Book excerpt: The Living Diet invites us to consider our relationship to food from a Christian perspective. Food: can’t live with it or without it. We are bombarded with messages that the secret to health and weight loss can be unlocked with the right product or magic discipline, but we are getting neither thinner nor happier. Reports suggest that we are losing our battle with obesity, while the anxiety people experience in relationship with food increases. We are taught that bodies are fundamentally a problem to be solved, or worse, a war to be won, while a misguided worldview suggests that our food choices are of concern to us alone; an individual act of pleasure or consequences. Few resources speak to our food problem from a distinctly Christian perspective. Drawing on a rich assemblage of personal and collected stories grounded in the teachings of Jesus, The Living Diet offers a joyful alternative to the desperation and dissatisfaction that have become cultural norms for both eating and body image, inviting us to consider our choices in the context of community. Ancient wisdom yields a surprisingly modern response to the dieting dilemma, as well as to the realm of public, or popular, theology, helping the reader discover the real joy of eating and the true gift of embodied living.