I was once eating with friends at an IHOP. We were on vacation, and soon headed to the beach. In a rush, I requested a to-go styrofoam box and began pouring syrup on my pancakes.
“They’re gonna get soggy,” interceded a female member of our group. I was able to salvage the pancakes by pouring the remaining syrup in a little plastic container.
Similarly, when living with the Vietnamese couple, I was preparing some Asian stir fry one evening when the wife noticed my inefficient vegetable rinsing technique. “Use a food strainer,” she suggested.
When it comes to practical wisdom to manage food resources, women are unbeatable. They have a much greater sense of nutritional service to others, and this extends to food that originates from their bodies.
This strengthens my observation that women with the strongest ANR inclinations tend to be those who enjoy cooking for and feeding others.
Even in egalitarian societies, women still gravitate towards meeting other people’s nutritional needs.
Their keen food sense is socially amplified. Women are observant to the eating choices of not only husbands and dependent children, but teenage and young adult children, and for single women, male crushes and female competitors.
Two things primarily draw women to ANRs:
- This hardwiring to feed/care for others
- The intense pleasure they receive in the process
An ANR is literally the condensed version of a woman whipping up the tastiest meal for her husband, her husband coming home, nose leads him straight to the kitchen, and he gives her the warmest, most comforting, appreciative, soul-melting hug and kiss.
Also, the smell of delicious, flavorful food cooking makes a house feel like home.
The female is a nurturer by nature.
“By these mighty acts he nourishes the people, giving them food in abundance.”
— Job 36:31 (NLT)
Christ-centered ANR 