Mark’s critical disputation between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees on clean and unclean food (7:1–23) is sparked by the observation that the disciples were eating τοὺς ἄρτους (“the breads”) with unclean hands. Most commentators and translations render this idiomatically as “eating food” (NIV) or even just “eating” (NRSV). This conveys the gist of the scene, and the somewhat mangled idiom (articular and plural instead of the normal anarthrous singular; cf. Matt 15:2) is apparently overlooked as yet another instance of Mark’s grammatical idiosyncrasies (e.g., France 2002, 281). Yet Mark is elsewhere quite capable of using the idiom “rightly” (3:20). More significantly, just a few verses earlier, he mentions τοῖς αρτοῖς (6:52, “the breads,” articular and plural) in a way that is clearly anaphoric, referring to the miraculously multiplied loaves (6:30–44). While Gundry (2000, 348) suggests anaphora in 7:2, he does not develop the argument significantly, and his proposal is largely dismissed. This paper will respond to common criticisms and provide grammatical and stylistic arguments for Mark’s use of anaphora here—the bread that the disciples are eating with unwashed hands is the leftover fragments from the feeding of the 5,000. In framing this discussion within Mark’s broader use of catchwords and verbal links to connect passages, it will be shown that Mark’s surprising use of the article here not only serves to portray Jesus’s opponents as increasingly petty, but to portray the disciples (and later Christians) as true followers of Moses, despite their unclean hands and food.