Eat with Your Kids

In Reading back articles on the "The Signs" magazines I came across an article by Gary Hopkins who is a researcher into why teenagers or peplum move into drug addiction.  He had some very simple thoughts on how to prevent this from happening.

Eating with your kids actually planning and having meals together.

1. It prevents young teens or preteens from watching tv and prevents obesity as they do not eat a lot of
     junk food.
2. It actually improves academic performance.
3. It reduces risky behaviours.
4. It is also an area that allows discussion and building of faith.



There were also 8 points of advice about meal time discussion.

1. Plan to have 5 or 6 meals a week as a family.
2. Make meal times extra special. Meals are a wonderful opportunity to show your children how  
    important they are to you.
3. Turn off mobile phones.
4. Remove tv, computers mp3 or 4s from the vicinity of the dinner table.
5. Keep conversation positive, pleasurable  and non- judgemental.
6. Discuss your children's day and share yours.
7. Ask questions that stimulate and explore faith, morality and beliefs.
8. Encourage everyone regardless of age to participate in the discussion.

In whole I think this advice is really great to encourage parents to slow down and show their kids they really care.  I know it's hard but with planning it will happen.  The Italians do it and so do the Jews in sharing meals together.  They enjoy, argue and still remain good friends after it.  Maybe it is something missing out of a Western lifestyle.  Even if you start with friends it's good to have company.

If you wish to read the full article just click below and it will take you to it.

Eat with your kids 

A Woman's work is never done!

A Modern Day version of the fire...

When I read these quotes about a Home maker from days gone by, they make me smile at the thought and care that went into writing them and also all the work a woman use to do in making food for everyone.

The Fire Tenders

Women through the years have stood
Watch above a flame,
Keeping it a glowing thing
For the ones who came
Hungry, tired, when the night
Marks a kitchen's warm, red light.

Nothing lovelier, I think,
Then a woman's face,
Calmly bent above a fire.
As with quiet grace
She moves clean, deft hands to make
Food more wholesome for love's sake.

Something great and beautiful
In her simple art -
Something to delight the eye
And make glad the heart:
Women - tending fires that man
May be strong to work again.

(Crowell., G. N., (1930). Flame in the wind. Haper & Row Publisher Inc.)

It's really amazing that some of the student's I teach believe this to be totally true.  That this is the most important role of a woman.  Then I think maybe the want it this way because they never had it.  At the same time though, these women in the past were very industrious in their care of the home. Bottling fruit and vegetables, sewing clothes and some even made the cloth in the first place.  Plus then I think of those who also killed snakes, cleared out red backs, tilled the soil to make a garden and a home in the Australian Outback.  Those women were amazing... 

A blessing on Your food

I brought a book ages ago and have only just started to read it this last term.  It's called "The Seven Pillars of Health" by Don Colbert MD.  This is the same guy that wrote the book "What did Jesus eat?" and it's sequel the recipe book.

I'm only up to day 22 as some sections are big and I only read it when I have time; even working in this field I have learnt some interesting facts about food and cooking it.  It's practical and also gives insight to new research.

He suggested the following prayer be used in blessing your food. (p. 115)

"Thank You for my wonderful food and it's healing properties. Mark 16:18 tells me that if I drink (or eat) any deadly thing it shall not harm me.  Thank You for protecting me supernaturally from any harm that may be in my food.  I ask that You bless the food to my body according to Exodus 23:25, which tells me that "He shall bless my food and my water and He will take sickness away from the midst of me."


I eat this food with thanksgiving, I receive His love and rejoice in the Lord as I eat my meal.  As I eat this food, my cells, tissues and organs are cleansed, strengthened, and renewed like the eagle. I see myself healed.  In Jesus name, amen."


It's always important to be thankful for the food we eat.  I know in some places they have very little.  If your interested in this sort of thing I've linked the following words to a website that shows how much people eat in a week around the world.

Hungry Planet

A Feast that remembers

A bowl of soup with someone you love 

Is better than steak with someone you hate

A dry crust eaten in peace

Is better than a great feast with strife.

                                                                  Proverbs 15:17 and 17:1

There is one more feast that celebrates this story out of Esther.  It is found in the last section of the book 9:20 - 32

This is where Mordecai encourages the community of Jews throughout the kingdom of Media Persia to actually remember.  I believe that is why we have meals even today to remember things such as weddings, family celebrations e.g.. birthdays etc...  Jesus even asked us to observe the last supper until he comes back again to take us to heaven.  There will be the best meal ever.

²⁰ Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, ²¹ to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar ²² as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

²⁷ the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. ²³ So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 

²⁴ For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot ) for their ruin and destruction. ²⁵ But when the plot came to the king’s attention,^[a] he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. ²⁶ (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur. ) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 

²⁸ These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.

²⁹ So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. ³⁰ And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of Xerxes’ kingdom—words of goodwill and assurance— ³¹ to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation. ³² Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.

I hope you have looked at this with new light due to the verses above.