The Cult of Crunch: Breaking Down the Good, The Bad, and the Biblical (or not) of Natural Living Part 2: History of the Crunchy movement

“So, is it just a bunch of hippies?” the podcast host grilled me on air. A post I had shared went viral on Instagram which opened the opportunity for me to get on a popular live farming broadcast on SiriusXM Radio. Taken back and on a very strict time limit, I quickly responded my chuckling out, “no! Not hippies. Just more naturally minded people who care about local food sourcing and wellness are getting raw milk from me. All kinds of people enjoy raw milk for the benefits of it!”

I’ve replayed that quick, somewhat hostile conversation a million times over. I could have answered some questions better and could have represented my case better. I was nervous and naïve. And truthfully, I didn’t know the history of the crunchy movement as well as I thought. Because in actuality, it did start with a bunch of hippies. Sort of.

No, no, the 60s didn’t invent raw milk, home births, and natural living. Prior to the industrial revolution, it wasn’t a movement: it was just living. They didn’t call it crunchy when they ate freshly milled bread or hunted venison or used herbs for healing or birthed at home. That way just how things were done. There wasn’t another option. Life followed seasons. There was no blue light to disrupt sleep nor twinkies to cause metabolic issues nor Big Pharma providing a pill for every ill. People relied on their communities to survive and thrive. Not just Christianity but many religions were also practiced as working so closely with the land truly leads you to believe in a higher power. They planted seeds and needed faith that they’ll grow as much of the science as to why things grow wasn’t there. Christians prayed for rain and pagans sacrificed to their gods. Faith and natural living came naturally. Before we overly romanticize this era, people did die of what would be curable diseases today. Food was scarce at times which lead people to starve. Not as much was possible then as is today. That is a blessing and a curse.

In the industrial revolution, life progressed. Ways to fortify flour so it lasted longer on shelves were invented. Machines and lights were invented so people could work well past dark. Towns grew larger so that people could work in factories to produce and do more. Cattle were brought to the towns to provide milk. Cows unhealthy and making people sick with their unclean milk? No problem! There’s pasteurization for that! Industry pushed progress forward! Which was great in some senses! I love indoor plumbing. But it also broke some things that used to be natural. One of them being that there became a disconnect from the land, from community, and from God. The deep reliance on God waned as we could reply on industry to provide our every need. We progressed in many wonderful areas, yet also lost many wonderful things.

No fear, Romanticism is (was) here. The foundation of the truly crunchy movement didn’t actually start in the 60s, but truly started in the industrial revolution with the romanticism movement. Romanticism brought in the idea that industry corrupted. It corroded community, it sidelined intuition, and it destroyed nature. Which can be somewhat true. The issue with the Romantics is they were less concerned with what is objectively true and more concerned with what felt true. Romanticism placed emphasis on emotion and individualism and intuition in reaction to the industry and order of the time. Amazing art was created and nature was revered, but objective reality took the backburner to subjective emotion. This movement called out very real flaws in the industrial revolution, but much of the base of their morality was rooted in the individual and one’s connection with nature rather than a transcend God who created us, nature, morality, and reality.

Next in the history of the health movement, we enter into the 19th century. At the time, many medical practices were not great to say the least. Bloodletting, purgatives, and mercury and opium were commonly given to “cure” illnesses by getting rid of “impurities” in blood, phlegm, and bile. While there were great things that came of the 19th century medicine like better sanitation and anesthesia for surgery, the bad practices left a mark on many. They want to reject harmful, impersonal medicine. The substitute became things like hydrotherapy, plant-based diets, sunshine, fresh air, exercise, and sexual restraint. Some of these things were great for health! Others were based more on pseudoscience, and none fully cured disease the way the occasionally claimed. Metaphysical healers also starting popping up as they focused on nonphysical causes of illness. Mesmerism, Reiki, and mind cure became means of healing in contrast to the medical system of the day. In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science out of the “mind cure” movement. A patient and student of Phineas Quimby, Mary took his principles of illness being rooted in the mind, not matter, and made it into a religion. Using the verbiage of Christianity, she diverged drastically from true Christian doctrine to redefine sin, deny matter, and divides the deity of Jesus Christ. Her theory that illness is purely a mental or spiritual error that needs to be corrected through prayer, right thinking, and proper mindset hurt many in her day and today. The influence of “mind cure” and “Christian” science influenced the heath ideals of the natural movement by spiritualizing health, bringing further distrust of any medical system, and blurring wellness with righteousness.

