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Welcome back to the Chasing Eden podcast, where we rediscover
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your body's divine design and explore how faith, science, and
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ancient wisdom come together for whole person health. I'm your host,
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Carolyn Thompson, and thank you for joining me today. Today
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we're starting a conversation that's surprisingly relevant to modern life,
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even though it began thousands of years ago. We're going
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to talk about kosher eating, not as a religious obligation,
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not as a moral requirement, not as something anyone has
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to do, but as a window into how ancient people
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thought about food, survival and the human body, and why
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so much of that thinking turns out to have been
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remarkably wise. Because here's the honest truth. We live in
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the most technologically advanced food system in human history and
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also one of the sickest. We have more choices than ever,
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more conveniences than ever, more calories than ever, and yet
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digestive problems are everywhere. Autoimmune disease is rising, inflammation has
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become normal, Metabolic issues show up younger and younger. So
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the question isn't did ancient people know less than we do?
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The question might actually be did they understand a few
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things we've forgotten? To understand why ancient food systems looked
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the way that they did, you have to imagine a
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world without refrigeration, freezers, preservatives, antibiotics, food inspections, or even
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basic sanitation systems. Food wasn't entertainment. It was risk. Every
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meal carried the possibility of illness, sometimes death. People didn't
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need studies to know that some foods made them sick
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more often. They learned it the hard way. Over generations,
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cultures noticed patterns and quietly adjusted their habits. Some animals
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were safer, some spoiled faster, Some caused strange illnesses, some
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were associated with parasites, some were linked to outbreaks. Long
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before anyone understood bacteria, people still understood cause and effect.
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One of the things we don't talk about enough is
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how much food systems shape history. We like to think
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that wars are decided by generals and weapons. In reality,
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many campaigns failed because armies were weakened by disease, contaminated food,
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or bad water before they even reached a battlefield. In
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the ancient world, dysantry, parasites, and food poisoning could destroy
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an army faster than any enemy. Whole cities suffered when
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food handling broke down. Whole regions were weakened by reoccurring outbreaks.
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So when a culture developed reliable food rules that reduced sickness,
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that culture gained a massive survival advantage. This is one
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of the quiet reasons ancient Israel endured as long as
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it did in such a harsh part of the world.
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There's something else Ancient cultures understood intuitively that modern psychology
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has recently rediscovered. Simple rules that are always followed be
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complex rules that are sometimes followed. The Kosher system wasn't
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built on portion sizes, calories, or complicated chemistry. It was
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built on clear categories. This is food, this is not That.
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Kind of clarity reduces mistakes, and in a world where
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mistakes could kill you, clarity was mercy. Modern peace people
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are incredibly casual about eating. We eat while distracted, while driving,
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while stressed, while exhausted, without much thought at all. Ancient
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people were careful. They had to be. Food was inspected,
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food was smelled, food was watched, food was respected. Cultures
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that weren't careful paid for it. Almost no ancient culture
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believed that everything that could be eaten should be eaten.
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That idea really only shows up in the modern industrial era,
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when food supply chains get long, consequences get delayed, responsibility
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gets outsourced. For most of human history, if something made
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people sick, they stopped eating it. Over time, that became
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tradition than culture, than law. This is where Jordan Reuben's
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work becomes so helpful for modern audiences. He doesn't frame
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ancient food wisdom as mystical or magical. He frames it
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as design aware. His core idea is simple, if something
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is designed, it usually works best when it's used according
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to that design. He's careful to say this isn't about
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religion or earning anything. It's about working with your biology
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instead of against it. That's a refreshingly modern way to
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look at ancient ideas. Instead of asking is this allowed,
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he asks is this compatible with how the body actually works.
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One of the great illusions of modern life is the
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idea that technology has made us immune to consequences. We
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assume if it's sold in a store, it must be fine.
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If it doesn't make us sick immediately, it must be safe.
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If everyone eats it, it must be okay. But the
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body doesn't work on immediate feedback. It works on accumulation, inflammation,
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builds quietly, damage stacks slowly. Systems compensate until they don't.
