Wednesday, February 27, 2008

March 2008 Christine's Corner

With March come thoughts of spring renewal. The days are lengthening, the sun shows itself more often and we start thinking about what we might plant in our gardens this year. Some of us think mostly of the flowers we might want to add to our flower beds; others, like our guest columnist, think about the vegetables they want to grow. In addition, we might think about other kinds of new growth: what else would we like to seed in our lives and see take root? One possible area for new growth is our attitude about the food we put into our bodies. In last month’s editorial, I discussed the importance of approaching our choices about the kinds of foods we eat and the way we eat them with an attitude of love for ourselves. This month I want to reflect on the importance of approaching the acts of purchasing and eating food in a spirit of gratitude and grace.

In many spiritual traditions, it is an accepted practice to offer a prayer of thanks or “grace” before a meal, but this practice is frequently ignored in our secular and fast-paced modern lives. Offering grace, however, or at least coming to a meal with an attitude of grace, can provide many benefits. Taking the time to be thankful for the food before you and to acknowledge its sources is a way to slow down and approach the act of eating with awareness. When we pause to say or contemplate grace, we recognize, or re-know, that the act of eating is more than just sating our hunger or providing nourishment for our bodies. An attitude of grace makes us mindful of the food itself, as well as its sources in nature, its preparers, and how it came to our table.

The Unitarian grace prayer expresses this very well:

The food which we are about to eat
Is Earth, Water, and Sun, compounded
through the alchemy of many plants.
Therefore Earth, Water, and Sun will
become part of us.
This food is also the fruit of the labor of
many beings and creatures.
We are grateful for it.
May it give us strength, health, joy.
And may it increase our love.

This prayer reminds us of all the components of nature that come together to create the foods we eat. Vegetables and fruits grow in the soil of the earth and are nourished by water and sunlight. If we keep that in mind as we eat, we can slow down and eat mindfully (see last month’s article on Mindful Eating), and perhaps even taste earth or water or sunlight, or some combination of the three, in our fruits or vegetables. I love radishes and every time I take that first bite of one, I’m amazed by the rush of taste in my mouth: it’s earthy, definitely earthy, but there’s a fresh watery taste too, and even the bright heat of the sun. It’s a wonderful combination of flavors—and one that makes me slow down and take notice even when I’m rushing. That first bite always stops me in my tracks and makes me grateful for this little vegetable and all the elements of nature that went into its creation.

When I eat the radish, I take all its components into myself. The saying “you are what you eat” is commonplace, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Good nutrition is essential to good health. If we eat poorly, our bodies function poorly. In his 2004 documentary, Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock vividly demonstrated what can happen to a healthy 32-year-old man if he eats nothing but McDonald’s fast food for 30 days. Not only does Spurlock gain over 24 pounds, but he also sustains liver damage. If we comprehend the truth of the statement “you are what you eat,” and eating mindfully and gracefully helps us do so, then we make better choices about what we take into our bodies and make a part of ourselves.

Human labor is also necessary in the gathering and preparation of our food—whether it is our own labor in harvesting what we’ve grown in our own gardens, the labor of the local farmers whose produce we buy at our local farmers’ market, or the many workers who harvest, package, and ship food to our supermarkets, where more people make it possible for us to purchase it. Our food is more than just the final prepared meal that sits before us. All these components have gone into its creation. We should be aware of and grateful for each of them.

Becoming aware of the sources of our food helps us to realize that the choices we make in buying and preparing our food have wide-reaching effects. Lori Evesque’s columns in last month’s and this month’s newsletter (as well as her forthcoming column for April) address many of these effects and offer us valuable information for use in making ethical decisions about our food purchases. Choosing to eat organic foods or locally produced foods affects not only our own health but also the health of those around us and of the planet itself.

Whatever the source of our food, it is good to pause and be grateful for it. The food we eat enables us to live, but it is more than the fulfillment of a need. Eating is, or should be, a joy. When we make mindful choices about what we eat, our food does increase our strength and our health. When we eat slowly and gratefully, the color, texture, and taste of our food gives us pleasure. Finally, our food—and our approach to it—can increase our love. When we eat mindfully, we treat ourselves more lovingly: we eat at a pace appropriate for optimum nutrition, we savor our food, and we listen to our bodies’ messages about fullness and about what tastes and textures we really like. Likewise, when we purchase our food mindfully, acknowledging that our food choices make a difference in the lives of others and the state of our world, we increase our love for our planet and the other living beings with which we share it.

~posted by Christine, 3:40 PM