Appetites

Paul Ford writes in an article on Wired, what happened when he switched his weight loss meds and found a miracle cure. Decades of struggle with an insatiable desire for food, gone in an instant. But his reflection on the experience is less of an advertisement as it is a probing of human nature amid advances in pharmacology. He writes:

This is a technology that will reorder society. I have been the living embodiment of the deadly sin of gluttony, judged as greedy and weak since I was 10 years old — and now the sin is washed away. Baptism by injection. But I have no more virtue than I did a few months ago. I just prefer broccoli to gloopy chicken. Is this who I am?

How long is it before there’s an injection for your appetites, your vices? Maybe they’re not as visible as mine. Would you self-administer a weekly anti-avarice shot? Can Big Pharma cure your sloth, lust, wrath, envy, pride?

On this front, the parallels between Ford’s weight loss drug and every other drug are almost obvious (whether they be coffee, THC, or any fill-in-the-blank name brand). The alluring promise that frailty is simply a matter of chemistry. More interesting is what happens to Ford himself after the one signal pathway is silenced — his brain averts its gaze elsewhere:

Where before my brain had been screaming, screaming, at air-raid volume — there was sudden silence. It was confusing. […] “I urgently need, I thought … Something to fill the silence where food used to be. Every night for weeks I spent four, five hours twisting Moog knobs. Not making music. Just droning, looping, and beep-booping. I needed something to obsess over, to watch YouTube videos about. I needed something to fail at every night to feel normal.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The flesh is never satisfied and cannot be conquered by human will or science. Impeding one of the desires of the flesh simply ignites another. The church of big pharma might provide a kind of cure, but there is no panacea for human nature, except “the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

When Keith Stonehouse started receiving a flurry of orders from the takeout service GrubHub, it didn’t take him long to realize what had happened. Stonehouse had allowed his six-year-old son Mason to play on his phone before bed. Mason rewarded his kindness by ordering a whole lot of food. “Why did you do this?” asked Stonehouse to Mason, who hid under his comforter. Mason replied, “I don’t know. I was hungry.” Mason then proceeded to interrupt his father’s lecture to ask if the pizzas he ordered had arrived yet.

Stonehouse later said that the $439 pizza order was canceled by his bank for appearing fraudulent. But that more than $1,000 worth of food was successfully ordered and delivered, creating a very full refrigerator and emergency offers to friends and neighbors to share the unforeseen bounty. Stonehouse said, “I had to keep stepping out of [his] room and calming myself down. You want to yell at your son, but he’s only six.”

The next day, Stonehouse and his wife sat down with Mason and had a talk with him, explaining the gravity of his actions. They explained that because he did this without permission, they would have to use the $150 in his piggy bank to help pay for all the hot dogs, chili cheese fries, jumbo shrimps, and other foods. Stonehouse said, “We showed him one-by-one. He was a little devastated but he understood.”

​Possible Preaching Angle:

We've all had moments where our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, but immaturity only increases our susceptibility to temptation.

The pleasure of taste starts with the taste buds and ends with electrical signals reaching the reward centers in the brain. This is not just true of people; it is true of animals as well. All animals have taste buds, including those that live under the water. The catfish, for example, has taste buds virtually all over its skin, earning it the nickname “the swimming tongue.” Flies, spiders, and fruit flies have taste buds on their feet.

Animals taste and enjoy their food as much as we do. Watch a squirrel closely next time you come across one squatting on the lawn holding an acorn with its two hands and nibbling the insides. You’ll see it nibbling away with its teeth quite rapidly. What you don’t see is the tongue inside the mouth that is busy manipulating the little bits of food and tasting the ingredients, swallowing what is delicious and even just acceptable.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Taste and see that the Lord and his Word are good (Psa. 34:8; Psa. 19:10). God invites us to experience him and his Word as a pleasurable experience which feeds our soul.

Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen’s new book, Why Liberalism Failed, is a challenge to those who want to revive the liberal democratic order.

Deneen argues that liberal democracy has betrayed its promises. It was supposed to foster equality, but it has led to great inequality and a new aristocracy. It was supposed to give average people control over government, but average people feel alienated from government. It was supposed to foster liberty, but it creates a degraded popular culture in which consumers become slave to their appetites.

Many young people feel trapped in a system they have no faith in. Deneen quotes one of his students: “Because we view humanity—and thus its institutions—as corrupt and selfish, the only person we can rely upon is our self. The only way we can avoid failure, being let down, and ultimately succumbing to the chaotic world around us, therefore, is to have the means (financial security) to rely only upon ourselves.”

