Eating my words

     I didn't want to like it. As a matter of fact, after learning about it, I made my mind up NOT to like it, to scorn it. But now I find myself in the unenviable position of having to set aside my previous prejudices and eat my words.
     I am speaking of Ezekiel Bread, which I tried for the first time over Thanksgiving at my in-laws' in Charlotte. For those of you that are not familiar with this bread, it is a sprouted grain loaf based on a recipe found in the Old Testament. From the website of the company that makes it, Food for Life, here is the advertising line:
Ezekiel 4:9^® products are crafted in the likeness of the Holy Scripture verse
 Ezekiel 4:9^® to ensure unrivaled honest nutrition and pure, delicious flavors
    
    Okay, so here is the source of my problem with this "Biblical" bread. It is composed according to the verse Ezekiel 4:9  "And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them." So it sounds like this is a Godly recipe for sound nutrition, better than your grandmother's timeworn coconut cake recipe jotted down on the flyleaf of a stained copy of Joy of Cooking, a loaf to nourish your body and your soul, right? Well, to get the answer to this heavenly prescription we must read further. Ezekiel is instructed to eat this bread once a day, the measure of 20 shekels, which my research indicates is about 8 ounces, and with it drink 1/6th of a hin of water, which is probably about a pint. Furthermore, he is to form it into a cake and bake it over a fire of human dung, so that the people of Israel will "eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them"(Shortly thereafter, Ezekiel begs God that he not defile the bread by preparing it using human dung, to which God relents and allows the dung of cattle to be used). In other words, God's ritual instructions through his prophet are an indicator of what is intended for Israel in captivity in its exile. They will be sent among "unclean" people who are symbolized by their "unclean" food. The paucity of the ration is also a reminder of what Israel will suffer in being besieged before its captivity and in its exile.The back of my loaf of Ezekiel Bread indicates that 20 shekels or 8 ounces weight as a daily meal results in around 550 calories. This scant ration plus a pint of water are NOT a recipe for health and superior nutrition; rather, they barely sustain life, at its most miserable level.
      So, Punishment Bread. Forsaken Bread. Tastes Like Crap Bread. Certainly not God's own holy recipe for low-glycemic and gluten-free thriving. When I first saw this product in the high-priced natural-foods section of my grocery store, I was ASTONISHED at the absolute nerve of the manufacturer. HOW could they so blindly miss the mark, miss the point, not read the rest of the chapter, and not understand the import of the Scripture so blithely being quoted. Along the lines of a movie review stating "to say this is one of the best films of the year would be a horrendous lie" being redacted to "one of the best films of the year". HOW could a company so take one Bible verse out of context and HOW could unquestioning sheeple so gobble that crap up?
       But.....over Thanksgiving, I had occasion to try Ezekiel Bread at my health-nut mother-in-law's house. Absolutely unexpectedly, it tasted stunningly wonderful. Not weak or pasty at all, it has a nutty, grainy crispness and fullness like the best of homemade wheat bread, and it somehow brings to my mind that little health store in everyone's home town. You know the one, that sells raisins coated with carob-bean chocolate, homeopathic remedies, and blacklight posters and that has a rack of government-conspiracy magazines next to the soy-milk-powder. Biting into it, I could almost smell patchouli-drenched hippies and hear the rustling of bead curtains hung behind the displays of hemp necklaces. Mmmm, mmmm, good.
     Looking past the lack of understanding in the application of Scripture to the bread, I must congratulate the bakers on getting the taste and texture just right. They did take liberties with the (ahem) "Biblical" recipe by using sprouted grains rather than following the text exactly, but what they brought forth is full of protein, fiber, and that most wonderful of foodie characteristics, mouth feel.  And I realize that even when something is inherently ill-researched and ill-founded and, well, just feels wrong, some good may still come of it. Maybe there is hope, after all, for those of us who begin all wrong-footed with the best of intentions that quickly go off-track.
    Anyway, pass me a slice of that bread, will you? But hold the dung.