tasted even better with added sugar. He learned that adding both fat and sugar increased the allure of food that neither sugar nor fat alone could reach. Studies have shown that babies love sugar the instant they’re born, but not salt. The scientists at Monell have been studying our desire for salt and they believe that salt is being pressed upon American kids. It turns out that the manufacturers of processed foods have been creating a desire for salt where none existed before. Why does the food industry do this? One reason is that the salty taste drives people to keep eating until the bag is empty. In addition, salt improves the taste. Cornflakes taste metallic without salt. Crackers without salt are bitter and soggy and stick to the roof of your mouth. Ham is rubbery. In baking bread, salt keeps the fast-spinning machinery from gumming up. Even more important is the problem of what the industry calls, “warmed-over-flavor” WOF (like a dog’s bark) for short. When the fats in meat oxidize, the meat tastes like cardboard. Some in the industry compare this to damp dog hair when it is reheated and added to soups or boxed meals. It’s the WOF that the industry is desperate to avoid, which is where salt comes in. Salt is one of the most effective counteractive measures against WOF from the meat’s deterioration. Food addiction is heavily influenced by the food industry as products are chemically and scientifically engineered to create craving and a never ending desire for more. That’s what you can expect when you eat processed foods. To us, this plays a major role in modern day food addiction.

How does what we believe effect what we eat? One belief is to choose foods to eat that are healthy. There are differences in what foods are viewed as healthy. For us, we eat a whole foods plant-based diet because we believe it is the healthiest diet on the planet. Eating whole foods (the less processed the better), including lots of greens, vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds, no animals products and no oils. We believe that animal foods are the biggest contributor to human disease. We believe that food is fuel for the body so we eat food that is consistent with that belief. Another view of eating foods that are considered healthy is eating animals in order to get enough of certain nutrients, such as protein, calcium and iron. Some believe these nutrients can only be found in sufficient quantity if consumed in animal foods. They don’t understand that we can get all the nutrients we need from a plant-based diet. Vegans don’t eat any animals foods and also abstain from the use of animal products. A vegan’s behavior is clearly based on his belief system. For vegans the compassion for animals is the key aspect, not health. A vegan diet could consist of Oreo’s, potato chips and soda, which is vegan but not healthy. Many people eat as a way of connecting with others. It’s the belief that food is necessary in order to connect with each other. If we don’t eat what they eat then we won’t be able to connect with them. Comfort food is food that makes us happy or feel better. It can be nostalgic or of sentimental value, like grandma’s homemade apple pie. Or it can be food we eat to celebrate, or when we are sad, depressed, lonely or have experienced a breakup. We don’t eat it because we are trying to eat healthy or fuel the body. We eat it for emotional reasons. It’s usually unhealthy. What we believe greatly influences what we eat. What do you believe about food and how is your belief effecting the way you eat?