Things get wild in the 20th century. The beginning of the century is marked by a clear split in health. Medicine became more institutionalized which did bring many benefits to modernity. Hospitals were put in place and training for doctors became better. This marked out one side of health that encapsulated public health, standardized diets, pharmaceuticals, and hospitals. At this point, many orthodox Christians aligned with this side as it did have order and authority. The opposite to this was a distrust in the institution of health. From this sprouted midwifery over hospital births, herbs and kitchen remedies over pharmaceuticals, homesteading over urban living, and generational folk wisdom over doctor’s advice. While likely a few Christians chose a more natural way, it wasn’t as typical in the early 20th century.

Post World Wars, a shift took place. Marked by the bloodiness of war, people worldwide witnessed trauma on a mass scale. Psychology was pushed to the forefront post World War II. The National Mental Health Act (1946) provided funds for training and research. The Cognitive Revolution of the 50s and 60s gave researchers more avenues for understanding the mind. While this may have been in the industrialized medical system, it had an overflow effect on the world at large. The upcoming crunchy people hated it, but also in a sense adopted some of the principals that it represented. A shift began from a moral framework of behavior to one of mental issues. Trauma trumped sin. It was overlooked that a good biblical world view accounts for sin as the reason for trauma and the fall of man as the reason for disorder. The human condition was socially reframed from one, yes fallen, but made in the image of the God of the universe and redeemable by Him to one that is self-defined or and, in the health sphere, the body became the site of salvation.

Now we get to the hippies. Not the inventors of the crunchy movement as many may think, but the ones that turned it into an identity and worldview.

The 1960s and 1970s is where all these threads from the history of natural living tied together. Health, politics, and spirituality came together under a “natural living” worldview. People came to a boiling point as they were unsatisfied with where the world was heading. Industrialized food, agriculture, and medicine frustrated those who wanted autonomy, quality food, and small farming. Environmental damage became top of mind for those who cared for the earth. The Vietnam War brought distrust of government, and the Civil Rights movement made people question authority. People became disillusioned with the rising psychotherapy culture as it symbolized to them the institution taking over and minimized the mind body natural healing they loved. Hippies believed that industry destroys, authority is evil, the body is all wise, and nature is sacred.

It would be a huge mistake to think that hippies weren’t spiritual. They did not align with Christianity as it was one of the very institutions they were bucking against. But they were spiritual. Eastern religions gained prominence for them. Indigenous rituals had a rebirth. Psychedelic mysticism allowed them to experience spiritual awakenings that seemed to unlock further areas of consciousness. Some created a “kum by yah” Jesus stripped of His holiness, wrath, Lordship, or anything that would make him unloving in their eyes. They wanted their spirituality but without submission. The aim was to be their own authority in the spiritual realm.

Health was everything to hippies. Healing led to wholeness which led to salvation. Working to earn salvation, they ate organic, used herbal medicine, had homebirths and breastfed, and used alternative therapies. They founded co-ops and back-to-the-land movements. The premise of their actions is that if you live well, you’ll be well. If you don’t, you won’t.

Not to be understated is how the modern the divine feminine of current culture had its roots in the 60s and 70s. The hippie wellness and love culture gave women bodily authority. The woman became a goddess. She had a level of bodily authority she hadn’t experienced before. She saw the medical patriarchy as against her, and she found purpose and identity in birth and breastfeeding. Her body was sacred; cycles were holy; autonomy was revered. She didn’t just go back to valuing the beautiful design God gave her body. No, her body became her god itself.

We make fun of hippies a lot, but they were seriously searching. Unfortunately, they were searching in all the wrong places. In many instances, they got some things right: eating better, cherishing natural motherhood, seeking less harmful methods of healing, and understanding there is a grater power. But in many more instances, they got things wrong, namely, misunderstanding human nature and rejecting the one true God. Nevertheless, the identity of “crunchy” was born, and it wasn’t about to be left in the 60’s.

The rest of the 20th century we see the ideologies of the hippies start to become less of a stigma and more of a vein of normal. As the concepts of natural health and wellness became less fringe, it became commercialized. Organic foods went from obscure and hard to find to being in supermarkets. Yoga went from a spiritual practice in Eastern religions like Hinduism to a form of fitness. Focus on physical and spiritual wellness went from something that mainly weird non bathing hippies practice to a normalized consumer identity. It was a lifestyle, an aesthetic, a market segment. Intuition trumped authority, health equaled virtue, and nature was the main moral guide. Unbeknownst to the movement who was so anti the Cognitive Revolution, they adopted the principals of it in stating the human problem to be suppressed feeling and unprocessed trauma. Instead of aligning with medical psychology on a professional scale, they subscribed to self-help to heal themselves. The body and emotions were their god and self-help psychology became their priest. “Spiritual but not religious” became a common phrase as many detached from organized religion and focused more on “energy” and “mindfulness.” The commercialization of wellness gained it popularity, but it did remain more of a politically and socially liberal people group. Still, the edgy hippie culture softened. The latter decades of the 20th century tamed the wild wellness culture into something more neat, domesticated, and normal.

