Holy Cow! Does God Care about What We Eat? [Paperback]

Hope Egan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2005

Join Messiah Magazine editor and best-selling author Hope Egan on her personal journey through what the Bible says about eating meat. With the help of author and Bible teacher D. Thomas Lancaster, Hope helps you see how science and Scripture brilliantly intertwine. Promoting neither legalism nor vegetarianism, Holy Cow! gently challenges followers of Jesus to take a fresh look at how they live out their faith and what Christian obedience looks like.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Author and speaker Hope Egan seeks to understand and live out God’s design for eating—and share that information with others. Author of three books, including Holy Cow! Does God Care about What We Eat? (First Fruits of Zion, 2005), Hope is also an associate editor for Messiah Magazine, a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a speaker for the Spiritual Spa. She also co-leads a food ministry at her church.

Egan’s passion evolved from her own food journey. After years of struggling with compulsive eating and with chronic health issues, she looked to God for the power to make better choices and for the wisdom to know which foods He created for us to eat. Her life’s subsequent transformation has fueled her desire to point to God as the ultimate food counselor and nutritionist. Through her healthy eating ministry, she has fielded hundreds of questions about God’s design for eating. Hope knows firsthand that people want to understand this topic—especially as it relates to meat.

A Jewish believer in Jesus, Hope delights in sharing the amazing things God has done in her life and the wisdom she has learned along the way.

Product Details

• Paperback: 161 pages
• Publisher: First Fruits of Zion; 1St Edition edition (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189212419X
• ISBN-13: 978-1892124197
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Holy Cow, God DOES care., March 13, 2007

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Bonnie Sims (Arlington, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Holy Cow! Does God Care about What We Eat? (Paperback)

This book was informative and gives the reader a chance to decide for themselves what is approved food. I believe if more people knew what God's instructions regarding "approved" food for his "chosen" people, there would be much less sickness and disease in America today.

I don't know why as a Christian I was brought up thinking ham was a perfectly acceptable Easter dinner. The scientific reasons that pork and shellfish should not be consumed should be reason enough to make it a forbidden food for Jews and Christians alike. I gave up Biblicly unclean foods about a year and a half ago and feel 20 years younger!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Treatment of a Deserving Topic, January 4, 2007

By 

C. Dowdy (FL, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Holy Cow! Does God Care about What We Eat? (Paperback)

Traditional Christian doctrine tells us that God gave dietary laws to Israel, but then abolished those laws when our Messiah came. There are quite a few New Testament scriptures to back up this view, to be sure -- I used to rely on them heavily myself to defend my non-kosher diet! I became suspicious that something was amiss when I came across Isaiah 65:4, where God expresses his disgust with the practice of eating the flesh of pigs and other unclean meat, in the same chapter as giving prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled about the new heavens and new earth. It doesn't make much sense to tie these two things together if the dietary laws have been abolished in the past. After a lot of reading, thinking, and praying, I came to the conclusion that my traditional viewpoint was wrong.

I probably could have saved myself the trouble of further research if I had read this book first. Hope Egan combines discussions of food-related scriptures with some basic scientific principles to show why we were simply designed to eat certain types of animals, but not others. She makes it clear that this is not a salvation issue, but a way to be obedient to God in one more area of our lives. I was impressed by her common-sense approach to this topic, and the fact that she is forthright without being pushy. She touches on the history of both Israel and the Church to show the proper context for New Testament scriptures, and how these scriptures came to be misinterpreted as the increasingly Gentile church lost touch with its Judaic roots. At the end of the book, there is a sizeable appendix with excerpts from Thomas Lancaster's writing, where he discusses several specific New Testament scriptures that are often used against the dietary laws. There are also helpful and specific lists of clean and unclean animals. The book focuses on the dietary laws, but in a more general sense, the authors also defend Torah observance as a whole.

If you are curious about the dietary laws, this book is an ideal source of food for thought. If you read this, I hope you do so with an open mind and a soft heart. I give it 5 stars for the excellent writing and the unique (but applicable) subject matter. Shalom!

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed the way I eat, January 30, 2006

By 

R. Bermel (Sedalia, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Holy Cow! Does God Care about What We Eat? (Paperback)

Like the author, I loved ribs too. The thought of giving up pork, shellfish, and other unclean animals seemed extreme. After all, God declared them okay in the New Testament, right? Well, Hope explains those passages and others in a way that made me realize that God does care about what we eat. What really got me was when Hope pointed out Genesis 7:2. God tells Noah to take SEVEN pairs of the clean animals and TWO pairs of the unclean animals. Since God told this to Noah BEFORE the Law, then Noah must have known which animals were clean and unclean. I believe that God loves us completely, and cares about every aspect of our lives, including what we eat. He has created a huge array of wonderful life-giving and sustaining foods that will allow us to live healthy lives.

I have shared this book with several friends and now need to buy more. If God is challenging you about your food choices, and you want to fulfill God's mission on this earth, I highly recommend you read Hope's book with an open mind and a soft heart. God bless!