The Food Meditation

By: Jera Jones

October 13, 2009

We all have bad habits, and we all like our bad habits and don't want to let them go. So, we have to start very slowly adding a good habit to our collection of bad ones. One good one is the food meditation. Whenever you eat or drink, roll the food or drink around the mouth with the tongue or slowly chew and read the list of ingredients on the bottle, can or package. If it is a completely natural food, it won't come in a package with ingredients, and the meditation can begin with visualizing the food growing. See it receiving sun and nutrients from the soil, (or from the plants it ate if animal). Meditate on all the steps that took place from growing to arriving in your mouth. Then continue to meditate on how the food will affect you. A nutrient dense food will benefit you in many ways. Empty calories will stress your glands, but will still provide you with a caloric energy boost. Go over your reasons for your food choice. For instance, some people will eat packaged noodle soup because it is cheap, in spite of the refined wheat noodles it contains, (which contribute to constipation and obesity). Another large factor in our food choices is what we have been conditioned to eat as infants and children. We may have made a fuss and spit out the food at first, but it was lovingly proffered until we gave in and accepted it in spite of its failure to provide all of our nutritional needs. (Overly cooked and processed baby foods are deficient in food enzymes, many vitamins and minerals.) Now, we are choosing food, at least in part, because we expect it to nourish our bodies better than another possible choice would have done.

Revering the earth and meditating on the bounties we receive from her is an act of gratitude. Some foods are more conducive to an attitude of gratitude than others. If you note that your attitude is not very grateful, think back to your last few meals. As long as I eat raw, unadulterated food from plants and trees that were not overly chemicalized, it is easy to be happy. Meditation is the starting point. With right mindfulness, habits will change on their own. In my studies for this writing I ran across the view that some animal foods are necessary for balanced nutrition. Testing this, my partner and I had raw sushi (fish and fish eggs) in a local restaurant. During the week following the sushi meal, we got into several quarrels, something that rarely happens when we remain strictly vegan.