Conscious Consumption: Mending our Relationship with Food
“Spiritual Nutrition transcends all cultural borders. It is a part of the original
spiritual teachings in every country in the world; in every faith. All the way
back to the ancient Essenes and the wisdom of the Rishis masters of India,
regardless of our creed or culture. It was given to all of us as a tool, a step
on the path to Enlightenment.”
-W. Kacera
For many of us living in the world today food has become a
topic of confusion and struggle. Especially in the United States there is an
endless obsession with weight-loss, cravings, and body image.
With the fast paced environment that we live in, many people
have lost their spiritual connection to food. Food has become something that we
chew as fast as we can while commuting to work, to school. It has become a
nutritional value on the backs of wrappers. Our bodies are not machines. We
need to look at the absence of consciousness about the relationship that exists
between our bodies and our spirits.
Food is something that impacts us on the physical level,
emotional level, and spiritual level.
From the article entitled “Spiritual Nutrition: Feeding the
Body, Nourishing the Spirit,” that Elisse and I both utilized from The Living
Centre website, we understood that there are four aspects of food: “Biological,
psychological, spiritual, and social nutrition.”
“Biological Nourishment: the nutrients in optimal foods have
the power to heal and balance physical health.”
“Psychological Nourishment: Food influences mood;
conversely, mood, emotions, and feelings often affect food choices.”
“Social Nourishment: dining with others in a pleasant
atmosphere affects well-being.”
“Spiritual Nourishment: eating with an awareness of the
mystery of life in food and connecting with it via mindfulness, appreciation,
and a loving consciousness may enhance health.”
Please read this short article entitled “The Connection
between Spirituality and Food.”
Maggie Christopher, the author of this article, is a
certified holistic nutrition counselor and a licensed marriage and family
therapist. Utilizing these two parts of herself, she supports people in their
quest to find a healthy relationship with food.
This article explores how and why people have lost their
healthy relationships with food. What I really like about this particular
article is that she explores the ways in which people can mend that
relationship.
There is one quote in particular that I would like you to
draw upon in your comment and explore:
“If you are on a spiritual path, I invite you to consider
the benefits of truly exploring your relationship with food. Food is a profound
doorway into spiritual growth, because how you experience food is how you
experience life.”
Now, I would like to talk a little bit about my personal
relationship with food. This always gets a little bit uncomfortable for me
because for a long time this relationship was incredibly unhealthy. As a child
my parents worked a lot. I didn’t see my mother very much growing up and we’d
stay at school most nights in the latch-key program until 8 or 9PM. We’d eat
McDonalds or Spaghettio’s, sometimes Lean Cuisines. I became overweight at a
very young age and was made fun of by the other children. Because of this I saw
my body as something that got in my way. I started dieting when I was ten years
old and very drastically fluctuated in my weight even through high school. It wasn’t until my sophomore
year at K that I really decided to eat what my body wanted. Notice that I said
my body, not my mind. I think that the biggest challenge for me has been
understanding the difference between my body and my mind in relationship to
food. Something that I have had to come to terms with is that if I am
nourishing my body in the way that feels good I cannot get angry at my body for
the way that it looks. If I have eaten healthfully and focused on my own
spiritual connection, I have been larger than what is societally rewarded. That
is something that has been incredibly hard for me to cope with, but as long as
I feel good and am being good to my body, I love my body and I love myself.
Something that I have been trying to do recently is focus on
eating when I eat. How simple is that? In actuality, it is incredibly
difficult. I don’t turn on the television. I try not to text on my phone. I
don’t take so many selfies with my salads. I sit with my food and I enjoy it. I
let eating be it’s own experience.
Some things to consider in your response:
What is your own relationship to food? How does that affect
your spiritual side?
What would you change about your relationship to food?
Feel free to write from your heart. Elisse and I want to
make this week’s class very open and honest, and we want people to be
comfortable.
“To receive the most subtle particles in the food, you must
be fully conscious, wide awake, and full of love. If the entire system is ready
to receive food in that perfect way, then the food is moved to pour out its
hidden riches. When food opens itself, it gives you all that it has in the way
of pure, divine energies.”
-O. M. Aivanbov
Have a wonderful week. Don't forget to love yourself.
See you all on Thursday.
