Food

In the past few decades, the sector has shifted from tables to takeaway, a process that accelerated through the pandemic and continued even as the health emergency abated. In 2023, 74 percent of all restaurant traffic came from “off premises” customers—that is, from takeout and delivery. This is up from 61 percent before COVID, according to the National Restaurant Association.

The flip side of less dining out is more eating alone. The share of U.S. adults having dinner or drinks with friends on any given night has declined by more than 30 percent in the past 20 years. “There’s an isolationist dynamic that’s taking place in the restaurant business,” the Washington, D.C., restaurateur Steve Salis said. “I think people feel uncomfortable in the world today. They’ve decided that their home is their sanctuary. It’s not easy to get them to leave.”

Even when Americans eat at restaurants, they are much more likely to do so by themselves. According to data gathered by the online reservations platform OpenTable, solo dining has increased by 29 percent in just the past two years. The No. 1 reason is the need for more “me time.”

The Super Bowl means fun, friends, beer, and nachos, but heart attacks and other life-threatening cardiac events rise during and after the big game and other major sporting events.

Cardiologists say that stress kicked off by the intensity of nail-biting plays, going deep on wings and chips, or downing epic amounts of alcohol can tax the heart and blood vessels. Dr. James O’Keefe said, “Nobody will be surprised to see people within 24 hours of the game” with cardiovascular emergencies. When you are emotionally invested in a game, your body prepares as if for battle.” Stress hormones flow in a fight-or-flight response, raising blood pressure, making the heart beat faster and making blood more likely to clot.

In a study of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the incidence of cardiac emergencies in Bavaria was 2.66 times higher on days when the German team played, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. These events were highest in the quarterfinal, when Germany beat Argentina in a penalty shootout. Most of the cardiac events occurred in the first two hours after the start of matches, though the numbers were higher for several hours before and after the contests.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Anxiety; Stress - The Bible warns of the dangers of stress and anxiety, urging believers to trust in God rather than being overwhelmed by worldly concerns (Phil. 4:6-7); 2) Self-control; Stewardship – The Bible teaches us that the Bible is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Overindulgence in unhealthy food, alcohol, and emotional stress during sporting events contradicts this principle (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

In the U.S., solo dining reservations have risen 29% over the last two years, according to OpenTable, the restaurant reservation site. They’re also up 18% this year in Germany and 14% in the United Kingdom.

Japan even has a special term for solo dining: “ohitorisama,” which means “alone.” In a recent survey, Japan’s Hot Pepper Gourmet Eating Out Research Institute found that 23% of Japanese people eat out alone, up from 18% in 2018. As a result, many restaurants in Japan and elsewhere are redoing their seating, changing their menus, and adding other special touches to appeal to solo diners. Even so-called family restaurants are increasing counter seats for solitary diners, and restaurants are offering courses with smaller servings so a person eating alone gets a variety of dishes.

OpenTable CEO Debby Soo thinks remote work is one reason for the increase, with diners seeking respites from their home offices. The pandemic also made social interactions less feasible and therefore less important while eating out.

The growth in solo dining also is the result of more people who are living alone. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 38% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 54 were living without a partner, up from 29% in 1990. In Japan, single households now make up one-third of the total; that’s expected to climb to 40% by 2040, according to government data.

Increasing interest in solo travel – particularly among travelers ages 55 and over – is also leading to more meals alone.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A time of solitude can be a refreshing break from a busy schedule. But for many people solitude is not a choice. Without putting singles in an embarrassing spotlight, it would be encouraging if church members would diplomatically invite singles to share a homecooked meal, especially during the holidays.

Fine dining typically means splurging a little for high-quality meat or fresh seafood. But what if money were truly no object?

Restaurant owners and chefs around the world create original dining experiences for those who want unique experiences. You know, like spending nearly $10,000 on a pizza or $1,000 on an ice cream sundae.

Here are a few of the world’s most expensive meals:

• Masa — New York. Dinner Omakase menu per person: $750 sushi-eating experience.

• SubliMotion —Dubai. Dinner per person: around $2,000. That’s more than the average family will spend for an entire month on food.