The rise of the internet on the 21st century accelerated the crunchy movement. Anyone could have a blog or be an “expert.” What was once fringe found mainly in obscure more natural circles could now be found by anyone anywhere at any time. Emotionally driven stories and charismatic people now had platforms on blogs and forums to share what they were learning and experiencing. And what were they sharing? That “natural” was the highest good and “chemicals” became a moral evil. The level one focused on their health revealed the level of their morality. Natural motherhood became an identity. Missing the mark at natural childbirth or exclusively breastfeeding wasn’t just disappointing: it was spiritual failure. There was good advice being spread too! The internet brought the idea of eating better and moving better and healing better to people who may not have heard it otherwise. Instead of being a more socially acceptable hippie, natural living was brought to the mainstream. Eventually, to some degree, everyone got to see that sugar cereal wasn’t the best way to start the day, a pill for everything wasn’t the best option, and getting out in nature is more beneficial than sitting under blue light from sun up to sun down. Internet also helped the wellness movement cross social and political boundaries. It wasn’t just the liberal witchy hippie that was into herbal remedies and organic produce. Slowly, conservatives and Christians began to focus more on eating better and living better. “Christian” yoga classes popped up. Books were written for Christians on a natural, biblical diet. In the 2000s and 2010s, crunchy culture started quietly seeping into other social groups. But it was about to get real loud.

The year the world stopped, 2020, marks a distinct shift and split in the sociopolitical health sphere. To be clear though, COVID didn’t create the split; it just revealed it.

While crunchy living did usually fall into a messy but somewhat distinct category of secular left, it claimed not to be political. In general, you could claim wellness without being fully pigeonholed into a certain social or political class. It claimed to be spiritual yet not religious. You could eat organic and pasture raised and if you were thought of as anything, it was probably as more of a traditional liberal but could be a New Ager or even Christian. Drank raw milk? Definitely liberal. Or Amish. Pre COVID, crunchy culture stayed comfy. You could “do what feels right for you!” Trusting your body and the experts didn’t feel mutually exclusive. One could be anti-institution yet still benefit from them.

Overnight people were faced with tough theological questions. What is true? Who decides truth? Who has authority over your body? What does it mean to love your neighbor? What risks are worth taking and what are not?

The individualism of liberal crunchy culture that started way back in the Romantic Era was shattered. Health was mandated, moralized, and forced on a worldwide level. The anti-political stance of the wellness world came crashing down. One could no longer benefit from the institution and maintain personal autonomy. You had to pick a side.

This impacted more than just those who prior to COVID identified as crunchy. People who never thought about organic or grounding or raw milk before began to question everything. These people weren’t science deniers as the opposition claimed. Rather, they were disillusioned with how science went from a method to a morality. “Trust the science” was code for “don’t you dare question what we say you ought to do with your body.” It became the moral arbiter. You had to leave your discernment at the door in order to be a good citizen. This didn’t sit well with many. For the Christian, it felt like one had to choose between submission to God and submission to government. A more conservative people group who once scoffed at weird liberal hippies were now asking some of the same questions about institutions that the crunchy community of the 60s and 70s asked. For others that had aligned with the crunchy world and liberal politics before COVID had to decide which ideology they would follow. Many “woke up” to the dangers of big pharma and big food in 2020. Everyone had big decisions to make.

The conservative Christian world shifted. Instead of ignoring health as Christians loaded up a second helping of Velveeta based mac and cheese at the church potluck, they started reading ingredient labels. In lieu of trusting whatever the doctor says, parents started looking into the recommendations to see if they were helpful or aligned with their convictions. Ignoring the fake meat, people started sourcing local food and getting to know their farmer. Influencers encouraged big families and traditional gender roles as gifts from God as they warned of the harms of chemical birth control on women. Popular conservative Christian podcasts honed in on health and wellness as ways to steward our bodies well. The Make America Healthy Again movement aligned Christian conservatives with some of the independent or even traditional liberals as they worked for a better, healthier future for the upcoming generation. Now well over half, if not three quarters, of my farm’s herd share owners would identify not as hippies but as Christians.

The Right doesn’t own the crunchy movement, but hippies and the Left don’t any more either. Current wellness culture is a mixing pot of different social, political, and spiritual back grounds. We can all agree on a lot of things! It’s objectively true that whole foods trump ultra processed foods, the outdoors and nature are good for us, motherhood is a blessing, we should be cautious with what substances we put into our bodies, and we are hardwired to have a spiritual practice. And yet, we as Christians diverge or should diverge from the crunchy community in a variety of ways.

Armed with the knowledge of this history, we are ready to take on the third part of this series. Before we do a deep dive on individual practices that are commonly in place today, we’ll do a fly over of how we as Christians should approach being crunchy in light of the history of this movement.