I am really excited that we are talking about food and spirituality this week. I have been thinking about our connection to food a lot after Amy read from Braiding Sweetgrass and we dug up leaks with intention and gratitude. I think we can learn so much about ourselves, our relationships, and the earth, when we take the time to listen. I am so thankful that you brought up the importance of listening to our bodies, Laura. I have struggled with trying to conform to social constructions of beauty and have been frustrated by feeling like I have to choose between what my body wants, what I crave physically, culturally, spiritually, and socially, and what I think other people want my body to look like or what mainstream society says it should look like. I still struggle with shame over my body and my eating habits sometimes, but I am most happy when I am sharing food that I feel connected to with others, and I really appreciated the way the article addressed nourishment on so many different levels. When I focus my energy on addressing all of these aspects of nourishment, I find that I am able to connect to my food and my body in a much healthier and more spiritual way and I am thankful for these conversations that challenge our conceptions of nourishment and beauty and health.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for dedicating time and space to this conversation! I think it is a really important one and has definitely been missing from our class discussion before now. Writing out of my own experience, I grew up in a household that was dedicated to family meals every day. But even with this strong base of healthy foods in a family environment and a childhood in which value was placed on setting aside time simply for eating together and nothing else, I ran into my own set of challenges with my relationship to my food in high school and on into college. Now I find that I have to be incredibly conscious of the relationship between my own internal stress and anxiety and the way I am eating and thinking (or not thinking) about eating each and every day. While I think that healthy family meals are an important part of the foundation of developing a healthy spiritual connection with food, I still have a lot of self connecting left to do in order to develop that spiritual connection within myself in a solid and grounded way.
ReplyDeleteI am really looking forward to hearing from the whole group on Thursday. Thanks again for opening up this topic of conversation!
I hope it's safe to say that for all of us to be in this class, we have all thought about our relationship with food on some level, but I think bringing the soul into it is something most of us forget about and I'm grateful we get to discuss this.
ReplyDeleteI was raised in a house that loves food; through most of high school, my family would sit together at the table and have a home-cooked dinner together. No tv (except on Fridays or for a very important sporting event), just us holding conversation, hearing about each others' days and learning what Mom put in the rub for the pork tenderloin. My dad really loves the act of cooking, and making quality meals from quality ingredients, but he also loves "bad" food, like Lays potato chips and burgers from greasy spoon restaurants. For him and much of his side of the family, food has always been a form of escape from stress and emotional disorder, particularly the carbs and the fatty stuff. So I totally agree with the psychological point that food affects mood, and mood determines what we think our body wants.
I've definitely inherited some of my dad's stress eating habits. I do, however, feel that I've strengthened my relationship with food over the past few years, particularly since grocery shopping for myself. When I live with my dad and brothers, they feel the need for a lot of meat and carbs on the plate, which I happily eat. But I've also learned that my body craves a lot of leaner foods: lean proteins, tons of veggies, yogurt, and when I initially stray from this type of eating, my body, mood, and energy level have a negative reaction.
One quote from Christopher's article that stood out to me was, "It is unrealistic to think that something man-made is more nutritious than the profound wisdom of whole foods." It does sound a little cheesy, but there's a lot of logic to this phrase. The high concentration of human imposition on food is relatively new to the planet, and it doesn't seem like we're doing Mother Nature much of a favor with a lot of our "modifications". I think this relates to my relationship with fast food. I have realized in the past couple years that, while I used to love fast food as a treat from time to time growing up, now even though I think I crave it, as soon as I polish off a McDonalds burger, my emotions get kind of whacky, like I'm trying to say sorry to my body.
I could talk about this topic for ages, but I'm really excited to hear what everybody has to say on Thursday!
I related to Christopher’s article in several ways, but there is one point in my life that I would like to specifically reflect on. After I graduated from high school I participated in a Rotary Youth Exchange in Poland. For eleven months I lived with a host family and attended a Polish high school. This year was challenging and wonderful in many ways, but one of the biggest struggles for me was food. I’m not a picky eater and at first, I happily tried and ate anything someone served me. For the most part I enjoyed the Polish food – the pierogi, cakes, and kielbasa. However, the food was different than what I was used to, much more dense and lots of meat and potatoes. This differed from the diet I had back in the U.S. and I began to struggle with eating. There were a couple of factors: 1) I was fully committed to integrating into Polish life and for me, that meant eating Polish food and not eating Polish food felt like letting people down, 2) I wasn’t able to control what my host family served me and I lacked the language and confidence to explain how I was feeling, 3) struggling emotionally with being far from the U.S. for the first time, I started eating things that made me feel okay – at least for a moment. Combined, these factors led me to disordered eating and impacted both my spiritual and physical health.