Celebrity chef, writer, and TV personality Anthony Bourdain, who wore a tattoo on his arm that read in ancient Greek, "I am certain of nothing," committed suicide on June 8, 2018, at the age of 61. In an interview for Men's Journal from 2014, Bourdain was asked: What are the benefits of hedonism, and what are the risks?

Bourdain replied, "Look, I understand that inside me there is a greedy, gluttonous, lazy, hippie—you know? I understand that. … there's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, and smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons, and old movies. I could easily do that. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy. … I'm aware of my appetites, and I don't let them take charge."

When asked: How should a man handle regret? And what's your biggest regret?

Bourdain replied, "Regret is something you've got to just live with, you can't drink it away. You can't run away from it. You can't trick yourself out of it. You've just got to own it. I've disappointed and hurt people in my life, and that's just something I'm going to have to live with. … You eat that guilt and you live with it. And you own it. You own it for life."

Conventional wisdom surrounding the function of taste buds focuses on five essential types of flavor sensations: sweet, salty, savory, sour and bitter. To that list, scientists have added a sixth taste—starchy.

Professor Joyun Lim from Oregon State University, explains the justification for the recent addition. Lim's team of researchers found volunteers who could identify starch-like tastes in various carb solutions, even after being administered a solution that blocked the taste of sweetness. Lim said, "Asians would say it was rice-like, while Caucasians described it as bread-like or pasta-like. It's like eating flour."

Of course, starch has yet to be completely enshrined in the proverbial Hall of Taste. Food scientists insist that primary tastes be recognizable, have identifiable taste receptors on the tongue, and trigger a useful physiological response.

Lim and other scientists are working on finding those taste receptors, but for useful physiology, one need look no further than elite athletes. There's a reason why bodybuilders, distance runners, and basketball players all use terms like "carbing up" or "carb loading" to describe their culinary habits. The cliché is true—the body knows what it wants.

Potential preaching angles: To hunger and thirst after righteousness, we must recognize its taste, God's wisdom is evident in creation through cravings that track our bodily needs

According to CNN, ranchers of the prized breed of cattle known as Wagyu go to great lengths to enhance the already legendary flavor of their beef. They use typical fattening agents in their feed to achieve a certain amount of marbling, which enhances its appearance and keeps it moist. But an Australian ranch called Mayura Station produces Wagyu beef with a distinctive, sweet taste to it. The secret is in a special blend of cattle feed, which includes copious amounts of sweetening agents—or as most of us would call it—candy.

The envy of ten-year-olds worldwide, cattle at Mayura Station bred as Wagyu subsist on a diet of chocolate, cookies and candy, often sold as irregular or expired stock from brand-name factories like Cadbury. Their regular feed is more of a pedestrian blend (or is it equestrian? Bovestrian?) of wheat, hay, rye grass, and maize. But the candy mix is a special addition that the cattle eat for the last few months of their lives before they're slaughtered and processed.

This unorthodox approach appears to be working; the most choices cuts of Wagyu beef from Mayura Station can retail for as much as $300 per pound.

Potential Preaching Angles: The importance of ingesting truth, beauty and goodness. What goes in, will come out. The fragrance of Christ is most pungent in times of intense suffering and pain.

For years it was assumed that sea creatures ate disposed-of plastics by accident. Now, we know the real reason they eat this literal junk food: because they like it.

According to marine science doctoral student Austin Allen, "Plastics may be inherently tasty," and that smaller ocean animals such as coral and plankton react to them as if they were actual food.

This is in contrast to reactions to more obvious and less edible waste, like sand. According to the New Haven Register, "If the sand came near their mouths, the animals used tiny hairs covering their body to brush themselves clean."

But delicious plastic is a different matter: "The corals scooped the plastic toward their mouths with their tentacles, then gobbled up the trash."

Of course, plankton and coral don't have eyes, leaving them with just their tongues to help them figure out whether or not something is edible. "When an animal tastes something that's when they make a decision whether or not to eat it," according to Matthew Savoca, a researcher. As a result, plastics in the ocean go beyond merely littering a beautiful landscape—they hurt those who unknowingly consume it.

Potential Preaching Angles: This illustration could be used to show the importance of discernment, the temptation to do what "feels right," the lust of the flesh, or our inability to truly know what is best for us without a higher authority's guidance.

They say that beauty is only skin deep, but many studies have shown that we have an inherent bias to view attractive people as better, smarter, and more socially competent. This strong attractiveness bias impacts everything from hiring decisions, to how highly students rate professors, to how well students are treated by their teachers.

