9 Ways Eating Can Become Your New Spiritual Practice

Who among us has time to eat AND meditate? What if the simple act of procuring, preparing and eating food became the perfect medium for spiritual growth? Here are 9 ways you can use food to launch your new journey:

1. Purity: Clean food leads to a clean body. Simple food creates simple health. Wholesomeness of food helps the body to function smoothly, effortlessly, and easily in action, thought or being. Fresh and raw foods have high energetic vibrations which become you.

2. Nature: How magnificent is it that a power greater than ourselves helps food to grow out of the Earth, utilize and harness the sun for energy and interact with atmospheric & geographical elements? How wondrous is it that a small seed can grow into a plant to eat and creates more seeds for future plants? The miracle of life is in everything we eat.

Serve Gratitude

Serve Gratitude

3. Mindfulness: The ritual of shopping for or growing food, the ceremony of preparation, the act of feeding oneself and others, and the privilege of cleaning up all are opportunities for active meditation. The colors, textures, smells, tastes, and orderliness can all be delights for the senses & opportunities for focus.

4. Ahimsa: One of Patanjali’s Eight-Limbed Ashtanga yoga principles is that of non-violence. How can each meal become the least harmful to living creatures, including ourselves, to the planet, to field workers and to the collective soul? Can meals feature fewer chemicals, less plastic and packaging, reduced waste and minimize excess? Take only what you need and need only what you take.

5. Gratitude: How lucky are most of us to live within a short walk or drive of new food? How amazing is it that we can turn on a faucet and out comes clean water? We have pantries, refrigerators and freezers with extra food. So fortunate are we! Consider the last time you truly starved at the table in your kitchen under a roof.

6. Service: Share your bounty with a friend, a soup kitchen, a food bank or a homeless individual. Reduce waste knowing that not everyone gets to eat every day. Choose foods lower on the food chain to create food for a greater number of people. Give back to nature with compost.

7. Love: Fall in love with your food as a way of reverence and admiration. Look at it. Really look at it. Know that today’s food becomes your tomorrow body. Show it love. Make each meal a positive, nourishing experience for your body & heart. Infuse your meals with love: dining companions, music, food, time, lighting.

8. Beauty: How gorgeous is food? The smooth yellows, the shiny reds, the curly greens, the round blues, the prickly oranges….endless textures, shapes and colors. Arrange fruit in artful ways in bowls and meals on plates. Take in the beauty and make it part of an effervescent you.

Beautiful Food

Beautiful Food

9. Daily: You eat every day, probably several times. Eating is the perfect medium for spiritual practice. Give thanks for the food. Be calm. Let eating become the most serene part of your day. Or fast: go without. Notice the contrast in the body when daily food is not present. Be thankful for both sensations knowing that they enhance each other.

If you don’t yet make time to meditate, use the daily ritual of eating to help you become more kind, gentle and loving. All is one….eat accordingly.

{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }

Jan November 6, 2012 at 10:22 am

Love this post Carla. You’ve obviously thought a lot about it and you’ve summarized all the thoughts out there (and added some of your own) to make a great case for food as a spiritual practice. I think it’s perfectly wonderful.

Just as an aside, as a Jewish person (who does not keep kosher), I do know that the purpose of keeping the laws of kashrut is just that–a spiritual practice to make us aware of where food comes from, how humanely animals are killed for consumption and even whether to honor the animal’s parentage (do not mix milk and meat, because it’s mixing the offspring in the mother’s milk–I’m sure I’m not doing THAT justice, but it’s something like that).

Plus the numerous prayers around food also showing gratitude and acknowledgement of the overflowing (not the “blessing”) abundance of the Universe, which some people call G-d.

Just thought you might like to know. Thanks again!
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Carla Golden November 6, 2012 at 10:36 am

Thanks for sharing added dimensions to this post, Jan! Food is so meaningful in so many ways in our lives. It truly can be a personal transformational tool on my levels. Blessings, xo-C.

