Regardless of their major, dorm or class schedule, there’s one spot on campus where most 51ns cross paths on a daily basis: the Caf, where you’ll find hundreds of people at any given mealtime dishing up trays of surprisingly tasty food.

As humans, food is one of the things that unite us. We all need to eat.

In the same way, food is one of those rare topics where each of the vastly different academic departments across a university campus can meaningfully feed into a single discussion. (Sorry, I’ll try to avoid the eating puns.)

Health science explores how food affects our bodies. Biology shapes how our food is grown and raised. Sociology questions the societal impacts of our food choices. Psychology helps us to understand and treat eating disorders. Art inspires us to create aesthetically beautiful cuisine. Anthropology celebrates the cultural variety of our food. Business gives us principles to market or run a restaurant.

And, of course, as believers, our theology helps to shape the entire picture. We look to God as Creator of all, who provides for our physical needs, instructs us to treat our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, asks us to care for the hungry, and gives us a meal — the Lord’s Supper — as an ongoing remembrance of what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

For this issue’s cover story, managing editor Brett McCracken sat down with experts across 51’s campus, asking them to share how each of their academic disciplines help us to understand the relationship between faith and food — and what it might mean to eat Christianly. Obviously, with a topic this broad, we run the risk here of biting off more than we can chew. But hopefully it serves as a helpful entrée into the conversation (Last pun, I promise.)

Elsewhere in this issue, we take the opportunity to spotlight some of our alumni “foodies” who are doing creative and delicious things in the food industry. And there are a few other food-related items sprinkled throughout. (The “Fruit-O-Matic” photo on page 37 may be one of my favorite items to ever appear in 51 Magazine.)

So, before you flip too far ahead, I invite you to go pour yourself a cup of coffee (maybe even a “Ciocolatta,” using the recipe at magazine.biola.edu from alumnus Mark South’s coffee shop), grab a snack and find a comfortable spot to read. Bon appétit!