This bias is especially strong in our 21st century dating scene. As an example, the comedy writer Ali Reed created a fake profile on the dating site OK Cupid for a woman she called "AaronCarterFan." (Aaron Carter, for the uninitiated, is the younger brother of a Backstreet Boy.) Then she loaded her profile with despicable traits, including "enjoys kicking cups out of homeless people's hands," and "my parents think I'm in law school so they pay all my bills—LOL," and "you should message me if ur rich." But for the online photo Reed used the real photo of a friend who's a professional model.

What happened to the beautiful but decadent fake "AaronCarterFan"? Reed said, "[She] did very well. In the first 24 hours she got 150 messages. I had the profile up for two or three weeks, and she had close to 1000 men message her. She got probably 10 times the number of messages that my real profile got."

Every year the average American eats 33 pounds of cheese and 70 pounds of sugar. On average, 11 percent of our diet comes from saturated fats. Every day we eat 8,500 milligrams of salt—that's four whopping teaspoons of salt. In his book Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss shows that during the past two decades some of America's largest food producers carefully studied how to "help" us crave all this junk food. For example, some of the food industries biggest names--including Cambell Soup, General Foods, Kraft, PepsiCo, and Cadbury--hired "crave consultants" like the scientist Dr. Howard Moskowitz to help them determine our "bliss points," the point where food compainies can "optimize" our cravings.

Or as another example, Frito-Lay, makers of Lay's potato chips and the 21 varieties of Cheetos, operated a research complex near Dallas that employed nearly 500 chemists, psychologists, and technicians and spent up to $30 million a year to find the bliss point for their junk foods. One food scientist called Cheetos "one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure." Cheetos has what's called "vanishing caloric density." In other words because it melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there's no calories in it, and you think you can just keep eating forever.

Interestingly, many of the former executives who Moss interviewed for his book avoid the foods they tried to get us to eat. Howard Moskowitz doesn't drink Pepsi products because he claims "[soda's] not good for your teeth." A Frito-Lay executive admitted to Moss that he avoids most processed foods—like Cheetos. Moss concluded, "Like other former food company executives I met, [this Frito-Lay executive] overhauled his diet to avoid the very foods he once worked so hard to perfect."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Temptation, Desire—There are powerful forces at work trying to shape, direct, and distort our desires towards things and habits that aren't good for our bodies, souls, or minds. (2) Gluttony; Fasting—This story can illustrate why it's hard to fast and easy to be gluttonous in our culture. (3) False Teaching—Sometimes false teachers promulgate doctrine and views of the world that even they can't live by.

Editor's Note: Since it first debuted in 2006, the TV series Dexter has been nominated for 19 Primetime Emmy Awards, five Writers Guild of America Awards, and seven Golden Globes. According to one critic, "This show draws in literally millions of devoted fans on a weekly basis, and for good reason." In his book Why Holiness Matters, Tyler Braun shares how he became aware of sin's subtle power in his life when he started watching Dexter on a regular basis.

Many of my Christian friends had raved about the show and it had been nominated for many awards. It seemed that the show was destined to become a favorite of mine …. For those who have never watched the show, it follows Dexter Morgan through his life as a forensics expert in the Miami Police Department. He lives a modest life and through most of the episodes I had watched, he had a girlfriend with two children. His life did, however, have an extremely dark side—he operated as a serial killer who went after people who had not been caught by the law.

The amount of sexuality and violence in the show was overwhelming at times, despite the plot of the show being incredibly captivating. My wife and I quit watching the show because it was affecting our thought processes. Even subtle but perverse thoughts about sexuality and violence were more common. Over the few months we watched the first couple seasons I had more of an urge to be deviant in my attitude and to look at other women in a way that my wife would never want to know about.

My inclination toward the lifestyle of Dexter Morgan wasn't something that showed up the instant I started watching the show. But after spending many hours of watching the killing, the sex, and the promiscuous lifestyle, something inside of me desired (even a little) the same things. Sin was slowly creeping in, slowly trying to take control of a few key areas of my thinking and decision making.

In his book The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien's hero, Bilbo Baggins, must cross paths with a terrifying dragon named Smaug. But as Bilbo creeps into Smaug's dragon-den, Bilbo is no longer overcome by fear. Instead, the lure and the lust of Smaug's vast treasures of gold captivate his heart. Tolkien calls it "staggerment," and here's how he describes the scene:

The glow of Smaug! There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.

Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed. Behind him where the walls were nearest could dimly be seen coats of mail, helms and axes, swords and spears hanging; and there in rows stood great jars and vessels filled with a wealth that could not be guessed.

To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment …. Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendor, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count.