ReplyDeleteAt the time I didn’t understand what I was experiencing or why I felt the way I did. Looking back, I wish I had had a better understanding of the four aspects of food: biological, psychological, spiritual, and social nutrition. Had I understood these aspects, I think I would have been able to process better and help myself learn how to deal with the situations I was in. Since being in Poland, I have been able to reflect on my time there, and explore other ways of relating to food that makes me a more healthy person mentally and physically. Learning to cook and having the opportunity to cook food for myself and others, being involved in food justice work, and gardening/farming, have all helped me re-conceptualize the way I thought of food from a one-sided thing to a multi-faced definition. The expansion of how I think and understand food has led me to connect more with what I’m eating and how I’m eating. This is true not only when I’m in my own space, but also when I’m traveling and living elsewhere. For me, being able to understand the multi-dimensions of food and my relationship to it has allowed me to process and connect in a deeper way.
Thank you for bringing up this topic for discussion. I liked both articles and especially liked when Amy Choi talked about food as savory. It brought me back to my short time studying abroad in France where there was no such thing as take out. At first it was difficult to get used to but then I began to actually enjoy its nonexistence. There was so much more time for just being. Also, of course you were going to sit and enjoy every last bite of your meal because you could not take it home. This made me think about my life now compared to when I was still living with my parents.
ReplyDeleteI, along with my three younger brothers was homeschooled until fifth grade. My mother and father both played a role in the schooling and we were always home together, especially for dinner. We had family meals every night and my mother and sometimes father would cook a healthy organic meal. I feel so very grateful for those experiences. I also came to find out that not everyone had similar experiences, at all. I have struggled in college finding time and energy trying to replicate those experiences as best I can. I have struggled with “giving in” to sweets or less healthy food choices to represent a meal. When I pay attention to my body sometimes, it is not happy with my choices.
I do not think that my body appreciates dairy as much as my mouth and mind do. However, I still eat it and very much enjoy it. I also believe that the places that I have the privilege to shop at (Sawalls, farmers market and the Coop) embody the ideas and values that I share with food choices, some including community, locality, and health. Making these few the only places that I grocery shop has allowed me to spend time with the dishes I choose to cook and to really develop a relationship with the food I eat. I cook most nights of the week but sometimes I am in a rush and need a quick meal and am out of leftovers. This is where I struggle the most. On a side note: as much as I value slow cooking, eating and doing so in a group based process, I do wish (quite often) that the Coop hot bar was made available on a larger scale and maybe even in a take out/late night type of way. The gist: affordable healthy organic faster food.
To highlight what Maggie discussed in her article about thinking with the body not head, I also believe that this is important. If more people (who had the privilege to be in a position to embody this) would use this as a tool for connecting physically and spiritually, our relationships with food would flourish and our “convenience ordinated” consumer minds may even shift.
Thank you for sharing.
I really appreciated the quote you posted by W. Kacera, “Spiritual Nutrition transcends all cultural borders,” as I think it demonstrates the importance of food on connecting us all throughout the intersecting layers of mind, body and soul. During my early childhood, I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a household in which my parents strived to promote stronger relationships with us all via family dinners every night. However, as the years continued and we all became busier with careers and school, that tradition slowly faded away. Dinners became something that you would grab on the go, eat quickly while watching a show, etc. There was an obvious transition from just ‘being’ (enjoying the moment, the food, the people) to ‘doing’ (eating for its most basic, biological purpose). It wasn’t until I went to Spain, that I was reintroduced to a culture that takes pride in its emphasis on extensive, family-centered ‘comidas’ with some of the most delicious and fresh food. It was with this experience that I realized the importance in not only satisfying my psychological, social, spiritual, and emotional needs along with my biological needs. While I still find myself struggling today to maintain this healthier interpretation of food, especially with K’s stressful environment, I realize that it is an ongoing process. With this in mind, I am really looking forward to Thursday’s lecture; it’s so important to keep this as an ongoing conversation in order to remind ourselves to stop ‘doing’ and take the time to ‘be’ every once in a while. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated the quote you posted by W. Kacera, “Spiritual Nutrition transcends all cultural borders,” as I think it demonstrates the importance of food on connecting us all throughout the intersecting layers of mind, body and soul. During my early childhood, I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a household in which my parents strived to promote stronger relationships with us all via family dinners every night. However, as the years continued and we all became busier with careers and school, that tradition slowly faded away. Dinners became something that you would grab on the go, eat quickly while watching a show, etc. There was an obvious transition from just ‘being’ (enjoying the moment, the food, the people) to ‘doing’ (eating for its most basic, biological purpose). It wasn’t until I went to Spain, that I was reintroduced to a culture that takes pride in its emphasis on extensive, family-centered ‘comidas’ with some of the most delicious and fresh food. It was with this experience that I realized the importance in not only satisfying my psychological, social, spiritual, and emotional needs along with my biological needs. While I still find myself struggling today to maintain this healthier interpretation of food, especially with K’s stressful environment, I realize that it is an ongoing process. With this in mind, I am really looking forward to Thursday’s lecture; it’s so important to keep this as an ongoing conversation in order to remind ourselves to stop ‘doing’ and take the time to ‘be’ every once in a while. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteIn our busy schedules, people have difficulty finding time to relax and enjoy a meal, to really appreciate their food and participate in mindful eating. Growing up, my family ate dinner together, but it rarely lasted more than 15 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI have read a lot about the effects of eating when stressed and eating on the go, and it may have implications for a lot of metabolic diseases. At a basic level, your nervous system has two states: “fight or flight” (sympathetic NS) and “rest and digest” (parasympathetic NS). When you eat while stressed, your body is in “fight or flight” mode, and energy is directed away from your digestive system to your muscles and other organs. This effectively hinders proper digestion of your food.
Recently, in trying to repair my relationship with food, my goal has been to stretch my meals out to last 45 minutes. It is still difficult for me, because rushing through meals is such an engrained habit. When I go home now, I find myself only a third of the way through my meal when the rest of my family is leaving the table.
One thing that has been surprisingly effective in fostering a positive relationship with food for me is intermittent fasting. It seems a bit counterintuitive, since fasting is the opposite of eating. But it’s incredible how productive and energized I can feel when fasting. My body has adapted so that I can easily eat one large meal a day, which I like and often do. Once in a while, I do a more extended fast. When I then break the fast and eat, I find that I appreciate the food more and that I can take the time to eat mindfully. Let me be clear, I eat when I’m hungry. But adopting a high-fat paleo diet has really helped me to balance my hormones and I no longer find myself desperately hungry every 3 hours like I used to be.
I think a lot of our damaged relationship to food is intertwined with our health. The impact of modern processed foods on our endocrine (hormonal) systems and microbiomes is dramatic. Hormonal imbalance or microbial dysbiosis can cause cravings, stress eating, and a desire for unhealthy foods. I think in order to really repair our relationship to food, we need to consider how foods are impacting our health and decision-making.
So interesting to hear everyone's different experiences! In response to Laura's post, I think I'll share some of my thoughts/experiences in relationship to spirituality and then I'll share family/cultural experiences in response to Elisse's post.
ReplyDeleteI've already said that for me, growing food and eating is profoundly spiritual, an intimate act of communion with the world: I take another being's body into my body and it becomes a part of me! I'm awed and amazed and humbled by this--and I feel a responsibility to use the energy of the life that has been given for me in a good way. Growing up in a farming family, I think that I absorbed a certain respect for food since most of what we ate I'd seen growing or living at one point or another. And before every meal we would say a grace that included these words: "Bless this food to our use and us to Thy service." But I didn't think about what those words meant when I was a kid and my personal spiritual relationship with food developed later, beginning when I was in college.
I think it started, really, with my interest in wilderness survival skills, which included foraging for wild edibles. I took some classes and read most of Tom Brown, Jr.'s (https://www.trackerschool.com/) books on wilderness survival. And I started practicing what I'd learned. Part of what I learned was to always be respectful of the plant people, to ask their permission to harvest them, to not waste their gifts, and to say "thank you." It was a little strange, at first, I'll admit, to practice talking to the plants--I'd never been encouraged to have a conversation with a plant before!
But I found a particularly fulfilling sense of nourishment in eating in this way, taking my food directly from the earth--and I felt a responsibility to pay attention as I ate, enjoying each bite. After all, I had taken life in order to eat--the least I could do was to fully enjoy and appreciate the meal that life offered me.