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Ancient people didn't have the luxury of ignoring consequences for
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twenty years. They felt them right away. This brings us
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to animals like pigs and shellfish. From an ecological point
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of view, these animals are important. They clean up, they
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eat waste, they consume decaying matter. They process things other
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animals avoid. That's not a flaw, it's a function. But
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that function also means they tend to accumulate toxins, carry
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more parasites, concentrate whatever is in their environment. Modern health
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voices like doctor Acts and doctor Burg often talk about
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this in terms of inflammation and toxic gload. The ancient
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world didn't have that language, but they noticed the outcomes.
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One of the biggest differences between ancient and modern thinking
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is that ancient cultures didn't treat food as purely individual choice.
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They treated it as infrastructure. If your food system makes
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people sick, your society weakens. If your society weakens, you
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don't last very long. So cultures paid close attention to
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what patterns worked over time. Many cultures had food taboos.
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What made the kosher system different was that it was consistent, structured,
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carefully transmitted, and built into daily life. It created a
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culture of attentatives. Attentiveness around food. People thought before they ate.
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That alone changes everything. For about seventy years, modern culture
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believed we had out engineered biology. We believed processing didn't matter,
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origins didn't matter, quality didn't matter. The body would just adapt.
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Now we're discovering the body keeps score inflammation, autoimmune disease,
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digestive disorders, metabolic syndrome. These aren't random, they're systemic. Ancient
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people would probably find it bizarre that we eat without
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knowing where our food comes from, eat without knowing what's
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in it, eat without thinking about long term effects, eat
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without expecting consequences. To them, that would look reckless. At
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their best, ancient food rules did three things. They reduced sickness,
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the increased survival. They trained people to think before consuming.
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That last one might be the most important. This isn't
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about romanticizing the past. It's about learning from it. We're
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not trying to live in tents. We're trying to live
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in bodies that work well. One of the things things
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we forget in a world of refrigerators and freezers is
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that For most of human history, food didn't wait patiently
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for you to eat it. It fought back, It spoiled,
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it rotted, it attracted insects, it became dangerous, and it
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did all of that very quickly. So ancient cultures weren't
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just concerned with what they ate. They were deeply concerned
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with how food was handled, prepared, and preserved. Meat in particular,
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was risky. If it wasn't treated properly, it could become
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unsafe in a matter of hours. This is one of
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the reasons you see so many ancient traditions around, like
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drying meat, salting meat, cooking it thoroughly, and being extremely
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cautious with anything that looked or smelled quote unquote off.
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These weren't cultural quirks. They were survival strategies. Long before
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any one understood bacteria, people noticed something very consistent. Meat
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that still contained a lot of blood spoiled faster, it
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smelled worse, it attracted insects more quickly, and it made
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people sick more often. Blood is a nutrient rich environment
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for microbes. Even without knowing what microbes were, ancient people
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knew the results, so cultures all over the world developed
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practices around draining blood, salting meat, and thoroughly cooking it.
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What makes the Biblical kosher system interesting is that it
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made these practices non optional and consistent. Not because ancient
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people were spiritual, but because consistency saves lives. This is
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an important distinction that modern culture has almost completely lost.
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Something can be etible and still not be wise to
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eat regularly. You can technically eat a lot of things.
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That doesn't mean your body will thrive on them. Ancient
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cultures were far more comfortable with this idea than we are.
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They understood that just because something could be eaten didn't
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mean it belonged in the daily diet. Modern food culture
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often confuses availability with suitability, convenience with wisdom, marketing with safety.
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For most of human history, food preparation was a craft.
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You knew that the animal, you knew the source, you
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knew the process, you knew the risks. Today food is
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an industry, long supply chains, invisible processes, unknown origins, and
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lots of trust placed in systems we never see. That
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has advantages, it also creates distance between us and consequences.
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No matter how advanced our food systems become, the body
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hasn't changed. It still has the digestive system, the same
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immune system, the same detox pathways, the same limitations. It
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still reacts to toxins, pathogens, inflammatory foods, poor quality inputs.
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Technology can delay consequences, but it can't eliminate them. Now,
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one of the things that Jordan Rubman does so well
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is translate ancient wisdom into modern language. He doesn't ask
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people to live like it's one thousand BC. He asked
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them to think like designers, to ask themselves, what was
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this body built to process well? What kinds of foods
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consistently create problems? What patterns show up over and over
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in human health. That's not religious thinking, that's engineering thinking.