In his book Predictably Irrational, researcher Dan Ariely claims that most of us are masters at deceiving ourselves and justifying our actions. In particular, we often make our decisions based not on what's right, but on what we want.

Ariely tells his own story of buying a car. "When I turned thirty," he writes, "I decided it was time to trade in my motorcycle for a car, but I could not decide which car was right for me. The web was just taking off, and to my delight I found a site that provided advice on purchasing cars." Professor Ariely describes how he answered all of the questions on the website, which then recommended that he purchase a Ford Taurus. He describes his reaction this way:

The problem was that, having just surrendered my motorcycle, I couldn't see myself driving a sedate sedan. I was now facing a dilemma: I had tried a deliberative and thoughtful process for my car selection, and I didn't like the answer I got. So, I did what I think anyone in my position would do. I hit the BACK button a few times, backtracked to earlier stages of the interview process, and changed many of my original answers to what I convinced myself were more accurate and appropriate responses .… I kept this up until the car-advertising website suggested a Mazda Miata. The moment the program was kind enough to recommend a small convertible, I felt grateful for the fantastic software and decided to follow its advice.

Commenting on what he learned in the process, Professor Ariely says, "The experience taught me that sometimes we want our decisions to have a rational veneer when, in fact, they stem from … what we crave deep down."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) God's Will—With our tendency towards self-deception, we sometimes determine God's will based on what we really wanted in the first place. In other words, God's will = what we want. (2) Desires, sinful—Although some of our desires are good and healthy, some of our desires are based on the sinful bent of our heart.

Consider the foolhardy risk takers at the famous Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas. This restaurant, known for its "flatliner fries" cooked in pure lard, butterfat shakes, no-filter cigarettes, and the "octuple bypass burger," appears to be living up to its reputation. The restaurant's most recent victim, a woman, was eating a "double bypass burger" lathered in cheese and bacon and smoking cigarettes when she collapsed and was taken to the hospital.

Owner Jon Basso said that he wishes the customer a swift and full recovery. But, he added, the woman got exactly what she asked for: a brush with death.

"We attract … thrill seekers [and] risk takers," he told the Los Angeles Times, adding that his restaurant is a "bad for you but fun" restaurant that "attracts people who don't really take good care of their health."

In 2024, the grill offers the 20,000 calorie octuple bypass burger. Basso said the Guinness World Records book contacted him Friday to say that the burger was being crowned the most caloric sandwich on Earth. The restaurant also offers free meals to people weighing more than 350 pounds.

"I tell you," said Basso, "we attract that very bleeding edge, the avant-garde of risk takers."

Possible Preaching Angle: (1) Taking Risks/Following Christ—At times following Jesus involves taking good and godly risks. Unfortunately, at times we also take foolish and ungodly risks—risks that can hurt and even destroy us. (2) Sin and Temptation—Even when we know sinful behavior is bad for us, at times we keep engaging in that activity anyway.

The TV show "Hoarders" features the true stories about people with compulsions so strong that they can't let go of their "stuff." On the show, loved ones, psychologists, and organizational experts are brought in to try to help the hoarders stop hoarding.

For example, one episode focused on a middle aged hoarder named Phyllis. Her house was so cluttered with dolls and other belongings that she had to crawl over mounds of garbage in order to reach the recliner where she eats and sleeps. Phyllis's children were so concerned about her welfare that they threatened to contact Adult Protective Services. But Phyllis's compulsions prevailed, and she chose to live without running water and heat and to huddle under blankets to stay warm.

Another episode told the story about a man who has collected such a large stash of games, action figures, books, and novelties that it's nearly impossible to move through his home. Yet another episode featured an automobile lover who faces $20 million in fines if he doesn't get rid of the hundreds of junked cars on his property.

Most people who watch this show have the same reaction: they can't believe that people just won't let go of all the stuff that's slowly sabotaging important relationships and harming themselves. Unfortunately, most viewers don't see that at times all of us can act like hoarders when it comes to our spiritual lives. For instance, I have a tendency to misplace my affections; to value some things more highly than I ought, to cling to some things that aren't doing me any good—like worry, resentment, gossip, pride, self-righteousness, lust, or anger. The truth is, most of us may not clutter our lives with physical stuff, but we're just as guilty of emotional or spiritual hoarding.

Author Frederica Mathewes-Green addresses people who hunger for God's presence but rarely feel it—at least not in dramatic ways. She writes:

My hunch is that you are already sensing something of God's presence, or you wouldn't care. Picture yourself walking around a shopping mall, looking at people and the window displays. Suddenly, you get a whiff of cinnamon. You weren't even hungry, but now you really crave a cinnamon roll. This craving isn't something you made up. There you were, minding your own business, when some drifting molecules of sugar, butter, and spice collided with a susceptible patch inside your nose. You had a real encounter with cinnamon—not a mental delusion, not an emotional projection, but the real thing.

