This Christian dietitian in Arizona isn't entirely sold on the 'biblical eating' trend

There’s a new trend on social media that has some folks scratching their heads: biblical eating.

"OK, you guys, so this is what it looks like practically to eat biblically. This took me four minutes. It’s just chopped tomatoes, cucumber, pickled red onion, feta and then olive oil, apple cider vinegar, sea salt and pepper. So good. Literally so much better than just a protein bar when you’re hungry and you need something, and it takes literally three to four minutes. So, cheers. Thank you, Lord, for this food," an influencer says.

The actual rules around this seem up for interpretation — anything from eating only what’s directly mentioned in the Bible, to eating whole foods, to cutting out-ultra processed foods.

It’s a trend that’s been popular in the past, but there seems to be a resurgence of it today as the Make America Healthy Again movement pushes for more regulation around ultra-processed foods and awareness about what we’re putting in our bodies.

But while Valley-based dietitian Kristen Bunger often takes a Christian point of view in her work as a dietitian, she’s not entirely sold on the biblical eating trend.

Bunger is with Body and Soul Nutrition Counseling. The Show spoke with her more about it.

Kristen Bunger

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Full conversation

KRISTEN BUNGER: I feel like I get frustrated because there is a lot of judgment that can be brought into the conversation — like right off the bat, basically. Like, if you’re not eating this way, then you’re not eating right.

And, you know, there’s nothing new under the sun, and there have been lots of different diets and diet trends that have pointed back to biblical truth. And the fact of the matter is, is we can eat biblically without having to be so incredibly precise in eating like just the list of foods that are listed in the Bible.

Because I don’t know about you, but I have children and they’re not going to eat fresh fish every single day, or like a lot of people can’t afford to buy the things that are listed in the Bible. And so, are we — am I going to look at someone as a dietitian and go, "You’re not eating righteously, you’re not eating well, you’re not eating what you should be eating because you can’t afford these things, or because your, your children won’t eat them, and so you’re not cooking them for dinner as much as maybe you should?"

So, there’s a lot of judgment that can be cast and a lot of legalism that can be brought into the conversation of biblical eating, and that is the opposite of anything that you should be labeling biblical.

LAUREN GILGER: And we wanted to talk to you about this in particular because you work with clients on, you know, creating healthy diets for them, but if appropriate for that client, right, like you do incorporate Christian principles into this, you know, dietitian realm, which is not an obvious connection, I don’t think, for a lot of folks. Like, I think a lot of people think, you know, religion lives in this part of my world, but not like the what I eat every day part of my world.

How do you think about incorporating Christianity and your faith or someone’s faith into the diet they have?

KRISTEN BUNGER: Well, as a Christian, I can obviously relate to Christians the most, and so when someone comes to me and says, "I’m a Christian, I want you — I want to speak that language with you. I’m all about that," and we have a great time doing that.

But even outside of those sessions, we are physical beings, but we’re also spiritual beings. And we live in a physical world, but there’s also a lot of spiritual things that go on. And so even when someone doesn’t have a Christian faith, or a faith at all, there’s still, there’s still a spiritual nature about taking care of our bodies and taking care of ourselves in a way that is honoring to the way that we were created.

And again, even if they don’t believe that we were created by a creator, which is what I believe, I don’t have to speak that language in order to encourage them, encourage anyone to spiritually take care of themselves. And that is really by honoring the cues, the hunger and fullness cues, the cues to be, the cues that we get when we’re tired. We have all of these signals that are being sent to us by our bodies.

And when we don’t resist that, and when we don’t just have kind of this superpower of acceptance — like, "This is what I need, this is what I like to eat, this is what I can afford, this is what season I am in, in my life" — when we have those kind of spiritual awakenings where we kind of align ourselves with what we feel like we, we can do, what’s needed, what’s necessary to take care of ourselves, it’s an awakening, whether you claim Christ or not. It’s a spiritual thing.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So you work with patients of all faiths, sounds like.

KRISTEN BUNGER: I do, I do.

LAUREN GILGER: But when you can, you think this is a useful way for them to, I guess, understand the why behind what you’re trying to do.

KRISTEN BUNGER: Exactly. When I can speak to a, another human being that really believes that there’s a creator and he created us, there’s something deeper and, and incredibly meaningful that comes along with all of the things that, that I just talked about as far as aligning ourselves with what our bodies are telling us and what our bodies need.

LAUREN GILGER: I want to ask you about your background, as well, because I know you used to work at an inpatient eating disorder treatment facility, right, like here in Arizona, working with everybody — kids, adolescents, adults, it sounds like — to really try to fix disordered eating.

I wonder, like, when you look at it from that point of view, does this idea of, you know, the trend, the social media trend of biblical eating look a little different?

KRISTEN BUNGER: Yes, so I will — I have to be honest. When your producer reached out to me for this interview, I rolled my eyes when I read the email because I was like, "biblical eating." So, this is where the — my two worlds overlap. So, I’m a Christian, and I’m a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders. I have met with many Christians who will use the Bible to support their disordered eating.

And that is where the eye-roll comes from because that is where the legalism comes in. I get really frustrated when I have clients who will reach out to me and who want me, as a Christian, to say, "Yes, this is the only way to eat. This is the only way to, to do it," because that is when you’re kind of getting into the realm of what we label as orthorexia, or basically like the way you eat becoming your faith and becoming the way that you — that attain righteousness.

And that is like a whole new gospel, and anything outside of the gospel of Christ is offensive. It’s not true. And there’s just a whole lot of grace in the scriptures. There’s a — in the story of the Old Testament and the New Testament coming together, there is this epic story of grace, not only for us to be saved as Christians, if that’s what we believe, but also in every area of our life, food included.

And so, it’s just this — it’s kind of this dichotomous relationship, Lauren, that I have with food as a Christian dietitian because I very much believe that when I eat or when I promote eating that is mostly well-balanced, it’s mostly whole foods. That that is what, what biblical eating is.

But I also do not look at the Bible and go, "You know, it only mentions these 35 foods or 45 foods, whatever it is. So, I can only eat these. Right? I — And, and if I eat anything outside of that, I must be sinning. That’s where it gets really wonky.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well, what do you make of the monetization of all of this? Like, in the midst of this world of GLP-1s and, you know, social media trends and the effect of, you know, all of those kind of Make America Healthy Again efforts on social media, and so many people profiting from them, what do you think about that?

KRISTEN BUNGER: You know, I’ve got mixed emotions about all of this, and that included. But I honestly don’t have a big issue with people trying to monetize their framework. I just think we have to have discernment to go, "That’s good for them, but that — I don’t want to do that," or "That’s not going to work for me," or, "You know, can I take a few things from that and adopt that?"

Like, if someone is preaching like the biblical eating thing and they’re always eating breakfast — like, I am a breakfast evangelist. Every one of my clients will tell you that. I love breakfast. You have to eat breakfast. And so, if I look at any of the influencers’ frameworks, I can, as a dietitian, go, "You know, there are definitely some good things about this."

But I, I hope that not everyone in the world looks at, at this person and says, "Like, I have to do that in order to be healthy," because it’s just not true.

LAUREN GILGER: That was my conversation with dietitian Kristen Bunger with Body and Soul Nutrition Counseling here in the Valley, about the rising trend of biblical eating.