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we explore more about how we are interconnected physically, emotionally and spiritually, specifically how our emotions are connected to our beliefs. We learned in Transformation Prayer that our emotions are a bridge to our belief system. What we feel in any given moment is a product of our belief. We feel what we believe. We can believe something cognitively (cognitive belief), but our experience (experiential belief) may not match our cognitive belief. We can have a conflict between what we believe cognitively and what we believe experientially. When such a conflict occurs, which belief wins out? Experiential belief. Our behavior is greatly influenced by what we feel. Most of our behavior is driven by our emotions. If we’re feeling emotional pain, then our choices are motivated by attempts to manage our pain. That’s when we can easily get caught up in addictive behavior. If we believe lies about ourself and have constant emotional pain, then we will continually try to self-medicate our pain by choosing addictive behavior. Because Buzz didn’t replace the performance-based lies about himself that began when he was a child, it carried into his adult life and into his job, specifically, during his “Performance Review”. One year his boss gave him a lower performance review because everyone’s reviews were artificially shifted down to fit a bell-shaped curve. As a result Buzz left his performance review feeling both angry and discouraged at the same time. In order to resolve this dilemma, he needed to change his belief about himself by replacing his false thinking with experiential truth that his value and worth isn’t based on where his annual review falls on the bell-shaped curve. As a Jesus Follower, Buzz needed to remind himself that he is accepted, secure and significant and that he is loved by God no matter what his performance review says. That helped him resolve his painful emotions and change his belief about himself, resulting in perfect peace.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, it was necessary for us to peel back several layers of dysfunction and address years of pain and lies we had believed beginning in our childhood in order to find recovery and healing in our lives.  We both came to realize that we had believed many lies about God and ourselves, and that we needed to replace each of those lies with truth of God’s Word in order to heal and go forward in our lives. We replaced the lies we were believing with the following truths: We are loved even when we fail. We are loved even if we don’t read our Bible every day or pray a lot, or go to church, or tithe. God loves us even if we sin. There is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or love us any less than He already does. Our identity is not based on what we do, and it is especially not based on our worst behavior. Our identity is based on what Christ has done for us. Our identity isn’t based on what other people say about us. Our identity comes from what God says about us. Our identity is in Jesus Christ. We are loved unconditionally. We are accepted, secure, and significant. Those were some very hard years that we walked through. It wasn’t easy for us and it took a long time. But we want to encourage anyone who listens to this podcast that is going through hard times right now or has unresolved physical, emotional and spiritual issues that there is hope. We ended up coming through our difficult times even stronger as a result of acknowledging them, facing them, and dealing with them. Below are links to some of the recovery ministries we went through. Some of the ministries we attended and became part of: “Celebrate Recovery” a biblical and balanced program that helps us overcome our hurts, hang-ups, and habits. https://www.celebraterecovery.com/ “Healing the Wounded Person” a Christian ministry that helps people understand and heal from past wounds. (Sorry, no link for this) “Freedom in Christ” a Christian ministry that helps guide Christians in overcoming their personal and spiritual conflicts so they can live free and fruitful in Christ. https://www.ficm.org/  “Set Free Ministries” which has a mission of setting captives free to be who they were created to be in Jesus Christ. https://www.setfreemin.org/ “Transformation Prayer Ministry” (formerly called Theophostic Prayer Ministry) is a ministry of helping emotionally wounded people to acknowledge and the identify the true source of their inner emotional pain and find lasting peace through receiving personalized truth directly from the Lord. https://www.transformationprayer.org/ Immanuel Prayer (Immanuel Approach) a ministry to deepen intimacy with God, permanently resolve past pain, and discern God’s ongoing guidance https://www.immanuelapproach.com  Authority Prayer (Hearts Set Free Ministries) https://www.heartssetfree.org  Also, check out the "Different Isn’t Bad" podcast for kids and kids at heart where Miss Robin teaches all of us what it means to be brave, kind and different.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we tell how our world unravels after Carol receives a medical diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. As a pastor’s wife living in a small community far from our extended family, Carol often felt unseen and alone. Yet there were expectations placed on her of what she was supposed to do. We also lived in a climate that was cloudy and rainy most of the year. It affected her mood. She was diagnosed with S.A.D. - Seasonal Affective Disorder. When we left that church and moved back to our home church and served bivocationally again, there were also many expectations placed on her as the assistant pastor’s wife. We experienced more pain and ended up leaving the ministry. We started back in counseling, and a lot of our emotional pain started coming out of us. One of the results of counseling was that Carol ended up going to cosmetology school. Then she started experiencing so many physical issues, like hearing loss, muscle weakness, and pain in her arms & legs After many doctor visits and tests, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In this episode, Carol shares how she continued experiencing pain, loss and disappointment. As we went from one painful experience to another, we never dealt with the cause of our pain. But we needed to. This episode sets the stage for what we learned and experienced when we finally peeled back the levels of pain and addressed our brokenness and found healing, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But that’s next time.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we share how addiction manifests itself as the result of unresolved physical, emotional and spiritual conflicts in our life. There was so much pain in my life after the loss of my ministry career and accompanying rejection I felt. Being told I wasn’t God’s man, that there was something wrong with me and there was something wrong with my spirit, being forced to resign. I needed to remove my personal items from my office as quickly as possible in order to remove my presence from the building, and I needed to keep quiet about this and not tell anyone else in the church. I turned to internet porn as a way to self-medicate to distract me from the emotions and the pain I had been suppressing. After getting caught, that started my journey of recovery. Listen as we share our story and how we dealt with this.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we tell how our world unravels as a result of unresolved physical, emotional and spiritual conflicts in our life. Several years after we became Jesus followers we were active in our local church. We had a heart for ministry and wanted to serve Jesus. One year during missionary conference we responded to an appeal to the need for missionaries in Africa. We went off to prepare for ministry at Bible college and seminary. We decided to serve in pastoral ministry. After graduation we served in ministry positions where we were deeply hurt and came to the realization that we needed not only a break from ministry but a change of career!

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we continue our stories and talk about what happened after we became vegans. Changing to a vegan way of eating is a major change in lifestyle for anyone. You have to learn what to eat, where to shop and how to cook. As difficult as this is, even more difficult is dealing with the social, cultural and emotional aspects in relating to family, friends, coworkers and even other Jesus followers. Social relationships tend to focus and revolve around food. In this episode we talk about how we learned to make our vegan lifestyle work in our lives.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers podcast, we continue our stories and talk about what happened to us after we became new Jesus followers. When you become a new Jesus follower, everything changes. What happens next? It was different for each of us, because the context in which we became Jesus followers was different. Listen as we continue sharing our stories.

In this episode of Vegan Jesus Followers Podcast, we answer the question, “How do we thrive?” How we thrive depends on what we eat, the words we speak, what we think about and how we act. Philippians 4:8 tells us what we need to think about. Galatians 5:22-23 talks about the fruit of the Spirit and John 10:10 tells us that Jesus came to give us abundant life. Abundant life comes from Jesus.