Epic Food Fight (Servant Books)

Epic Food Fight begins with an introduction on who Fr. Leo is, his famous defeat of Chef Bobby Flay, and how he learned the importance of food in the Catholic faith and uses it as a teaching tool. In the first chapter, Fr. Leo explains that God had a diet plan for Adam and Eve (not eating the forbidden fruit). However, they fell into the oldest and most common sin. They wanted to be God, to be like God. It was a sin Lucifer knew all too well, as it was what got him kicked out of Heaven. Fr. Leo then uses the rest of the first chapter to demonstrate other instances in the Old Testament of God feeding His people, primarily the Exodus and the manna from heaven.

Chapter Two focuses primarily on Jesus. It is appropriately entitled, "The Truth Becomes Flesh to Feed the World." In this chapter, Fr. Leo points out food references related to Jesus' life. We see Jesus was born in Bethlehem or the "House of Bread." He likens Jesus' uneventful day-to-day life that the Gospels don't speak of as leaven doing their work. He also points out that Jesus' public ministry began at a wedding feast, where He turned water into wine. The second miracle was then the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The book continues on with the food analogy, showing roles of the Church, the priest, and us individually in feeding the world. The book ends with a 10 Commandments of Personal Dieting, which is meant to be taken both literally and metaphorically.

This book was an interesting read, as it presented salvation history in a lens I had never thought of - food. Most/all of the information presented in this book was stuff I had already read/heard in other sources, but it was a creative teaching tool and one that will appeal to many people who have a strong connection to food. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people and eat to survive. With that being said, the 10 Commandments of Personal Dieting is a section I will visit again as I believe it will help me better appreciate the significance of food, both physically and spiritually. Therefore, while this book is 4 stars for me personally, I highly recommend it because I believe it would be a 5 star book for most other people.

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