And what was the effect? You want more, now. And if you hunger to know the presence of God, it's because … you have already begun to scent [God's] compelling delight.

Before serving as a Methodist minister from 2000 to 2010 near Nashville, Tennessee, John M. Eades spent two decades as a therapist counseling drug and alcohol addicts. But his professional expertise did not prevent his descent into compulsive gambling.

His downfall began when some friends pestered him into accompanying them to a casino. Although Eades had never been a gambler, the urge to play the slot machines that was sparked that night escalated into daily casino visits.

"I went every afternoon after work and stayed until late, and I'd go every weekend," recalls Eades, 68. Missing church was no concern. At the time, Eades only attended sporadically.

Within two years, he had maxed out 17 credit cards and amassed $245,000 in gambling debts. One night, driving home from the casino, Eades decided to kill himself. He pulled over at a rest stop and reached into the glove compartment for his .357 Magnum. The gun was gone. Upon reaching home, Eades hugged his wife, Karen, and thanked her for saving his life by hiding the weapon. But he was in for another surprise.

"I didn't take the gun to save your life," Karen told him. "I sold it so we could pay the electric bill."

Soon, the economic strain became too much for Karen. She swallowed an entire bottle of pills in front of her husband. After getting his wife's stomach pumped at a hospital, Eades tried to escape his own depression by going off to gamble.

Later, in a drastic step to remove temptation, Eades moved to a Tennessee town 300 miles away from the nearest casino. He agreed to Karen's request that they attend church regularly. Yet Eades secretly started stashing money in his car trunk for a planned trip to a Mississippi casino.

Another suicide attempt, this time by his 27-year-old daughter, Ginger, over a failed relationship, finally prompted Eades to change …. He opened his car trunk and gave the $600 he had saved for gambling to his wife.

Today Eades is in recovery and marvels at the power the addiction had over his life. "When you're in an addiction and you look back, it's just like you were an insane person," says Eades …. "You cannot believe the things you did."

Eades says there can be no removal of addictive desires or recovery without God's intervention. He also credits Karen, his wife of 48 years.

"When you're [an addict] you really want people to leave you alone so you can feel sorry for yourself and keep [up your addiction]," Eades says. "It's very important to have [someone] who loves you enough to stay with you through it."

In his book The Obedience Option, David Hegg illustrates what he calls "overwhelming faith." Hegg was talking to a young man who claimed that he couldn't stop his pattern of sleeping with different women. The young man knew it was wrong, but he also claimed that his sexual lust was inevitable. Therefore, it wasn't his fault, especially since God had created him with such strong desires and urges.

Finally, Hegg interrupted the young man and said, "Suppose that I came into your room and caught you and your girlfriend as you were just starting this 'inevitable' process." Suppose I took out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, and told you that they were yours if you [stopped]. What would you do?"

When the young man quickly said that he'd rather have the cash, Hegg asked, "So what happened to the irresistible force of lust?"

Then Hegg concluded:

We both realized a very simple truth: one passion may seem irresistible until a greater passion comes along …. If we take this principle into the arena of righteous living, it comes out like this: the only way to overcome a passion for sin is with an overwhelming passion for righteousness. This overwhelming passion for righteousness is actually a mindset that the Bible calls faith. Here is a helpful definition of this kind of overwhelming faith: Faith is a life-dominating conviction that all God has for me through obedience is better by far than anything Satan can offer me through selfishness and sin.

The Bible frequently describes God as a jealous lover. In his book titled Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan asks the question, "When can jealousy be a good thing?" Here's part of his answer:

In God's case, it's when we're rummaging around the garbage piles of life and avoiding the source of satisfaction. It reminds me of a comic strip I once saw of a dog who had been drinking out of a toilet bowl. With water dripping from his snout, Fido looks up to tell us, "It doesn't get any better than this!" Instead of enjoying fresh spring water, we look for stagnant, crummy substitutes that inevitably fail us.

Copan goes on to comment:

A wife who doesn't get jealous and angry when another woman is flirting with her husband isn't really committed to the marriage relationship … . Outrage, pain, anguish—these are the appropriate responses to such deep violation. God isn't some abstract entity or impersonal principle … . We should be amazed that the Creator of the universe would so deeply connect himself to human beings that he would open himself to sorrow and anguish in the face of human rejection and betrayal.

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves," and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all."

—C. S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain