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Broken Bread: How to Stop Using Food and Fear to Fill Spiritual Hunger
How should broken people break bread?For the Christian, fellowship must come before food. But no one wants to eat with people who would never touch that GMO-stuffed steak, with people who gorge themselves on Taco Bell Late Night Fourthmeals, with people who abhor a Hostess Twinkie, or with people who microwave beige-colored breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Tilly Dillehay believes the greatest threats to our dinner tables and potlucks and date nights go far beyond the nutrition label. She argues that Christians run into four pitfalls when it comes to Asceticism, Gluttony, Snobbery, and Apathy.
So, how should Christians eat? This is the question Tilly seeks to answer in her Christian Book Award-winning title, Broken Bread.
Tilly Dillehay believes the greatest threats to our dinner tables and potlucks and date nights go far beyond the nutrition label. She argues that Christians run into four pitfalls when it comes to Asceticism, Gluttony, Snobbery, and Apathy.
So, how should Christians eat? This is the question Tilly seeks to answer in her Christian Book Award-winning title, Broken Bread.
Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
January 26, 2021
This was unlike anything I've ever read and a perfect book to start 2021!
Dillehay's words were very challenging as they poke and prod at the heart of how we eat--not specifically what we choose to eat. When we examine our relationship with food-given to us by God through the lens of faith- what we eat, who we eat it with, and how we eat it will be impacted. I needed to hear this expounded on and you do too!
Dillehay's words were very challenging as they poke and prod at the heart of how we eat--not specifically what we choose to eat. When we examine our relationship with food-given to us by God through the lens of faith- what we eat, who we eat it with, and how we eat it will be impacted. I needed to hear this expounded on and you do too!
July 5, 2024
Excellent, start to finish. A must-read for American Christian women especially, Tilly Dillehay tackles a wide variety of food related issues and fears in a way that's anchored in Scripture and biblical wisdom.
She addresses anorexia, bulimia, body image, "crunchy" culture, food snobbery, health / youth obsession, greed, apathy, gluttony, alcohol consumption... You name it, she pretty much covers it.
I adored the way she motivated positive food changes at the heart level, rather than simply giving a bunch of rules for outward behavior modification, and rooted her admonitions deeply in Scripture.
Convicting yet gracious, helpful without condescension, and well-written in a way that always has me wanting to read just one more chapter — highly, highly recommend.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Might especially be good for moms with teen girls - great discussion questions and practical application suggestions at the end of each chapter!
She addresses anorexia, bulimia, body image, "crunchy" culture, food snobbery, health / youth obsession, greed, apathy, gluttony, alcohol consumption... You name it, she pretty much covers it.
I adored the way she motivated positive food changes at the heart level, rather than simply giving a bunch of rules for outward behavior modification, and rooted her admonitions deeply in Scripture.
Convicting yet gracious, helpful without condescension, and well-written in a way that always has me wanting to read just one more chapter — highly, highly recommend.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Might especially be good for moms with teen girls - great discussion questions and practical application suggestions at the end of each chapter!
May 21, 2021
I was really looking forward to this one and really hoping and expecting to like it. So I'm really bummed that I can't give it an enthusiastic review. There were some strong points, particularly the author's testimony of God's grace to her in overcoming sin in her relationship with food. Weaknesses included a failure to define terms (she seemed to treat gluttony as a synonym for overeating most of the time, but not always, which isn't careful enough) and whiffing it on some exegetical stuff (I see zero reason, for instance, to accuse the man in Isaiah 44 of idolatry for using some of the wood he cuts for cooking).
But the nearly unbearable thing was not the author's fault. It was seven hours of fingernails-on-chalkboard vocal fry from the narrator. What was anybody thinking to give her such a job? Dreadful. I'm glad to see the same woman didn't narrate Dillehay's other book, since that's on my to-read list, and I'd've had to drop it.
But the nearly unbearable thing was not the author's fault. It was seven hours of fingernails-on-chalkboard vocal fry from the narrator. What was anybody thinking to give her such a job? Dreadful. I'm glad to see the same woman didn't narrate Dillehay's other book, since that's on my to-read list, and I'd've had to drop it.
July 17, 2024
This might be my favorite read of 2024 so far! As a believer, woman, homemaker, dietitian and someone whose personal interests and hobbies often revolve around the making/tasting of food and drink, I loved so much of what was discussed. I have seen the effects of diet culture in my own circles and often field questions from friends who are trying to find the balance between stewarding our bodies well without falling into unhelpful food practices.
The first 4 chapters were my particular favorites, and it was encouraging to see the author describe (with solid biblical defense) an overall philosophy of food that I had also landed on over the years. I’ve spent time looking into the Bible for answers on this topic for the purposes of meeting with women who struggled in their relationship with food, so I found this book to be a fantastic resource because she has done that really well, and then covers so much more. I’m not an expert on this by any means so her skill in articulating these thoughts was so helpful for me to read.
The later chapters go into more nuanced topics of food like hospitality, learning to cook, alcohol, and fasting which gave me a lot to think about in areas that I just hadn’t spent much time considering. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who eats!
The first 4 chapters were my particular favorites, and it was encouraging to see the author describe (with solid biblical defense) an overall philosophy of food that I had also landed on over the years. I’ve spent time looking into the Bible for answers on this topic for the purposes of meeting with women who struggled in their relationship with food, so I found this book to be a fantastic resource because she has done that really well, and then covers so much more. I’m not an expert on this by any means so her skill in articulating these thoughts was so helpful for me to read.
The later chapters go into more nuanced topics of food like hospitality, learning to cook, alcohol, and fasting which gave me a lot to think about in areas that I just hadn’t spent much time considering. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who eats!
January 5, 2022
I was intrigued by this title and honestly, really excited to dig in. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed.
What I appreciated most about this book is that it offers an overview of the last 150 years of diet culture that helped contextualize our current dieting and anti-dieting moment. The four poles were also an original way of pondering the ways we use and abuse food, and it gave me a different lens through which to consider and categorize food struggles.
However, the general vibe was “these are all the ways we fall short when it comes to food.” And while the examples offered were startlingly accurate (and could have come from any conversation with my friends in the past month), there just wasn’t a lot of good news here.
Broken Bread would serve well as a sobering guide to confession of food sins, but it fails to refocus our attention on Jesus. After all, He is the only one who offers freedom, fullness, and satisfaction; it is in fixing our gaze on Him that food fixation loosens its grip and falls away.
And as a side note: as someone who has spent hundreds of hours reading, researching, and writing about this topic, I really wish the author had engaged with current literature that address these food issues from a spiritual perspective. They’re out there, despite her claim in the beginning that she couldn’t find much, and I think this book’s thesis would have been much stronger had she taken the time to engage others’ work while building her argument.
If you’re reading this review and wondering where to find solid books on food from a spiritual perspective that point to hope and freedom in Jesus, I recommend checking out Barb Raveling’s Bible study on Freedom from Emotional Eating and Wendy Speake’s book The 40 Day Sugar Fast.
What I appreciated most about this book is that it offers an overview of the last 150 years of diet culture that helped contextualize our current dieting and anti-dieting moment. The four poles were also an original way of pondering the ways we use and abuse food, and it gave me a different lens through which to consider and categorize food struggles.
However, the general vibe was “these are all the ways we fall short when it comes to food.” And while the examples offered were startlingly accurate (and could have come from any conversation with my friends in the past month), there just wasn’t a lot of good news here.
Broken Bread would serve well as a sobering guide to confession of food sins, but it fails to refocus our attention on Jesus. After all, He is the only one who offers freedom, fullness, and satisfaction; it is in fixing our gaze on Him that food fixation loosens its grip and falls away.
And as a side note: as someone who has spent hundreds of hours reading, researching, and writing about this topic, I really wish the author had engaged with current literature that address these food issues from a spiritual perspective. They’re out there, despite her claim in the beginning that she couldn’t find much, and I think this book’s thesis would have been much stronger had she taken the time to engage others’ work while building her argument.
If you’re reading this review and wondering where to find solid books on food from a spiritual perspective that point to hope and freedom in Jesus, I recommend checking out Barb Raveling’s Bible study on Freedom from Emotional Eating and Wendy Speake’s book The 40 Day Sugar Fast.
December 20, 2024
Incredibly good. This is the book I’ve been wanting for a while now. Dillehay has provided the final pillar to my philosophy of food.
One of my favorite things I’d never thought of before was her point that women often fixate on health and food when they don’t have anything better to fixate on or talk about. Basically it’s filling a vacancy that would be better filled by busying ourselves with the physical and spiritual work God has set before us. This is definitely true in my own life, but I’d never thought of it that way.
(docked a star purely for those John Piper quotes in the fasting section. What a lot of nonsense.)
One of my favorite things I’d never thought of before was her point that women often fixate on health and food when they don’t have anything better to fixate on or talk about. Basically it’s filling a vacancy that would be better filled by busying ourselves with the physical and spiritual work God has set before us. This is definitely true in my own life, but I’d never thought of it that way.
(docked a star purely for those John Piper quotes in the fasting section. What a lot of nonsense.)
January 5, 2021
My first book of 2021, and man did I need this. This book revealed to me idols I didn't even fully realize I had. I'm thankful, convicted, and encouraged. I've purchased the hard copy to have on hand to refer back to as I continue to battle and kill the idols I've made out of food/health.
January 27, 2025
“God cares much more about how we eat than he cares about what we eat.”
“A thousand years ago, most of the human lifetime was taken up with the business of getting enough food and cooking it. This is still the case in some areas of the world… We have different challenges to face. Our challenges have to do with decisions, with images, with self-control, with generosity, and with resources. In a word, ours are the challenges of stewardship.”
This is a must-read!
It was written in 2020 but still feels very applicable to the ‘food climate’ today and does a lot to look at how perception of and interaction with food has become complicated— broken. Tilly restores these perceptions and interactions, offering a balanced look at the ‘food pitfalls’ we all find ourselves in and how Jesus speaks into them.
I borrowed this book from a friend, and I have to admit, it sat on my shelf for awhile because the whole ‘make your own sourdough bread’ craze is alive and well around me and in my memory, that was what was on the cover of this book; I thought I knew what the book was going to be about. I am not about to start making my own bread and growing my own garden. I think that’s awesome for a lot of my friends and I often reap the benefits of their endeavors, but that’s not what preparing food looks like for me. I didn’t want to read a book that tried to convince me that that was the most biblical way to feed my family.
Turns out, I shouldn’t have avoided this book for so long! And look, it’s not even a perfect sourdough loaf on the cover!
I also need to admit that once I realized she wasn’t going to make me feed a little yeast monster, I did have some moments of self-righteousness— ‘At least I’m not like those people!’, ‘At least I’m not doing that!’, ‘Oh good, I’m doing the “right” thing!’ (I have always been a person who intentionally avoids trends so dieting or food trends have never been my jam) but then I’d get to the next chapter and get my own dose of conviction and recognition of a different food-related sin that I DO need to own.
That’s what I mean by balanced. No one gets a free ride in this book. Which is important because there has been a lot of judgment towards others regarding their food preparation and food eating habits or practices. I see it everywhere, and I confess I am part of it— maybe not online or to someone’s face, but I feel it in my heart.
Why do we judge? She quotes from this article from The Atlantic:
“You are not merely disputing facts, you are putting your wild gamble to avoid death against someone else’s. You are poking at their life raft. But if their diet proves to be the One True Diet, yours must not be. If they are right, you are wrong. This is why diet culture seems so religious. People adhere to a dietary faith in the hope they will be saved.” - Michelle Allison
Michelle’s talking about diets specifically, but the principle applies more broadly. We need food to survive. Food affects a lot of things in our bodies and lives. Even if we don’t necessarily want to be super healthy, most of us at least don’t want to be stupid or harming ourselves with what we eat. To make ourselves feel better about our own choices and confident that we’re not stupidly hurting ourselves or our families, we make judgments about other people’s choices to elevate our own choices. Because whether consciously or subconsciously, we’ve put our hope in what we eat.
Tilly says,
“Food is complicated for so many good reasons. It’s complicated by our sin and by our bodily afflictions in a fallen world. It is complicated by scarcity, and it is complicated by plenty. It is complicated by social pressure and pride. It’s complicated by economic forces. It’s complicated by the fact that even though Jesus and Paul tell us that we aren’t contaminated by what goes into the body but by what comes out of it, our default approach to physical things is to assume that the stricter the rule, the holier the person.”
The first part of her book she describes the four major food sins or ‘poles’ that can be seen as two spectrums:
Asceticism vs Gluttony
Asceticism: “too proud to enjoy the enjoyable”
Gluttony: “we cannot be satisfied” (not just overeating)
and
Snobbery vs Apathy
Snobbery: “consumed with being on the right side of food history… acted out mostly in front of others on social media or over the supper table”
Apathy: “refuses to find objective fault with McDonald’s McRib sandwich and is too lazy to learn how to cook”
I was able to peg myself on one of these, and you may too, but even if you can’t at first glance, once you hear her explanations and descriptions of how these sins affect the way we eat, you may be surprised that what you’re doing puts you in one of these camps.
The push of this book is not to argue for a specific diet or food preparation method. It’s to help us understand that what we eat is not the ultimate thing. It’s our heart and our treatment of others while we’re eating that matters.
One of the passages she references is 1 Corinthians 10 including these verses:
“‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor… So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
Part of the brokenness food has caused is brokenness of fellowship. Our diets or food restrictions often keep us from being with others. The way we eat often keeps us focused on ourselves instead of serving others. It may isolate us or prevent us from creating a welcoming environment where all can come and eat and build relationship.
“Food can be a means to love people. Food can purchase an audience to talk about the things that matter to both of you.”
“When we use hospitality as an aid and a vehicle for intimacy and truth and worship, we are using it as it was intended to be used, and as I think it will be used in the new heavens and new earth.”
Part of the brokenness food has caused is also a failure to believe that God is enough or that he will provide. It’s a shifting of priorities; we want to be a specific weight or we end up not enjoying God’s gift of food. The way we eat consumes us and becomes an idol. If we’re talking more about what we eat or don’t eat more than we are talking about Who actually brings salvation, we have created an idol.
“Idolatry isn’t a bowing down response to imaginary problems; it’s a bowing response to very real problems. In fact, our problems are the most real thing about idolatry— it’s the solution that is illusion.”
Tilly addresses a lot of things surrounding food including: dieting, eating disorders (which she experienced personally), allergies, fasting, learning to cook, alcohol, and the idealism of international cuisine.
I thought she handled all of these potentially controversial topics really well and really did change the way I look at the ‘problem’ of food in many areas.
What Stuck Out to Me
I love the title— Broken Bread. Tilly reminds us how Jesus called himself the Bread of Life. And on the night when he was arrested he ate the Last Supper with his disciples and told them as he tore the bread, ‘This is my body, broken for you.’
The title has a double meaning. Jesus is the broken bread, broken for us so that we could be free from the slavery of our sin. Yet here we are, a couple thousand years later, broken, living according to our fleshly desires surrounding food that’s keeping us from breaking bread with others. A very good reminder of the broken bread we should be filling ourselves with.
To really experience the joy of eating and tasting and enjoying the gifts of God in food and taste, she suggests every once in awhile hosting a nice dinner party with friends and going all out with it— a shadow of the feast that is to come in the new heavens. I love a good party so this feels a little inspiring to try to make something like this happen— a way to bless others with a nice meal.
When we only had one kid, we would often have our dinners in the living room watching TV. We would pull our daughter’s high chair next to the couch and we would eat while we watched. But we realized that sitting at a table was an important practice that had a lot of benefits. We quickly switched to eat almost all of our dinners as a family, without the TV on (with the exception of Sunday pizza nights). Tilly affirms the value of this and I liked how she described this practice:
“You’re providing a meeting place where the good things about a family can be practiced and enjoyed. You’re putting in a scaffolding, a structure around which much more can be built, with potential for bodily, cultural, relational, and spiritual benefit.”
We also are adding in some new habits around the dinner table from the book Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley (that we’re still reading).
I may not struggle with dieting or food trends, but I have a real struggle with the dailiness of eating. I have to make my family dinner every night for the rest of my life?! That’s a lot of days. I often feel the weight of that or lament the work it takes to prepare a meal with no real appreciation for all my time in the kitchen.
It was convicting when Tilly said, “In some ways, the attitude with which you engage yourself in the menial is the truest measurement of your joy.” She talks about how it’s easy to feel joy in the extreme highs and lows because we are signaled that we should, but it’s harder in the day-to-day steady times to see joy. I think as a mom, that’s the hardest area to find the joy— the menial.
When I was part of a Christian mom’s group, there were social activities scheduled every month and I grew uncomfortable with the amount of remarks made about wine. Almost every event included wine; there were lots of comments at our regular meetings about just getting to the end of the day when they could have a glass of wine.
I really appreciated Tilly’s comments about this ‘I need wine’ mom culture that is so often joked about in Christian women groups.
“The problem is that these jokes are a form of exhortation. What they communicate, essentially, is this: ‘The Holy Spirit is not sufficient for you. What you need is wine.’”
“If we lean into alcohol or coarse jokes about alcohol, we miss opportunities to exhort one another in ways that actually help.”
Tilly does not abstain from drinking (though I do) but she has a really biblical understanding of what that freedom to drink alcohol should look like and how we steward that freedom around others.
At the heart of our preoccupation with food is that we have desires that need to be filled and we so often look to fill those in the wrong place.
“The thing is, your heart is a pursuing heart. It’s running after something at all times; you are full of longings. So which lesser longings are you allowing to dim your longing for God?”
“Your attempts to rein in the chocolate habit—even in the name of Spirit-borne self-control—may be successful, but they’ll only allow you to exchange idols for idols until your heart is in pursuit of the thing it was made to pursue.”
What Was Missing
There was one thing that I wish she would have addressed that she didn’t. My biggest battle surrounding food is something that was not in this book: my four kids. I have always had major struggles with getting my kids to eat their food. I’m sure I messed up my early parenting in some ways that caused this, but regardless, the problem with enjoying my food, or with caring about learning how to cook new things, or just taking the time to make a meal in general is that so often it gets complained about and ends up getting thrown away.
I’m not super motivated to make meals if they won’t eat them. It becomes more of a chore and not super pleasurable when kids are crying because they’re hungry and they don’t like the food.
I would have liked to hear her thoughts on handling that. I have not created an environment where my kids are used to getting special treatment, separate meals than the family, or a steady diet of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. Yet I’m also not making them eat olives and mushrooms or spicy or slimy food.
How do I appreciate food and its preparation under these circumstances? How do I let go of the waste just to present them with the labored over food?
I had to laugh when she said: “Find ways of cooking things for the whole family that promote wellness and enjoyment. Stumped? Start with beans. Find out ways to cook beans in ways you all enjoy…”
Beans?! I’m doomed. I will eat green beans and baked beans and chili beans if they’re blended up first and then added to the chili, but beans are something I have a really big mental and taste block with. What’s the second option?!
Read as a Group
At the end of each chapter was a ‘Food for Thought’ section that offered a few discussion questions, some practice suggestions to put things into action, and then a couple other related books to read.
I think this book would be a great book to read and discuss in a group to share your different experiences with food and help each other keep our ‘food sin tendencies’ in check, and find ways to use food to serve others, perhaps even together.
A couple books she quoted from that I’ve read and enjoyed- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle.
I’m not sure how many of the other books I will read because I’m not a culinary enthusiast, but a couple that seemed at the top of the list she would recommend would be The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon and John Pipers book, A Hunger for God.
Recommendation
This is a very important book to help you see how you can ENJOY food and how you can use food to bring people together because what we eat is not as important as how we eat.
I recommend this book for all people, whether you think you struggle with food or not. It’s for sure for people who find themselves consumed with diets or trends or who eat indiscriminately to no end, but it’s also for the people who cast judgments on other people’s practices. The principles Tilly discusses run deep and will inform even more than just food in your life.
There is freedom and redemption in this book. But it’s a biblical freedom that promotes building up our neighbors and using food to the glory of God.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” - Galatians 5:1, 13
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“A thousand years ago, most of the human lifetime was taken up with the business of getting enough food and cooking it. This is still the case in some areas of the world… We have different challenges to face. Our challenges have to do with decisions, with images, with self-control, with generosity, and with resources. In a word, ours are the challenges of stewardship.”
This is a must-read!
It was written in 2020 but still feels very applicable to the ‘food climate’ today and does a lot to look at how perception of and interaction with food has become complicated— broken. Tilly restores these perceptions and interactions, offering a balanced look at the ‘food pitfalls’ we all find ourselves in and how Jesus speaks into them.
I borrowed this book from a friend, and I have to admit, it sat on my shelf for awhile because the whole ‘make your own sourdough bread’ craze is alive and well around me and in my memory, that was what was on the cover of this book; I thought I knew what the book was going to be about. I am not about to start making my own bread and growing my own garden. I think that’s awesome for a lot of my friends and I often reap the benefits of their endeavors, but that’s not what preparing food looks like for me. I didn’t want to read a book that tried to convince me that that was the most biblical way to feed my family.
Turns out, I shouldn’t have avoided this book for so long! And look, it’s not even a perfect sourdough loaf on the cover!
I also need to admit that once I realized she wasn’t going to make me feed a little yeast monster, I did have some moments of self-righteousness— ‘At least I’m not like those people!’, ‘At least I’m not doing that!’, ‘Oh good, I’m doing the “right” thing!’ (I have always been a person who intentionally avoids trends so dieting or food trends have never been my jam) but then I’d get to the next chapter and get my own dose of conviction and recognition of a different food-related sin that I DO need to own.
That’s what I mean by balanced. No one gets a free ride in this book. Which is important because there has been a lot of judgment towards others regarding their food preparation and food eating habits or practices. I see it everywhere, and I confess I am part of it— maybe not online or to someone’s face, but I feel it in my heart.
Why do we judge? She quotes from this article from The Atlantic:
“You are not merely disputing facts, you are putting your wild gamble to avoid death against someone else’s. You are poking at their life raft. But if their diet proves to be the One True Diet, yours must not be. If they are right, you are wrong. This is why diet culture seems so religious. People adhere to a dietary faith in the hope they will be saved.” - Michelle Allison
Michelle’s talking about diets specifically, but the principle applies more broadly. We need food to survive. Food affects a lot of things in our bodies and lives. Even if we don’t necessarily want to be super healthy, most of us at least don’t want to be stupid or harming ourselves with what we eat. To make ourselves feel better about our own choices and confident that we’re not stupidly hurting ourselves or our families, we make judgments about other people’s choices to elevate our own choices. Because whether consciously or subconsciously, we’ve put our hope in what we eat.
Tilly says,
“Food is complicated for so many good reasons. It’s complicated by our sin and by our bodily afflictions in a fallen world. It is complicated by scarcity, and it is complicated by plenty. It is complicated by social pressure and pride. It’s complicated by economic forces. It’s complicated by the fact that even though Jesus and Paul tell us that we aren’t contaminated by what goes into the body but by what comes out of it, our default approach to physical things is to assume that the stricter the rule, the holier the person.”
The first part of her book she describes the four major food sins or ‘poles’ that can be seen as two spectrums:
Asceticism vs Gluttony
Asceticism: “too proud to enjoy the enjoyable”
Gluttony: “we cannot be satisfied” (not just overeating)
and
Snobbery vs Apathy
Snobbery: “consumed with being on the right side of food history… acted out mostly in front of others on social media or over the supper table”
Apathy: “refuses to find objective fault with McDonald’s McRib sandwich and is too lazy to learn how to cook”
I was able to peg myself on one of these, and you may too, but even if you can’t at first glance, once you hear her explanations and descriptions of how these sins affect the way we eat, you may be surprised that what you’re doing puts you in one of these camps.
The push of this book is not to argue for a specific diet or food preparation method. It’s to help us understand that what we eat is not the ultimate thing. It’s our heart and our treatment of others while we’re eating that matters.
One of the passages she references is 1 Corinthians 10 including these verses:
“‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor… So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
Part of the brokenness food has caused is brokenness of fellowship. Our diets or food restrictions often keep us from being with others. The way we eat often keeps us focused on ourselves instead of serving others. It may isolate us or prevent us from creating a welcoming environment where all can come and eat and build relationship.
“Food can be a means to love people. Food can purchase an audience to talk about the things that matter to both of you.”
“When we use hospitality as an aid and a vehicle for intimacy and truth and worship, we are using it as it was intended to be used, and as I think it will be used in the new heavens and new earth.”
Part of the brokenness food has caused is also a failure to believe that God is enough or that he will provide. It’s a shifting of priorities; we want to be a specific weight or we end up not enjoying God’s gift of food. The way we eat consumes us and becomes an idol. If we’re talking more about what we eat or don’t eat more than we are talking about Who actually brings salvation, we have created an idol.
“Idolatry isn’t a bowing down response to imaginary problems; it’s a bowing response to very real problems. In fact, our problems are the most real thing about idolatry— it’s the solution that is illusion.”
Tilly addresses a lot of things surrounding food including: dieting, eating disorders (which she experienced personally), allergies, fasting, learning to cook, alcohol, and the idealism of international cuisine.
I thought she handled all of these potentially controversial topics really well and really did change the way I look at the ‘problem’ of food in many areas.
What Stuck Out to Me
I love the title— Broken Bread. Tilly reminds us how Jesus called himself the Bread of Life. And on the night when he was arrested he ate the Last Supper with his disciples and told them as he tore the bread, ‘This is my body, broken for you.’
The title has a double meaning. Jesus is the broken bread, broken for us so that we could be free from the slavery of our sin. Yet here we are, a couple thousand years later, broken, living according to our fleshly desires surrounding food that’s keeping us from breaking bread with others. A very good reminder of the broken bread we should be filling ourselves with.
To really experience the joy of eating and tasting and enjoying the gifts of God in food and taste, she suggests every once in awhile hosting a nice dinner party with friends and going all out with it— a shadow of the feast that is to come in the new heavens. I love a good party so this feels a little inspiring to try to make something like this happen— a way to bless others with a nice meal.
When we only had one kid, we would often have our dinners in the living room watching TV. We would pull our daughter’s high chair next to the couch and we would eat while we watched. But we realized that sitting at a table was an important practice that had a lot of benefits. We quickly switched to eat almost all of our dinners as a family, without the TV on (with the exception of Sunday pizza nights). Tilly affirms the value of this and I liked how she described this practice:
“You’re providing a meeting place where the good things about a family can be practiced and enjoyed. You’re putting in a scaffolding, a structure around which much more can be built, with potential for bodily, cultural, relational, and spiritual benefit.”
We also are adding in some new habits around the dinner table from the book Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley (that we’re still reading).
I may not struggle with dieting or food trends, but I have a real struggle with the dailiness of eating. I have to make my family dinner every night for the rest of my life?! That’s a lot of days. I often feel the weight of that or lament the work it takes to prepare a meal with no real appreciation for all my time in the kitchen.
It was convicting when Tilly said, “In some ways, the attitude with which you engage yourself in the menial is the truest measurement of your joy.” She talks about how it’s easy to feel joy in the extreme highs and lows because we are signaled that we should, but it’s harder in the day-to-day steady times to see joy. I think as a mom, that’s the hardest area to find the joy— the menial.
When I was part of a Christian mom’s group, there were social activities scheduled every month and I grew uncomfortable with the amount of remarks made about wine. Almost every event included wine; there were lots of comments at our regular meetings about just getting to the end of the day when they could have a glass of wine.
I really appreciated Tilly’s comments about this ‘I need wine’ mom culture that is so often joked about in Christian women groups.
“The problem is that these jokes are a form of exhortation. What they communicate, essentially, is this: ‘The Holy Spirit is not sufficient for you. What you need is wine.’”
“If we lean into alcohol or coarse jokes about alcohol, we miss opportunities to exhort one another in ways that actually help.”
Tilly does not abstain from drinking (though I do) but she has a really biblical understanding of what that freedom to drink alcohol should look like and how we steward that freedom around others.
At the heart of our preoccupation with food is that we have desires that need to be filled and we so often look to fill those in the wrong place.
“The thing is, your heart is a pursuing heart. It’s running after something at all times; you are full of longings. So which lesser longings are you allowing to dim your longing for God?”
“Your attempts to rein in the chocolate habit—even in the name of Spirit-borne self-control—may be successful, but they’ll only allow you to exchange idols for idols until your heart is in pursuit of the thing it was made to pursue.”
What Was Missing
There was one thing that I wish she would have addressed that she didn’t. My biggest battle surrounding food is something that was not in this book: my four kids. I have always had major struggles with getting my kids to eat their food. I’m sure I messed up my early parenting in some ways that caused this, but regardless, the problem with enjoying my food, or with caring about learning how to cook new things, or just taking the time to make a meal in general is that so often it gets complained about and ends up getting thrown away.
I’m not super motivated to make meals if they won’t eat them. It becomes more of a chore and not super pleasurable when kids are crying because they’re hungry and they don’t like the food.
I would have liked to hear her thoughts on handling that. I have not created an environment where my kids are used to getting special treatment, separate meals than the family, or a steady diet of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. Yet I’m also not making them eat olives and mushrooms or spicy or slimy food.
How do I appreciate food and its preparation under these circumstances? How do I let go of the waste just to present them with the labored over food?
I had to laugh when she said: “Find ways of cooking things for the whole family that promote wellness and enjoyment. Stumped? Start with beans. Find out ways to cook beans in ways you all enjoy…”
Beans?! I’m doomed. I will eat green beans and baked beans and chili beans if they’re blended up first and then added to the chili, but beans are something I have a really big mental and taste block with. What’s the second option?!
Read as a Group
At the end of each chapter was a ‘Food for Thought’ section that offered a few discussion questions, some practice suggestions to put things into action, and then a couple other related books to read.
I think this book would be a great book to read and discuss in a group to share your different experiences with food and help each other keep our ‘food sin tendencies’ in check, and find ways to use food to serve others, perhaps even together.
A couple books she quoted from that I’ve read and enjoyed- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle.
I’m not sure how many of the other books I will read because I’m not a culinary enthusiast, but a couple that seemed at the top of the list she would recommend would be The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon and John Pipers book, A Hunger for God.
Recommendation
This is a very important book to help you see how you can ENJOY food and how you can use food to bring people together because what we eat is not as important as how we eat.
I recommend this book for all people, whether you think you struggle with food or not. It’s for sure for people who find themselves consumed with diets or trends or who eat indiscriminately to no end, but it’s also for the people who cast judgments on other people’s practices. The principles Tilly discusses run deep and will inform even more than just food in your life.
There is freedom and redemption in this book. But it’s a biblical freedom that promotes building up our neighbors and using food to the glory of God.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” - Galatians 5:1, 13
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September 15, 2024
This book is fantastic! Tilly does a really good job of touching on all the different ways that food can be an obsession, and she organizes them into main food sins. I love how she enforced that food is an opportunity for hospitality and loving people. It is a way to start conversations and to fellowship. Food is more than fuel, and life is more than what we eat. Tilly is helpful in suggestions for how we can enjoy food as the gift that God has given to us. As someone in the nutrition field, I have seen a lot of people turn food and health into an idol. They live as if we can outrun death and they forget that death has already been defeated by Christ. While it is a good gift, food cannot save us.
So we cling to the Bread of Life, the only food that will truly satisfy.
Although it is more geared toward women, every Christian who eats food can get something from it.
So we cling to the Bread of Life, the only food that will truly satisfy.
Although it is more geared toward women, every Christian who eats food can get something from it.
April 4, 2025
So, so, so good! It was applicable, theologically-sound, convicting, and encouraging. Dare I say this book is delightfully composed of “food for thought”? Loved it. Will read again!
September 28, 2022
Though this book is written for Christian women on the topic of food, I think that it would be good for all Christians to read as it is mostly about revealing the heart issues behind the symptoms of dieting, overeating, etc. It’s written in a simple and clear way that helped me begin to think differently about things I’d never really dug into. The focus is not a nutrition book to benefit your temporal body, but rather a book to benefit your eternal soul.
July 6, 2020
This was phenomenal! Mrs. Dillehay's writing is theologically sound, rich, and never shies away from difficult topics. She explores nearly all possible facets of how we relate to food and how we SHOULD relate to it as Christians. Highly recommend!
June 10, 2024
Loved it. Not just the ideas but the way they were delivered. The book felt more like literature than non-fiction. I was fully engaged (all senses included).
As for the meat of the book, it is a poignant, applicable treaty of ways we fall short in our relationship to food and ways we can redeem this, brought to life by the author’s honest disclosure of her vulnerable journey, her willingness to look the matter straight in the eye and her consequent ability to poke our go-to “fig-leaves” in the right places.
She vividly describes four types of waywardness concerning food: asceticism, gluttony, snobbery, apathy. She beautifully points out to the blessedness of the communal table, of thanksgiving, of fasting and feasting and other ways of learning freedom and joy in order to eat and drink for the glory of God.
The Perelandra passage was such a revelation in combating the gluttonous desire to repeat a wave that has passed instead of riding the next wave that is given (trying to repeat the first bite of pie instead of receiving the next thing that is given - such as a working session, an effortful conversation, a nap, playing with the kids): trusting God when one joy is expected yet another is given. "You can send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."
She provides some curious further-reads at the end of each chapter. Definitely, I must procure Capon’s "The Supper of the Lamb"s cookbook.
As for the meat of the book, it is a poignant, applicable treaty of ways we fall short in our relationship to food and ways we can redeem this, brought to life by the author’s honest disclosure of her vulnerable journey, her willingness to look the matter straight in the eye and her consequent ability to poke our go-to “fig-leaves” in the right places.
She vividly describes four types of waywardness concerning food: asceticism, gluttony, snobbery, apathy. She beautifully points out to the blessedness of the communal table, of thanksgiving, of fasting and feasting and other ways of learning freedom and joy in order to eat and drink for the glory of God.
The Perelandra passage was such a revelation in combating the gluttonous desire to repeat a wave that has passed instead of riding the next wave that is given (trying to repeat the first bite of pie instead of receiving the next thing that is given - such as a working session, an effortful conversation, a nap, playing with the kids): trusting God when one joy is expected yet another is given. "You can send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."
She provides some curious further-reads at the end of each chapter. Definitely, I must procure Capon’s "The Supper of the Lamb"s cookbook.
May 22, 2024
It was so good I read it twice in less than a week haha! Tilly did a fantastic job of not laying down more “food laws” (which currently plague our society) but rather pointing out the heart issue of many of our misconceptions/sins when it comes to food. She also encouraged the reader to see and enjoy food as the gift it is, while also encouraging you to keep it in its place and recognize the graciousness of the Giver when thinking about the what to eat, how, when and why.
Highly recommend.
Highly recommend.
September 12, 2024
This book was excellent. I listened to it, but I’m going to buy it to reread and take notes.
October 17, 2024
Good explanation of the ways people—-Christian women in particular—-approach food in unhealthy ways and examples of how food can be God-honoring.
October 30, 2025
This book was a delight to read. The truths she shares apply to more than just food and I found immediate application in my life. Her chapters on cooking, hospitality, the Lord’s Supper, and “feasting in light of eternity” are especially encouraging. A must-read book for the Christian woman!
August 24, 2024
Who would have thought of developing a theology of food? I certainly wouldn't have! But wow, such a needed book for our day and age. Please consider giving this book a read!
October 30, 2024
Anyone who wants to think about the topic of food Biblically could stand to read this book. Very insightful!
October 11, 2024
She did a phenomenal job on explaining how food, nor any earthly thing, will ever satisfy us. It cannot since it’s not what we were made for. It cannot become an idol when we look to it for our meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment. But we can appreciate food and be grateful for the variety and abundance as it is a good gift from the Lord. Food can also be used in evangelism too as it is community focused, rather than on the self. 10/10 book!
September 17, 2025
“Present an opportunity for each of you to remember that he is walking among kings and queens of both a present and future realm. True, we are poor in spirit, citizens of a far-off land and sojourners in the curse of creation, but we are also heirs who will someday judge angels. Occasionally, we should dress, gather, and eat as if this were true…”
This book is so incredibly helpful. Tilly spends the beginning chapters “diagnosing” the main food sins she sees: asceticism, gluttony, snobbery, and apathy. These are wise and helpful categories. She describes gluttony as “the fool’s impulse to say ‘again, again’ when it is not time for ‘again.’” That will stick with me for a while (isn’t this also true for “entertainment gluttony”?).
Part 2 of Broken Bread is more practical, how food affects hospitality, the mirror, our longing for heaven, and more. Her chapter on alcohol was one of the best discussions of alcohol I’ve read. Woven throughout is Tilly’s personal journey with food. She has wrestled, wrestled until she was blessed.
Highly recommend this one and will definitely revisit.
This book is so incredibly helpful. Tilly spends the beginning chapters “diagnosing” the main food sins she sees: asceticism, gluttony, snobbery, and apathy. These are wise and helpful categories. She describes gluttony as “the fool’s impulse to say ‘again, again’ when it is not time for ‘again.’” That will stick with me for a while (isn’t this also true for “entertainment gluttony”?).
Part 2 of Broken Bread is more practical, how food affects hospitality, the mirror, our longing for heaven, and more. Her chapter on alcohol was one of the best discussions of alcohol I’ve read. Woven throughout is Tilly’s personal journey with food. She has wrestled, wrestled until she was blessed.
Highly recommend this one and will definitely revisit.
February 5, 2021
On the positive: the first few chapters with the four food poles were helpful and original. Overall the book is practical, applicable, relatable, and modern. It helped pinpoint some of my sinful food idols and helped me think through some of the modern problems we face with hospitality in our current food culture.
Negative: Chapters 4-11 seemed to be lifted straight from The Supper of the Lamb (with some credit given). As a person who feels a very deep connection with that book, this book frustrated me because it felt like an attempt to bring the ideas “up to date” and specifically for women, but without Capon’s style. Also, the audiobook narrator was terrible.
Negative: Chapters 4-11 seemed to be lifted straight from The Supper of the Lamb (with some credit given). As a person who feels a very deep connection with that book, this book frustrated me because it felt like an attempt to bring the ideas “up to date” and specifically for women, but without Capon’s style. Also, the audiobook narrator was terrible.
August 17, 2025
“God cares about how we eat. He cares much more about how we eat than he cares about what we eat.”
This book is so much more than I thought it would be. It should be read even if you think “I don’t struggle with food issues.”
First, it helped free my mom guilt of the occasional social media deemed “bad food.” The connection between the prosperity gospel and what we put on our tables was eye opening, “if I feed my family (this), then we will be rewarded with (that).” Using wisdom to approach the feasting table is more than reading labels.
Second, it shaped the way I viewed food in my life in accordance to 1 Corinthians 10:31. Food is not our savior, it is a means of grace and grace comes in many packages.
Third, it showed me where I was struggling with sinful practices of food that I wouldn’t have thought were sin. Being convicted is good, let it happen ladies. The food poles was fantastic and very helpful for this.
A few of the chapters didn’t feel as fleshed out as they could have been and I wanted a bit more; specifically the international cuisine chapter and comparison to longing for heaven, LOVED and wanted it a bit more fleshed out as it was a shorter chapter comparatively to the rest of the book.
This book is so much more than I thought it would be. It should be read even if you think “I don’t struggle with food issues.”
First, it helped free my mom guilt of the occasional social media deemed “bad food.” The connection between the prosperity gospel and what we put on our tables was eye opening, “if I feed my family (this), then we will be rewarded with (that).” Using wisdom to approach the feasting table is more than reading labels.
Second, it shaped the way I viewed food in my life in accordance to 1 Corinthians 10:31. Food is not our savior, it is a means of grace and grace comes in many packages.
Third, it showed me where I was struggling with sinful practices of food that I wouldn’t have thought were sin. Being convicted is good, let it happen ladies. The food poles was fantastic and very helpful for this.
A few of the chapters didn’t feel as fleshed out as they could have been and I wanted a bit more; specifically the international cuisine chapter and comparison to longing for heaven, LOVED and wanted it a bit more fleshed out as it was a shorter chapter comparatively to the rest of the book.
September 5, 2022
What an excellent read! Tilly did a fantastic job at providing a biblical perspective on how the Christian is to live in relation to food. I am surprised to recognize that there is a lack in Christian resources on this topic considering that food is such a major part of the human experience and the Bible is replete with things to say about it. This was a much needed project to take on and she handled it beautifully. I really enjoyed the way Tilly divided the major parts of the work into the common ditches we can fall into when it comes to abusing God's good gift of food. She wrapped the whole book together beautifully with a call to look to Christ, who is the Bread of Life, the only one who can truly satisfy. This is one I recommend everyone read!
November 15, 2023
I LOVED this book! I would highly recommend it to anyone who has or is currently struggling with food and/or body image. It is based on a Christian perspective and uses Biblical context and references for her statements, but her words were exactly what I needed to hear. I have read so many books in regards to the issues based around food/body image/idolatry, but for some reason this one was different, in a good way. Much to process and learn through this book going forward.
December 1, 2022
A friend recommended this book to me as we talked about self-control, overeating, all the issues women face with food in general. I’ve enjoyed listening to Tilly on the Home Fires podcast with Abigail Dodds, but her writing is simply fantastic. I was so helped by this book and will recommend it to friends. Excited to read more of her writing.
June 14, 2024
Very helpful- addresses our relationship with food as it relates to health, hospitality, enjoyment and fulfillment by pointing to what the Bible has to say about God’s purposes for food, our bodies and shared meals.
December 25, 2025
Some of the most pervasive and elusive sins and wrong beliefs among the young women relate to food. Tilly is insightful and scriptural and accurate in her writing. I literally can’t think of even one issue I have with this book. I foresee myself recommending this book to very many people.
March 30, 2023
Even if you don't think you have a difficult relationship with food, this is a must read for every Christian woman.
December 21, 2023
Definitely have a couple of reservations, but this is a thought provoking book that asks a lot of very good questions and leaves you with lots more!
I think Dillehay is right to challenge our current cultural moment's overemphasising of 'your body is a temple' to the neglect of everything else Jesus says about food. She presents an acute challenge of some cultural blind spots and questions whether our society's complicated narrative around food is a recasting of the food rules Jesus was challenging. Overindulgence, restriction, snobbery cannot overcome death or make us righteous. Our hunger and desire is only fulfilled in Jesus and so our view of and use of food needs rightly positioned in relation to our worship of our creator. Replacing food obsession with worship of God.
A random GEM of an analogy from the middle: she suggests viewing moments as waves which come and go. As one passes, we should look to the next thing God has for us to do rather than chasing a preferred previous wave. I'll be applying this widely!!
I think Dillehay is right to challenge our current cultural moment's overemphasising of 'your body is a temple' to the neglect of everything else Jesus says about food. She presents an acute challenge of some cultural blind spots and questions whether our society's complicated narrative around food is a recasting of the food rules Jesus was challenging. Overindulgence, restriction, snobbery cannot overcome death or make us righteous. Our hunger and desire is only fulfilled in Jesus and so our view of and use of food needs rightly positioned in relation to our worship of our creator. Replacing food obsession with worship of God.
A random GEM of an analogy from the middle: she suggests viewing moments as waves which come and go. As one passes, we should look to the next thing God has for us to do rather than chasing a preferred previous wave. I'll be applying this widely!!
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