Food was always considered sacred among traditional peoples. They ate to live in abundance, and they expressed gratitude to their deity for the animals and the earth that provided them with nourishment for a healthy life. Almost every culture throughout history has tied food directly to worship or gratitude.
- Indigenous peoples gave thanks before hunting, planting, and harvesting. Corn, buffalo, salmon—each was honored with ceremony.
- Ancient Hebrews offered the “first fruits” of harvest to God (Deut. 26).
- Ancient Greeks and Romans gave offerings of grain, wine, and animals to their gods.
- Hindus dedicate food to their deity, then eat it as blessed food (prasada).
- Shinto Japan honors rice and sake as offerings to the kami.
- Christians have long tied feasts, fasts, and prayers of thanksgiving to meals.
So yes—cultures everywhere have recognized food as more than fuel. It was bound up in gratitude, humility, and acknowledgment of a Divine source. Dr. Weston A. Price observed this reverence firsthand with different “primitive” groups around the world that he visited. This comment is interesting:
“Fundamentally they are spiritual and have a devout reverence for an all-powerful, all-pervading power which not only protects and provides for them, but accepts them as a part of that great encompassing soul if they obey Nature’s laws.”
The Swiss of Loetschental Valley, for example, recognized the presence of God in the life-giving butter made when cows grazed on alpine grasses. Their priest led them in thanksgiving, lighting a wick in the first butter of the season and letting it burn in a small sanctuary as an act of worship. The concept is beautiful:
“They recognize the presence of Divinity in the life-giving qualities of the butter made in June when the cows have arrived for pasturage near the glaciers. [The priest] gathers the people together to thank the kind Father for the evidence of his Being in the life-giving qualities of butter and cheese made when the cows eat the grass near the snow line. This worshipful program includes the lighting of a wick in a bowl of the first butter made after the cows have reached the luscious summer pasturage. This wick is permitted to burn in a special sanctuary built for the purpose. The natives of the valley are able to recognize the superior quality of their June butter, and ... pay it due homage.”
When I began studying nutrition, I realized that my health cannot be separated from the health of what I eat. Healthy soil produces healthy plants, which feed healthy animals—and then nourish me. It’s a beautiful cycle: healthy soil → healthy plant → healthy animal → healthy me. But it only works when each part is cared for according to its sacred design.
That realization gave me a deep respect for the living conditions of the plants and animals I eat. Were they caged, or allowed to roam and graze as they were created to? What did they eat— according to their sacred design, or man-made substitutes? The sacredness of food is hard to see when it’s grown in a laboratory or ultra-processed with synthetics and toxins. That may be man’s version of health, but it is not of sacred design. And it shows in the way we eat, too. Sitting in a fast-food place or grabbing a box off the shelf doesn’t inspire gratitude or reverence. Compare that to a meal prepared from whole, living foods—raised in healthy soil, with care and respect. That kind of food naturally invites gratitude to the Giver of every good gift.
Genesis reminds us that God called all His creations good and gave us stewardship over them. That stewardship means showing sacred respect for the soil, plants, and animals we depend on. Industrial agriculture and food processing fall short of that holy mandate.
So when we treat food as sacred, we aren’t just eating—we are practicing gratitude, honoring the sanctity of their creation, and living in harmony with the natural order He designed.A Voice of Wisdom — Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin, a successful ecological farmer (I’ve been to his farm several times!), man of faith, and student of the Bible, asks piercing questions in his book, The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: “Is a foodscape that hurts people godly? … Shouldn’t our food and farming models be more resilient, creating healing and abundance rather than sickness and scarcity?”
Then he asks the question which many have asked, “if life is so special, what gives us the right to kill and eat? … How is the pigness of the pig reverenced when we enjoy bacon for breakfast?”
Viewing life as mechanical, like industrial farming does, cheapens it, which in turn cheapens the death. Is it possible that when we cheapen life through CAFOs and a cheap food policy, that our culture wrestles with increased violence among humans? So, then, the answer to the dilemma is to honor the uniqueness of the animals and plants we eat by growing and raising them in the environment that is right for them, according to their uniqueness. Perhaps we as a people will start thinking of the respect we should give to all life.
Food is life. And if food is sacred, then life and death must both be reverenced.
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