Mindful Eating
We can transform our relationship with food by being mindful while we eat. With mindfulness, we look at our food with fresh eyes, as though it’s the first time we’ve ever experienced the ingredients. We look deeply into each part of our meal, cultivating curiosity and using all of our senses as we explore and contemplate where our food came from and considering the many nuances of the ingredients. We can observe the artistry of food without even tasting it, looking at the many textures and colors. We also can smell our food before tasting it, investigating the delicious aromas and notes with our powerful olfactory senses. Once we bite into our food, we can explore the experience of tasting the food. How does it feel on our tongue? What is the texture between our teeth? Can we consciously follow the food down our throat and into our belly? When we're fully present with each bite, taking our time to chew and swallow mindfully, we'll find our food tastes much better and is incredibly satisfying. It’s a good practice slow down when eating, pausing between each bite, so that we may appreciate each bite in full awareness. With every bite, we can acknowledge the many living beings that contributed to our food and note how we feel as we consume it. When we eat like this, it’s a very rich experience. Especially if we eliminate distractions such as the television or our phone, our time eating can be pure and nourishing to both our mind and body.
Whenever we are fully present with our food, we can turn eating into a meditation.
Mindful eating can help us develop a profound awareness of the connection between the food we eat and how we feel. When we're tuned into our eating experience, we can free ourselves from emotional eating, develop wise eating routines, and more easily choose nourishing foods.
 Mindful Eating Video Demonstration |
Food and Feelings
Life can be chaotic and emotional. We can get so overwhelmed or disconnected from our feelings that we can avoid food altogether or mindlessly eat anything, especially foods that are emotionally comforting. Not being attentive to what our body needs to run efficiently can result in feelings of guilt, low energy, and poor health over time. If we can remember to slow down, look deeply into what kinds of food we're eating, and observe our feelings about the foods we eat, we'll have a better chance of developing long-lasting habits of choosing healing foods that refresh and nourish us. When we tune into the sensations of eating, we can learn what foods make us feel great, and which ones make us feel unsettled. When we take note of our reactions to different foods, both physical and emotional, we can improve our consumption. Does our food energize us? Do we feel guilty after eating certain things? What combinations of food deplete our energy? What foods are most emotionally comforting? What foods make us feel our best? How do we feel after eating, on all levels? We can be more conscientious of minimizing the wastefulness of emotional eating (being over-indulgent and wasting food itself, or wasting our time by eating the wrong foods that don’t energize us) when we have a mindful understanding of what foods serve us best. When we are mindful to make thoughtful food choices, we’ll naturally feel more healthy, nourished, and peaceful.
Quick Mindful Eating Exercise
Write down five foods you eat often, and five foods you want to eat more frequently. Where do these foods come from? What's involved in producing these foods (sunlight, soil, farmers, truck drivers, store clerks, chefs, factories, etc).
Write about how each of these foods makes you feel emotionally (happy, nostalgic, safe, adventurous, guilty, excited, proud, etc).
Now write about how each of these foods makes you feel physically when you eat them (full, dehydrated, anxious, energized, sluggish, bloated, spacey, etc).
It can be helpful to keep a food journal to observe these feelings each time you eat as you learn what foods serve you best.
Write about how each of these foods makes you feel emotionally (happy, nostalgic, safe, adventurous, guilty, excited, proud, etc).
Now write about how each of these foods makes you feel physically when you eat them (full, dehydrated, anxious, energized, sluggish, bloated, spacey, etc).
It can be helpful to keep a food journal to observe these feelings each time you eat as you learn what foods serve you best.
The Five Contemplations for Eating Mindfully
The Five Contemplations are words we can meditate on before and throughout our meals.
The Five Contemplations
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Beyond being aware of the tastes and physical sensations of eating, we can challenge ourselves to look very deeply into our food. Many plants and animals died for us to eat the food we sometimes take for granted. The soil our fruits and vegetables are grown in are made of countless elements, nutrients, even the bodies of numerous living beings. Each grain of rice is delightful and fragrant; yet we can acknowledge many little animals died as it was cultivated and many workers suffered long hours to harvest the crop. We can feel deep gratitude to all the energy that went into each ingredient as we fully honor and enjoy food as the very precious gift it is. We can strengthen our mindfulness every time we deepen our relationship with food by being present when eating, practicing gratitude for the nutriment we consume, and educating ourselves about modern agriculture, the science of nutrition, and the amazing powers of healing foods.