V:4 N:166

“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’”
Mark 7:18-20

Sometimes you might be concerned about children who are not overweight, but they seem to gravitate toward sweets or “junk food” quite a bit. You want to look for indicators that would suggest that your child is harboring a greed for the sweets and is thereby turning off their natural biological feedback that would normally call for variety. Like we have said before, be sure to provide a wide variety of foods throughout the week so your child can eat what their body is calling for. God put all foods on earth for us to enjoy – and He did not accidentally leave the Basic Four food groups out of the Bible!

If you don’t see any indications that your child is bypassing their normal need for variety but just notice that they are gravitating toward “junk foods,” be careful that you aren’t labeling something as “junk food” that is not. For example, pizza contains bread, tomato sauce, cheese, and meat. A hamburger meal consists of meat, bread, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and potatoes (fries). A burrito and taco contain bread, meat, beans, cheese, lettuce, cornmeal, tomatoes, and sour cream. All these items, when served on your dinner table, would be considered balanced – but when we pick them up at a drive-through, they become “unhealthy.” God did not make broccoli righteous and ice cream sinful. All foods are clean in moderation, and in the same way, any food is unhealthy if overeaten, including lettuce or broccoli.

Some people’s concern is that “junk food” contains too many fat grams. Well, if your child is eating according to physical hunger and fullness, chances are they are only eating a small amount of a “junk food” meal, thus cutting their intake of fat grams from the start. They may be eating a sugar-filled cream pastry, but they may only eat half, or if they do finish it, they won’t eat another for a long time.

It is more God’s idea that we not worry about what we eat or drink. He does not want us to worry excessively about the food’s content. His main concern is that the HEART is not GREEDY for the food, no matter if that food is a salad or a burrito!