You are how you eat: On The Yoga of Eating
Up until a few days ago, I didn’t give much thought to how I eat.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to polish off a breakfast of three poached eggs on toast in four minutes while watching a Youtube video.
Or to stand in the kitchen while scoffing an afternoon snack.
My food was a blur in the background of life.
I would force big fork-fulls into my mouth, chew minimally while loading up my next fork-load, swallow unprocessed clumps, and repeat.
It was just what I did.
It was habit.
My diet was mostly balanced. I thought a lot about what I was putting into my mouth.
I even cut out a bunch of sugar and meat this year.
But I never paid attention to the process of eating.
That has changed in the past week.
I’m reading a book called The Yoga of Eating by Charles Eisenstein.
And it’s got me to thinking that how we eat might be more important than what we eat.
Because information on what to eat is wildly contradictory. Each new fad diet promises to be the answer to the world’s health woes.
But maybe the problem all along has been with the way we eat.
Chewing, for starters. It’s the first stage of digestion. The teeth and saliva have an important role to play in breaking food down into digestible mush.
And taste.
Aside from the time I spent on a silent meditation retreat in Thailand where we practiced mindful eating, I don’t know if I ever really tasted my food.
I just chowed it down before my taste buds had much of a chance to register what was going on.
But taste is important, too. According to Eisenstein, it sends signals to your body about the nutrients it’s about to receive.
Also, when you pause to taste your food you realise that many of the things you thought were delicious are, actually, rather bland.
And by watching videos at meal times, my mind is engrossed in something other than eating.
Can my brain be fully present for Netflix and veggie curry on rice at the same time? I don’t know.
These are the things that I’m only now, at the age of 33, starting to consider.
So I’m experimenting with slowing down my eating.
I’m chewing my food.
Placing the cutlery down between mouthfuls.
Giving myself a chance to taste.
Reconnecting with the experience of eating.
The joy and pleasure of eating.
The nurturance of food.
Like breathing, eating sustains us. It keeps us alive.
I think it’s time for us to give it the attention and reverence it so clearly deserves.