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Jan February 2, 2013 at 3:04 pm

In re-reading this, I see that it is actually your book. You can make it so. The 9 reasons here are the sections, each sentence in each reason is a chapter. I can’t wait to read THAT!

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Jan February 2, 2013 at 3:05 pm

I mean a real book with a real publisher (Hay House, for example).

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Carla Golden February 2, 2013 at 4:25 pm

Thank you Jan! I am working on The Healer’s Diet…an online course and I will use your suggestion to use these nine sections as a format. Thank you!!
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Sharon November 13, 2013 at 1:55 pm

This is a wonderful post and much needed by me.

3. Mindfulness: The ritual of shopping … the ceremony of preparation…. the privilege of cleaning up.

OK. I am going to try it. I usually approach making food and cleanup with a lot of irritation. I would rather be doing something creative and it is so annoying to be hungry AGAIN already, and need to stop and eat. .

So thank you for this post. It’s a great way for me to be more mindful and connect with Spirit.

Loved Jan’s explanation of the reason of the kosher practice — not mixing the offspring in the mother’s milk. Beautifully said. Finally that makes sense to me.
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Carla Golden November 13, 2013 at 7:10 pm

The kitchen is not my creative outlet either Sharon. I do feel so lucky to have indoor plumbing, a fridge and pantry full of food, a stove and other appliances with which to prepare a meal. My meals are often very simple because I don’t like so much to invest the time on the front or back end. So I hear ya! Monomeals are great…simple, fast, easy. Mindfulness & gratitude come into play no matter the complexity of the preparation and clean up. Yes, glad for Jan’s explanation. So helpful to have such a wise community gathering around.

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Ana December 24, 2014 at 12:28 am

About two weeks ago I joined blendfresh as a consultant. While I was searching info on the web, I was lucky to navigate onto your site. Looking at the pictures on it and reading through it just brings me peace and happiness. Without knowing about the ways to enjoy and appreciate “foods” I noticed myself taking time to appreciate and slowly enjoying my food and the time while I’m eating. I guess I’m not feeling guilty because I’m eating good clean food. Your site is awesome. God bless.

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Carla Golden December 24, 2014 at 8:52 pm

Welcome to the Blendfresh team Ana! Thank you for your kind words about my website. Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to comment.

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Nichola March 8, 2016 at 1:04 am

Dear Carla

Thank you for passing on your wonderful teachings.
It still amazes me why intelligent people who know what is going on ‘out there’ still live in denial and choose to continue to make poor choices regarding their nutritional needs and the welfare of our planet. I believe that they don’t really want to know as they don’t want to have to make the effort to change their ways.
I feel that people who eat meat who know what is happening in the ‘farming’ world can’t really care about their own well-being or that of our planets and it’s inhabitants. Some will wake up to the realisation eventually just as I did many years ago in my 20’s.
I feel sad for the ones that won’t.
I have not made it to vegan yet as I love honey which I buy from a local apiarist I but am vegetarian. I don’t eat any dairy though except for free range eggs.
I say to meat-eaters that if they are going to eat meat then it is of the utmost importance that they find out the provenance i.e. Free range, organic, etc.

I would just like to say to Jewish Jan who expressed that the Jews reflect in a spiritual way on how humanely animals are killed with consideration to the slaughtered animals parentage that her information is incorrect.
Animals slaughtered using the sheshita method for the Jewish market is actually the most INhumane.
According to Jewish law, animals are not allowed to be stunned and have to be bled to death. Their death is more prolonged and therefore more painful than slaughter of a more traditional method.

Their is a powerful documentary called Cowspiracy which shows how kashrut/sheshita meat is killed along with every other method and it highlights the horror of modern factory farming.
May I suggest Jan watches it, to be able to make an informed decision and to educate yourself and others correctly in the future.

http://www.cowspiracy.com

Nicole

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Carla Golden March 8, 2016 at 10:43 am

Thank you Nicole. I share your frustration. There are many intelligent and compassionate people who have yet to make the connection between their food and terrorized sentient animals. Thank you for adding the information about slaughter in the Jewish custom.

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