• De Daltons – The Netherlands. The Golden Boy Burger: $5,532.79. Chef Robbert Jan de Veen’s “The Golden Boy” is made with 100% Wagyu A5 meat, as well as Beluga caviar, king crab, Spanish Paleta Ibérico, white truffle, and English cheddar.

• Renato Viola — Salerno, Italy. Louis XIII Pizza: $9,184.32. Pizza toppings include: mozzarella di bufala, lobster, and caviar all flown in from all different parts of the world.

• The Fortress Resort and Spa — Sri Lanka. The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence Dessert: $14,500. The dessert features Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream with a pomegranate and mango compote. The base is adorned with an 80-carat aquamarine stone.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Salvation and The Lord's Supper—They're both offered free of charge (although Jesus paid the price that we could never have paid), and the Lord's Supper is better than anything on this list. (2) Social Justice—While millions of people are malnourished, a few people can afford outrageously expensive, luxurious meals. (3) Simplicity; Provision—God promised to provide daily bread, not daily slice of "Louis XIII" pizza. (4) Hospitality—Hospitality is more about love and openness than about trying to offer a "world's best meal." Encourage people to keep it simple.

In February 2020, BBC journalist Vicky Baker jumped on the Eurostar to Paris, motivated by a sudden urge to have dinner with a friend. American Jim Haynes had entered his late 80s and his health was declining, yet she knew he would welcome a visit. Jim always welcomed visitors to his home in Paris.

She was far from the only guest wandering into the warm glow of his artist's workroom on a wet winter's night. Inside, people were squeezing, shoulder to shoulder, through the narrow kitchen. Strangers struck up conversations, bunched together in groups, and balancing their dinners on paper plates.

Jim had operated open-house policy at his home every Sunday evening for more than 40 years. Absolutely anyone was welcome to come for an informal dinner, all you had to do was phone or email and he would add your name to the list. No questions asked. Just put a donation in an envelope when you arrive.

There would be a buzz in the air, as people of various nationalities - locals, immigrants, travelers - milled around the small, open-plan space. A pot of hearty food bubbled on the stove and servings would be dished out onto a trestle table, so you could help yourself and continue to mingle. It was for good reason that Jim was nicknamed the "godfather of social networking." He led the way in connecting strangers, long before we outsourced it all to Silicon Valley.

At the dinners' peak, Jim would welcome up to 120 guests, filling his home, and spilling out into the cobbled back garden. An estimated 150,000 people have come over the years.

"The door was always open," says Amanda Morrow, an Australian journalist. "It was a revolving door of guests - some who wanted to stay over, and others who just wanted to say hello. Jim never said no to anyone."

Amid the outpouring of online tributes since his death in his sleep on 6 January 2021, these words from his son Jesper stand out:

The only thing that really got Jim down was people leaving. He struggled with that. He didn't like being on his own... His goal from early on was to introduce the whole world to each other. He almost succeeded.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Fellowship; Home; Outreach – Imagine the results if church members would invite others to share in an informal meal at their home. Neighbors, friends, church members, visitors to church all welcomed to mingle and fellowship in the warm, cozy atmosphere of a home.

Shifrah Combiths, a freelance writer and mother-of-five in Tallahassee, Florida, wrote about a baking hack for the website The Kitchn that was so valuable it was picked up overseas by the British tabloid The Mirror.

Combiths had a mom who used to love eating the last slice of bread in a loaf, often referred to as “the heel.” (“Save the heel for me,” her mom was fond of saying.) Later in life, Combiths was surprised to find out that her mom’s enthusiasm for the final slice of bread was a bit unusual. So, her tip is for people who don’t enjoy eating the heel.

“It’s simple,” she writes. “Use that heel of bread to keep your soft, homemade cookies, well, soft … cookies that are supposed to be soft and chewy are disappointing when they become crunchy and stale!”

Combiths says the hack works because the moisture in the bread, when in close contact with the cookies, will eventually transfer over. She even says it can be a last resort to restore some chewiness to already-hardened cookies.

“Use this cookie-saving tip when you make big batches — or you need to make baked treats the night before a gathering of friends and family.”

Combiths does offer a brief warning, however. “It’s crucial to ensure the bread is plain,” she says. “Unless you want garlic-flavored cookies.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The love of God has the power to influence others. For maximum effectiveness, remain close to God and watch his love spill over to the people in your immediate circle of relationship.

