Fasting versus Feasting

Suntec City is a mammoth shopping mall that extends across five buildings and connects to more than a dozen more.  Thousands work in the towers that dominate the floors above the mall.  They are an accessible target market for an incredible range of food; from fast to slow home cooked, from almost every imaginable type of cuisine, and from healthy to not even remotely something your mother would approve.  As the stories come back, great food to hospital events (two recent cases of food poisoning), I find myself thinking about the admonitions.
Never eat sweets before you have had your meal, you will spoil your appetite.  Make sure you have at least two vegetables day; otherwise bad things happen.Do not each too much _______ (spice, sugar, or oil usually); it is bad for you.
There are more!  Each tells me what I cannot, should not do.  Even as I think about it my head is spinning.  Do I have the pasta if the sauce has too much whatever in it?  What about the curry?  Will the oil and spices cause harm that cannot be repaired?  What about Japanese food?  Is it unhealthy?
In Suntec and life is it far too easy to focus on the negatives.  Yet negatives are never the answer.  The ultimate question is what will I eat.  What choices are in the present?  How do I apply my values and priorities in choosing?  Isaiah heard God correctly.  It is never about the negatives!  “Why do you spend your money on junk food, your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?  Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest.”  (Isaiah 55.2)
Fasting, avoidance has a place.  It is never in daily living.  You and I are in the business of living!  We are here to engage.  Knowing what not to do is never enough.  Often it is not even relevant.  Life lies in knowing what to do.  Last night was a great example of fantastic food, great conversation, and new friends.  I highly recommend the experience.