I found that this awareness influenced how I experienced eating things I hadn't harvested with my own hands as well. I would sit down to a meal and try to imagine all of the beings that had been involved in its production--from the plants and animals who contributed from their bodies to all of the people involved in growing, harvesting, preparing, and transporting it to me. I would try to say a little prayer of gratitude to each of them--sometimes that prayer list would get pretty long!
Once I graduated from college and started living in places where I could grow my own food, I felt that same connection with the garden plants that I did with the wild plants. Now that I've lived 3/4 of my life on one small piece of land and taken the majority of my food nourishment (as well as my water and air) from this land, I have a sense of being both physically and spiritually connected to this place--literally, the cells of my body are made of the substance of this ground, passed to me through the bodies of plants and animals. My "oneness" with this earth isn't abstract--what happens to this land happens to me. If the soil lacks nutrients, my body will lack nutrients. If there are chemicals in the water, those chemicals will be in my body as well. For me, I quite literally experience the phrase "I am what I eat" (and drink and breathe).
In light of this, I'm really curious about Lucy's comment about how food impacts us--both in terms of health and decision-making. If we are what we eat, then who are you?
I really enjoyed reading the article and thought it brought up some good points. I agree with you Laura, I liked that Christopher provided some actual suggestions for mending one’s relationship to food. Also, the idea that “how you experience food is how you experience life” is really interesting and sort of profound. I’m thinking about harvesting ramps on the farm last week, and how Amy made sure we were all conscious of respecting the plants and not taking more than we need. If everyone viewed food in this manner, I do think it would spill over into other aspects of our lives. We would become a species that is less greedy and more harmonious with the land. In this way, I believe that healing our relationships with our food is not just important, but critical to healing our relationships with our planet.
ReplyDeleteMy own spiritual connection to food is not as strong as I’d like, even though I’ve become more aware of food systems and more conscious of buying sustainable food in recent years. I don’t really consider myself a spiritual person, so I sometimes struggle to see food as more than just a source of fuel. Still, I’ve been making an effort to sit down and take my time when I eat. This, along with continuing to buy locally-sourced food, has helped my connection to food and will hopefully help with my spirituality as well. Thanks for bringing up this interesting topic, I’m eager to hear from you all in class.
I like this topic very much Laura! Thinking about the effects of food, both beneficial and not, is something that I don't think many people do until they are living on their own, and providing for themselves. One of the health aspects of eating food that I have come to realize in my own life that I need to be more aware of is my consumption of caffeine. It's definitely something I built a dependency on during the first two years at K. At the same time I would experience extreme exhaustion in addition to lacking the ability to fall asleep. It's hard to find a balance when you are thrown into a situation you are unfamiliar with! But I think you are right when you mentioned the importance of listening to your body and not your mind. These were certainly two opposing forces for me.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding my individual needs has led me to a deeper understanding and connection with food. My time spent on a farm last summer now allows me to consider the effort put into the growing of food and truly what a gift it is to be able to share in a farmer's harvest. For me then I try to give food as much respect as I can! This means using it in a way that it can be appreciated (not just consumed) and not letting it go to waste. I'm looking forward to discussion and I hope to hear more stories and personal connections!
Thanks Laura, for being so open and honest! I think I have been trying more and more to think about my food. Obviously I have thought about it in the social sense and the nutritional sense, but I have been trying more and more to think about it in the spirtual sense. I am not a very spirtual person in the typical use of the word. However, to me, spirituality has to do with the personal transformation of self. In this regard, I think I am very spirtual. I am constantly striving to become more and more of a person that I am proud of.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main ways I engage with spirtuality is through self reflection. I write in my journal, take time to just sit with my thoughts, and engage in deep conversation with friends. Not too long ago I realized I was not reflecting on one of the biggest parts of my life, food! Not only is food inavoidably a huge part of life, but personally food is really important to me. I love to cook, eat, think and dream about food. When I started reflecting about food more I realized how much gratitude I had towards it. Food has fostered so many important relationshiops in my life, it has nourished me, and it has taught me so much about nature.
Thinking about this gratitutde I have for all food has given me, I realized that I need to spend more time appreciating food. Like you said Laura, it is really easy to not focus on our food. I have been trying more and more to appreciate my food as I eat it. To me, there is not better way to express gratitutde to food than by really taking the time to enjoy it on the sensory level. Like most K students, I am very busy, and this type of focus is hard to come by. However, I try to at least once a week to connect with my food. I take the time to cook something special, not something that can just be zapped in the microwave. I try and eat it alone or with friends, but I do not allow other distractions like reading/ watching TV. This quarter, this class has inspired me to do more and more of this!