The dining room is the closest thing the American home has to an appendix—a dispensable feature that served some more important function at an earlier stage of architectural evolution. Many of them sit gathering dust, patiently awaiting the next “dinner holiday” on Easter or Thanksgiving.

That’s why the classic, walled-off dining room is getting harder to find in new single-family houses. It won’t be missed by many. Americans now tend to eat in spaces that double as kitchens or living rooms—a small price to pay for making the most of their square footage.

But in many new apartments, even a space to put a table and chairs is absent. Eating is relegated to couches and bedrooms, and hosting a meal has become virtually impossible. The housing crisis is killing off places to eat whether we like it or not, designing loneliness into American floor plans.

According to surveys in 2015 and 2016 by the National Association of Home Builders, 86 percent of households want a combined kitchen and dining room—a preference accommodated by only 75 percent of new homes. If anything, the classic dining room isn’t dying fast enough for most people’s taste.

If dining space is merging with other rooms in single-family homes, it’s vanishing altogether from newly constructed apartments. Americans might not mind what’s happening to their houses, but the evolution of apartments is a more complicated story.

Floor-plan expert Bobby Fijan said “For the most part, apartments are built for Netflix and chill.” Even though we’re dining at home more and more—going to restaurants peaked in 2000—many new apartments offer only a kitchen island as an obvious place to eat.

This is partly a response to shrinking household size. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the share of one-person households more than tripled from 1940 to 2020. A dedicated dining space might feel wasted on someone who lives alone.

As households and dining spaces have contracted, the number of people eating alone has grown. According to a 2015 report by the Food Marketing Institute, nearly half the time we spend eating is spent in isolation, a central factor in America’s loneliness epidemic and a correlate to a range of physical- and mental-health problems.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In an age when Americans are spending less and less time with one another, a table and some chairs could be just what we need for fellowship and human interaction. Make an effort to invite people over, especially during the holiday season, and especially those who live alone.

For the past eight years, the non-profit organization CARE has been tracking what it calls the year’s ten worst humanitarian crises. This year places like Angola, Zambia, Burundi, and Uganda faced famines, wars, or crises that impacted at least one million people. CARE uses a media monitoring service to count the number the crisis gets mentioned in mainstream media sources. Then it compares that number to the number of times more popular stories get mentioned.

Here are some examples from their annual report: There were over 273,000 online articles about the new Barbie film, while the abuse of women’s rights in every country in the report received next to no coverage. The crisis in Angola received the least media attention in 2023. Despite 7.3 million people in the country in desperate need of humanitarian aid, it received just 1,049 media mentions.

By comparison, 273,421 articles were written about the new iPhone 15. Taylor Swift’s world tour garnered 163,368 articles while Prince Harry’s book Spare got 215,084. Meanwhile, drought and floods in Zambia had 1,371 articles.

The CARE report concludes: “In a world where news cycles are becoming more short-lived, it is more important than ever that we collectively remember that every crisis, whether forgotten or not, brings with it a human toll.”

The northeast Portland location of Pho Gabo, a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant, was forced to close after the restaurant received an anonymous complaint about the smell of the food. The closure prompted swift condemnation from five state representatives of Vietnamese descent in the Portland area.

In response, Portland city commissioner Carmen Rubio instructed the Bureau of Development Services to pause investigating any more odor complaints until the city’s regulations can be evaluated.

The problem stems from the fact that, as currently written, if an inspector travels to the location and can smell anything food-related, they’re required to write it up. The city’s enforcement structure privileges the complaint of one anonymous person over the legion of satisfied customers patronizing the restaurant, which has been in that location for over three decades.

Five Vietnamese American state representatives issued a joint statement: “We believe that, as currently written and enforced, the city’s odor code is discriminatory and not objective by any known standards. We stand ready to work with Commissioner Rubio and ensure that city code is fair and reasonable, and ultimately the city of Portland retains the vibrant food culture celebrating our diverse community.”

