Adventist Food

Posted on: March 9, 2023 | By: exsda | Filed under: Adventist Culture, Growing up Adventist

For the past few days I’ve been reading some of the comments in The Survey (take the ex-Adventist survey). Particularly those under Question 32:

Are there any Seventh-day Adventist cultural practices that you continue, even though you no longer believe? (Check all that apply.)

You can see the spread after 227 responses to the question:

51%, or over half of respondents to this question said they continued the food tradition of Adventism in some way (almost 15% higher than the next most commonly selected option: “I don’t continue any practices” at 35.2%).

This rings true for me on several levels. Some of my earliest food memories are of specifically Adventist things like Nuteena and Tuno. Beyond the actual food itself, memories of my formative years growing up Adventist involve settings where food would have been consumed with other Adventists: potlucks, social events at or related to the church, the cafeteria at Andrews University.

As anyone who has spent years inside the Adventist bubble knows, there is almost no escape from the nearly constant calculations around food. I remember food, and specifically the question of whether there would be Adventist-appropriate food as being very much top of mind in any setting where I was outside the bubble. It was impossible to meet a non-Adventist acquaintance for lunch without needing to make a food calculation, impossible to visit a non-Adventist home for a meal without clarifying food issues in advance. Adventist food rules colored every camp out or beach picnic, every vacation, every birthday party, every occasion that involved food. And whether you choose to follow the Adventist food rules or not the calculation was always there: Is this food “clean”?

The type of food that you prepare and the type of food you eat says a lot about you, in Adventist circles. For many Seventh-day Adventists, following food rules is a way of showing how devout and how pious they are, a way to show how dedicated they are to the cause. As an employee of the church system, based in another country, I can remember earnest conversations with visitors about food. Was this food “clean”? Throughout my years inside the Adventist community I was regularly tested for my level of alignment with Adventist orthodoxy and food itself was the test.

Conspicuously breaking food rules was also a way to demonstrate or earn status as a rebel. In SDA grade school, the kid who drank Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper was always the “bad kid.” When I was a student missionary in a country famous for its’ street food, social circles within our group coalesced almost instantly based on how comfortable we were breaking Adventist food rules. (I was a “bad kid” in that setting, and there were few things more irritating than going out to eat with finnicky Seventh-day Adventist eaters.) It didn’t take us long to learn with whom we could explore the cuisine of that place without a lot of pearl-clutching about SDA food rules.

During my years of slowly quiet quitting Adventism, the sense of a world of food that was mine to explore was intensely exhilarating and also intimidating. I ate some truly weird and exotic stuff in those early years. During those same years, when I first sort of came out to my parents as no longer a believer, my (and my family’s) food decisions and practices were among the most difficult for them to take. Dinners out could end in awkward silence or tears if my kids ordered shrimp or a ham sandwich. We’re mostly past the silence and tears now, but the powerful statement made by the food I chose to eat – that I was no longer part of that community of faith – was, I am certain, very difficult and painful for the devout Adventists who loved (and still love) me.

 

Having been away from the Church for years, now, I have mostly stopped thinking about the food rules, but in odd ways they are always there. I check the sugar content of things and very rarely drink carbonated soft drinks. Although I grew up having “clean” meat from time to time, I still do not like the taste of pork. More recently I have re-started cooking some Adventist dishes: tater-tot & mushroom soup casserole with Veja-links, and sometimes Special-K loaf (full disclosure: at my house we never stopped the tradition of “haystacks”). I know that Loma Linda brand meat substitutes are not particularly healthy, but I’ve eaten so much weird stuff around the world that I don’t think the occasional Prime Stake is going to hurt too much.

And perhaps having now made the sometimes painful transition out, I feel freer to look back with nostalgia on some of the food that I used to like. FriChik is no longer a statement about my belief system, but is rather a way to reconnect with where I am from, on my terms, as I choose. From the safety of outside and beyond the reach of the Adventist system some of those dishes are even comforting.

Now I know, from reading the answers to Q32, that I am not alone.

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3 responses to “Adventist Food”

  1. Andrea says:

    haystacks will never die. haystacks are what manna from heaven is made of.

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