Mindful Eating: Connecting Through the Senses
Human relationships to food can be complex. Food is memory, family, and fuel. Food can be fun at times, infuriating at others. Sometimes food nourishes the body, and sometimes it harms. Have you ever thought about your relationship to food and how that shapes your eating patterns?
For me, food used to be about what I "should" and "should not" eat. I had strict categories of healthy and unhealthy in which I grouped certain foods based on false perceptions of a diet that I thought would keep my body in an optimal state of health. My process for grouping foods as good for me or bad for me was completely driven by the external world (media, friends and family, the culture I grew up in). Without once checking in with my body to see how the foods felt inside, I crafted a diet for myself that left me tired, malnourished, and unsatisfied.
And then I discovered mindful eating. In a mindfulness-based stress reduction class, I was told to hold a raisin and see its deep purple color, feel its soft wrinkly texture, smell the sun-ripened juices, taste the sweetness. We could not chew the raisin until we had spent at least a few minutes experiencing it with all the senses (I had never before tried to hear a raisin!). The exercise was a small moment that eventually grew into a transformative practice.
Every time I sat down for a meal, I would pause and notice the colors first, finding more and more pleasure in the attempt to make my plate a rainbow. I began to feel the steam of soup on my face before slurping it up (a noise that signals appreciation for a meal in Japan) and relished in the crunch, then silky smooth texture of dark chocolate as it dissolved on my tongue. This closer attention to food led directly to a more keen attention to food in my body. Over time, my food choices changed. All external thoughts about food, whether I "should" or "should not" be eating a particular item, were quickly replaced with sensory experiences of the food and real pleasure in the act of eating. I began to eat from the inside out. I stopped "shoulding" on myself.
Click here to get a recipe for my current favorite dessert (pictured above): coconut no-bake cookies that are also vegan and gluten-free. These delicious and easy-to-make treats are perfect eaten in silence with mindful attention or shared with others at parties. From rolling them into round shapes with my palms to taste-testing and adding a pinch of salt, these sweet delights remind me that when I slow down to notice details, joy can be found at every stage of eating, including preparing food.