A statement from an organization advocating for Asians and Pacific Islanders read, “Long used as a tactic for displacing and removing Asian communities, olfactory racism has deep roots in this country dating back hundreds of years. With this closure, our community is losing a vital small business and reinforcing harmful stereotypes and tropes around Asians, our food, culture, and right to belong.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Selfish behavior can potentially generate great loss for a community; generosity and humility, however, can multiply the blessings within a community.

These days, Americans seem divided by almost everything. But you know what has proved successful at bringing Americans of different backgrounds together? Unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks. Also, riblets, onion rings, chicken crispers, and other crowd-pleasers from affordable chain restaurants such as Olive Garden and Applebee’s.

Though sometimes banned by municipalities wanting to "preserve neighborhood character” or slow gentrification, these chains actually provide a hidden social service: They promote much more socioeconomic integration than do independently owned commercial businesses—or, for that matter, traditional public institutions.

That’s according to a provocative new paper from Maxim Massenkoff and Nathan Wilmers. The authors analyzed a massive trove of geolocation data to assess where Americans come into contact with people of different income classes than themselves—if they do at all.

Sadly, the paper also found that many public institutions we might associate with facilitating encounters across class lines instead reinforce seclusion. Parks, schools, libraries, and churches. There are exceptions, but on average, each of these establishments leads to less socioeconomic mixing, more within-income-group hobnobbing, and even more class isolation.

U.S. politics continue to be a chaotic subject, and a new poll finds the majority of Americans are rapidly losing faith in their country’s leaders. Over seven in 10 people say there’s no one they trust to save them from an end-of-the-world event.

If you’re thinking of creating your own Doomsday checklist, researchers found that the most popular items people are stocking up on include water (41%), warm clothing (39%), and extra food (38%). Additionally, one in 10 think they’ll need some extra cash when the world ends.

To decipher which U.S. states are prepping for doomsday, surveyors examined the extent of Americans’ preparations and survival plans. Leading the pack, Nebraska emerged as the most prepared, with 51% of respondents indicating they’ve begun or are considering doomsday preparations. Montana and New Mexico also rank highly on the list of states preparing for catastrophic events, with 50% and 47% of their residents, respectively, making or contemplating preparations.

Financially, the majority of respondents invested between $1,000 to $4,999 in disaster preparations, with a few in states like Montana and New Mexico splurging up to $10,000. For those feeling the urgency to prepare, researchers emphasize the importance of storing water, food, shelter, medical supplies, and hygiene items.

In CT magazine, author and podcaster Jen Wilkins writes:

It was a typical Friday night at the Wilkin house. A spontaneous dinner had collected a growing number of neighbors and friends. As the kitchen swelled with people and chatter, I leaned over to each of my kids and whispered the code they were probably expecting: “FHB.”

Family hold back. Maybe you know this strategy, too. Surveying the food relative to the guests, it became apparent that we needed a non-miraculous solution for our five loaves and two fishes. My husband prayed over the meal and then, quietly, the Wilkins slipped to the back of the line, serving themselves minimal portions to stretch the food. They knew they wouldn’t go without; it was not a matter of if they would eat but when. Worst case, we’d order a pizza once the guests had gone home.

Nobody wants to be at the end of the line. Given the choice, we want to go first, to get the full portion, to sit in the most comfortable chair. But Christ-followers understand that life is about more than doing what we want. It’s about doing what we wish. Let me explain.

We can all imagine times when we wanted to be treated better, when we longed for more care, recognition, and grace than we received from others. We are not wrong to hold these wishes. They illustrate the basic human need to be known, loved, and accepted. And what we do with how we feel about our wishes, met and unmet, will shape the course of our lives. To that end, Jesus invites us to live lives directed by wishful thinking, though not in the way we might anticipate: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12, ESV).

Put simply, Jesus tells us to do what we wish. Thinking about our own wish list, we then act accordingly toward others. We give the encouragement we wish we had received…and serve as we wish to be served. We step to the end of the line. We move to the least comfortable chair. We defer what we wish for ourselves and instead secure it for others.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every day we look for ways to do what we wish others would do for us. It’s easier to take the smaller portion when you know the lack is only temporary. This world is flat-out starving for kindness and decency. It is ravenous for meaning and purpose, and we are just the family to invite them to the table. Do it as Christ did for you.