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This whole conversation is not about being perfect. It's not
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about creating fear. It's not about obsessing, which is something
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I have a tendency to do. It's about direction, about
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stacking small, sensible decisions in your favor over time. Ancient
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cultures did not eat perfectly, They just ate more carefully.
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So the real shift is invited you to ask the
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question from what do I feel like eating to what
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actually supports the kind of health I want long term?
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And that's a very different question. And if you could
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bring an ancient physician or a healer into the modern
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world and show them our chronic disease patterns. Can you
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imagine wouldn't they be shocked to see what is happening
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today with Americans health and health around the world. They
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would probably say something like, you've disconnected food from consequence
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or they lived in a world where consequences were immediate,
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so and we live in a world where they seem
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to be delayed. It's like a quiet poisoning that's happening
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to us as we eat all these chemicals and preservatives
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that were created for our convenience but are actually foreign
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to our bodies and creating illness in them. One of
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the hidden benefits of any thoughtful food system is that
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it slows you down, It makes you think, it makes
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you plan, it makes you more aware of what you're
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putting into your body, and that alone improves outcomes. So
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here's the real question we're left with after this part.
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What if ancient food wisdom wasn't primitive but more honest
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about how the body actually works? And what if modern
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health struggles aren't mysterious but the predictable result of ignoring
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design for a very long time. So in the next part,
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we're going to get more practical. We're going to talk
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about why kosher food handling became a gold standard for safety,
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why blood removal and careful processing mattered so much, how
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kosher certification works today, what those symbols on food packages
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actually mean, and why even modern secular food companies respect
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the system not as religion but as reliability. The past
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doesn't have all of the answers, but it often has
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better questions. And one of the best questions it keeps
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asking us is this, are we eating in a way
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that works with our bodies or constantly asking them to
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clean up after us. That's the heart of this. When
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we come back, we'll explore how kosher food handling and
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preparation became one of the most trusted food safety systems
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in the world, and why its influence is still everywhere today.
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We spent the first part of the series asking what
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people ate and why certain ancient food systems avoided particular animals.
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Now we're going to shift the focus to a different,
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but equally important question, how was food handled? Because in
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the ancient world, food didn't just become dangerous based on
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what it was. It became dangerous based on what happened
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to it after it was killed, harvested, or gathered. This
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is where kosher wisdom becomes especially fascinating, not as a
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list of foods, but as a system of process care
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and consistency. In many ways, it's one of the earliest
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examples of a comprehensive food safety framework, not in scientific language,
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not with laboratories, but with habits, rules, and repetition. Even today,
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with all of our modern technology, a huge percentage of
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food born illness doesn't come from bad food. It comes
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from things like improper handling, cross contamination, inadequate cooking, poor storage,
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or breakdowns in hygiene. In other words, the danger often
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isn't the ingredient, it's the process. Ancient people didn't have
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germ theory, but they absolutely understood patterns. They knew that
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when certain steps were skipped, people got sick more often.
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Over time, cultures that survive learned to build ritual and
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routine around food preparation. One of the quiet strengths of
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the kosher system is that it doesn't rely on individual
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judgment in the moment. It relies on standard practice. And
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I might want to point this out because some people
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were saying on social media that if you wanted to
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get your airline food first, to just request kosher when
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you were paying for your ticket. And those people who
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are kosher and I think vegan, vegetarian, they all get
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their food first before anybody else. That's just one little
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tidbit I thought i'd throw in there now. When something
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is standardized, fewer mistakes happen, and that's true in things
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like aviation, medicine, engineering, and food safety. The kosher system
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created a world where food wasn't prepared however someone felt
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that day, it was prepared the same careful way every time.
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That kind of consistency dramatically reduces risk. We touched on
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this briefly in Part one, but it's worth slowing down here.
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The blood removal, which became central across many ancient cultures.
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People noticed that meat containing a lot of residual blood
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spoiled faster, smelled worse, attracted insects more quickly, and made
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people sick more often. Blood is biologically rich, it's full