Thanks Laura, for being so open and honest! I think I have been trying more and more to think about my food. Obviously I have thought about it in the social sense and the nutritional sense, but I have been trying more and more to think about it in the spirtual sense. I am not a very spirtual person in the typical use of the word. However, to me, spirituality has to do with the personal transformation of self. In this regard, I think I am very spirtual. I am constantly striving to become more and more of a person that I am proud of.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main ways I engage with spirtuality is through self reflection. I write in my journal, take time to just sit with my thoughts, and engage in deep conversation with friends. Not too long ago I realized I was not reflecting on one of the biggest parts of my life, food! Not only is food inavoidably a huge part of life, but personally food is really important to me. I love to cook, eat, think and dream about food. When I started reflecting about food more I realized how much gratitude I had towards it. Food has fostered so many important relationshiops in my life, it has nourished me, and it has taught me so much about nature.
Thinking about this gratitutde I have for all food has given me, I realized that I need to spend more time appreciating food. Like you said Laura, it is really easy to not focus on our food. I have been trying more and more to appreciate my food as I eat it. To me, there is not better way to express gratitutde to food than by really taking the time to enjoy it on the sensory level. Like most K students, I am very busy, and this type of focus is hard to come by. However, I try to at least once a week to connect with my food. I take the time to cook something special, not something that can just be zapped in the microwave. I try and eat it alone or with friends, but I do not allow other distractions like reading/ watching TV. This quarter, this class has inspired me to do more and more of this!
This is a great topic! Food is one of the only things we need to stay alive, so I think we need to treat it with more respect. Plus, eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences we can have - it literally makes us feel good. There is definitely something sacred about food and nutrition. I loved how Amy said a few weeks ago that the vegetable or other formally living thing we consume will then sustain us and become a part of our body. It is communion with nature. But nature doesn't want to give itself up for anyone. This is where we have the responsibility to be respectful. The golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated, should apply to food too! We don't like to be overworked, or pumped with chemicals. We don't like to have our love go unappreciated. There is no love greater than giving up your life for someone else, and that's what our food does for us.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that struck me in the article was how our bodies will tell us what they need if we listen. I used to enjoy the occasional BLT but recently my body has responded very negatively to pork, so I have cut it out of my diet completely. And I really don't miss it.
Another interesting passage in the article dealt with vibrational energy. Before I started my quest for spiritual knowledge and understanding, I had a theory that everything had a vibration (perhaps that was the musician in me). But it turns out I was right. Sometimes you can tell a person is feeling down the moment they walk into the room. We can feel things like that and food is no different. Our bodies know the difference between food rooted in love and food that is the result of a manipulation of nature. This is pretty much what I was trying to bring up with fluoride and the pineal gland. Whether you subscribe to the ideas that the pineal is our spiritual eye or not, we certainly have intuitions that go beyond explanation. As we continue to be exposed to toxins and toxic lifestyles, I think our intuition gets away from us. Slowing down to appreciate and love is the key to solving not only our food issues, but our social ones too. It could all be so simple...
Laura, I really appreciate what you shared here. Both your article and personal experience really spoke to me. I know that I often forget that not only does what I eat effect how I feel, but also how I feel effects what I eat. I often think, “if I would just eat better then I would feel better,” which is certainly true. However I often forget that what I am eating can be reflective of what I am feeling. If I am homesick or sad, I seek out “comfort foods” which are in actuality just the things that gave be comfort in my childhood, which are all unhealthy. When I am stressed and overworked I do not take time to cook for myself, and instead seek out the fastest cheapest thing. I like how your article focuses not only on how you can do a better job of eating well, but also the importance of recognizing the root of why we so often ignore out bodies, as we are also ignoring our feelings.
ReplyDeleteI also think it is great that this article, and your personal story at the end, encourage us to think more about our food. You’re right, it seems so simple, but can actually be really difficult to do. As with most things, if I would just be a little more organized, for example if I would plan my meals, I would actually save myself a lot of time and stress. I’m usually not a huge follower of motivational literature, but in this nourishing and practical form, I found it really helpful. Thanks for sharing Laura! You are a beautiful butterfly!