When I was a child, my dad made up a fake holiday called Big Sandwich Night the weekend after Thanksgiving. On that night we got the longest bread we could find and built a big sandwich together and then cut it up and ate it. We got really fancy ingredients and each built our own section of sandwich before cutting it. Building the sandwich together represents community or teamwork. After dinner we would put our Christmas tree up and the holiday season was officially kicked off with Big Sandwich Night.

I grew up believing this was a real holiday that Americans everywhere celebrated until when I was eight-years-old. I asked a friend if they were excited for Big Sandwich Night and they were like “What are you talking about?” It kind of shattered my worldview, but we still celebrate it and I’ve spread the tradition to friends and partners.

Over the years as we’ve included more people, we’ve started having to graft loaves together to make a sandwich big enough for everyone. But it still communicates the core idea of everyone eating the same sandwich together in fellowship.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What a good idea to promote community with family and friends, especially in-person community.

For busy families, gathering together for dinner can feel like an impossibility. Children could use it now more than ever. Robin Black-Burns’s teenage daughter has after-school activities that fall over dinnertime, making evening meals at home a thing of the past. The SUV has become their de facto dinner table.

Robin’s daughter, 14-year-old Athena Burns, has dinner in the car four nights a week, eating during the hourlong drive home from robotics-club meetings. Robin usually arrives at her daughter’s school 15 minutes early to eat her own dinner in the front seat while waiting for Athena. Ms. Black-Burns says, “We wonder why so many kids have anxiety. Well, gee, they have a rigorous academic schedule and after-school activities and they’re eating in the car.”

In 2021, 44% of high-school students said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in the past year, according to data from the CDC. At the same time, mounting scientific research shows that gathering for regular meals and conversation might be one way to build children’s emotional resilience.

Nationwide surveys show that the number of dinners parents and children eat together has fallen in recent decades. The primary reason: the conflicting schedules of working parents and kids.

“It’s so basic that people forget about it,” says Ellen Rome, head of Adolescent Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital. Gathering around the table, Dr. Rome says, is “a useful mechanism for creating connectedness and role-modeling behaviors that parents want children to emulate. … We have a lot of adolescents who’ve devolved to having all of their meals in their bedroom. It’s a significant step away from family connection.”

Professor Jerica Berge, in a teen-eating study, has continued to follow research participants from a 2010 survey group, then-adolescents who are now in their 20s. Those who had eaten two to three family meals a week as teens had lower rates of obesity and eating disorders, as well as better mental-health outcomes than those who had eaten fewer meals together. Those young adults now give priority to dining with their own children and partners.

Young adults who had eaten meals with their families three to five times a week as adolescents had even more-significant physical and mental-health benefits.

The typical family spends just six hours together a week, thanks in part to long working hours and time spent diving down the digital device rabbit hole.

According to a study of 2,000 British parents with children at home, most agree that work shifts are hindering family quality time (56 percent). Other factors include homework (29 percent), household chores (27 percent), TV time (21 percent), social media use (20 percent), and after school activities (19 percent).

When families are at home together, 37 percent admit they don’t set aside specific time to spend with one another. The survey finds half of respondents think there are too many distractions in the home—particularly devices with screens—which impact quality time.

There’s plenty of research that shows how eating meals together as a family has positive effects on everyone. To that end, a quarter of parents would like to eat more family meals together to encourage conversation, as 42 percent say they struggle to initiate chats with their children. The most popular topics around the table when they do dine together are: school (50 percent), TV shows (48 percent), and friendships (46 percent).

Aside from mealtimes, parents are most likely to chat to their children when in the car (57 percent), putting them to bed (40 percent), and walking to and from school (38 per cent).

A recent news article featured the story of three restaurant-owning brothers in India who constantly compete and bicker for business.

B. Vivekanandhan, the 51-year-old owner of a popular restaurant called Moonrakers, competes fiercely for customers in this southern Indian holiday town. So fiercely, in fact, that fists have flown. His chief foes are his own flesh-and-blood. His older brother operates a seafood joint called Moonwalkers right across the street. Just down the same lane, his younger brother runs Moonrocks. The menus are nearly identical.

At one time, all three brothers and their families would sit down for dinner. The three brothers behind Moonrakers agree it began as a true family endeavor. No more. One of the brothers said, “When money comes, comes, comes, love goes away.”

A couple of times in 2020, two of the brothers brawled with each other in the street in front of befuddled customers. “Sometimes it’s like a street fight,” one brother said. “People say, ‘This is a complicated family. We just came down to eat.’”

It’s all proving baffling to tourists, who frequently are stopped on the street by two of the brothers who were giving pitches for their rival restaurants. One resident said she wanted to eat at the original Moonrakers, but was bewildered by the competing eateries. Her husband, who swore he had dined at Moonrakers years ago, was even more confused.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The church looks just as petty and ridiculous when we don’t walk in unity in Christ.

Everyone knows your family can be a pain in the neck sometimes, but regular family dinners can be the key to reduced stress levels in the household. This was found in a survey by the American Heart Association (AHA), who research chronic stress which can increase rates for all manner of heart diseases.

Of the 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed in September 2022, 91% of respondents said their family was less stressed when they share meals together. 84% say they wish they could share a meal more often with loved ones.

Dr. Erin Michos said, “Sharing meals with others is a great way to reduces stress, boost self-esteem, and improve social connection, particularly for kids. Chronic, constant stress can also increase your lifetime risk of heart disease and stroke. So, it is important for people to find ways to reduce and manage stress as much as possible, as soon as possible.”

Connecting with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors benefits people beyond stress relief. In fact, the survey found a majority of people say sharing a meal reminds them of the importance of connecting with other people, and say it reminds them to slow down and take a break.

Those surveyed say they are more likely (59%) to make healthier food choices when eating with other people but have difficulty aligning schedules with their friends or family to do so. Overall, respondents reported eating alone about half of the time.

Dr. Michos said, “It’s not always as easy as it sounds to get people together at mealtime. Like other healthy habits, give yourself permission to start small and build from there.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Eating together as a family takes sacrifice and planning. Start from an early age with your children (but it’s never too late). Turn off the TV and cell phones. Plan for some conversation and allow even the youngest to contribute.

Writing for The Atlantic, David Merritt Johns says that a most confounding story appeared in his inbox by a tipster who prefaced it by saying, “I’m sorry, it cracks me up every time I think about this.”

Harvard doctoral research student Andres Korat found a curious result from a 2018 study: Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems. After consulting with his department chair, Korat set out to debunk his initial finding with more research, but it ended up being stubbornly consistent.

Korat wrote in his findings, “There are few plausible biological explanations for these results.” But he also mentioned several prior studies that found similar results. Mark Pereira is an epidemiologist who authored one of those prior studies. He said, “I still to this day don’t have an answer for it.”

In his deep dive into the story, Johns claims that several medical researchers ended up spinning their data into conclusions more readily acceptable to mainstream audiences. Instead of touting the health benefits of ice cream, they pivoted to yogurt. One research paper read: “Higher intake of yogurt is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. Whereas other dairy foods and consumption of total dairy are not.”

“The conclusions weren’t exactly accurately written,” acknowledged Dariush Mozaffarian, who co-authored the paper. “Saying no foods were associated—ice cream was associated.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even with advances in medical knowledge and technology, the human body is complex and full of surprises. Only God understands it fully, and our best attempts are foolish compared to God's wisdom.

As a result of a streak of good behavior, over one thousand inmates from the Snake River Correctional Institution were served dinner from a local Burger King franchise. Amber Campbell, speaking for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said such meals help people in prison feel normal.

“Some of these men hadn’t had a Whopper for years,” said Campbell. “The things we might just take for granted in our day-to-day lives are things that people don’t have in prison. We want to make good neighbors of the folks who are incarcerated.”

The cost of the food was paid for by the prisoners themselves, although a former inmate says that cost can be prohibitive. “If you don’t have someone on the outside sending you money, you won’t be going to many of these,” said Luke Wirkkala. He lived at Snake River for four years before his murder conviction was overturned and he was later acquitted. He said, “Just having food that is closer to normal makes you feel, even for just a short while, like you are not in prison. You never totally forget where you’re at, but it’s just a little lessening of the pressure for an hour or two.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Rewards for good behavior can result in more good behavior. When we offer hope along with punishment, we can show God’s mercy and forgiveness.