The Sacred Ritual of Eating

The Ritual of Eating – The most natural thing in the world.

We’ve been doing it since we can remember ourselves and we continue to do so every single day.

Most people will agree that eating is an important part of life. It’s our sustenance, we need it to live. But nowadays, eating is a lot more than that. Eating is part of almost every event, celebration or occasion. Going out to eat is probably most people’s favourite pastime when they’re not working. We eat on our desks at work, we eat when we’re watching movies, we snack while we commute, we eat at parties and we even have midnight feasts.

The majority of us will agree that we don’t just eat to live though.. we eat because of the delicious taste of food, we eat out of habit, we eat to be social.. etc etc.

Food is just such a normal everyday thing that everyone around us and ourselves included do every single day. And with so many people now learning about the importance of good nutrition and healthy diet – they want to make some changes. The truth however, is that most people fail to make changes. In fact, I recently read a ridiculous statistic of something like 95% of people who try to change their diet and maintain the change – fail. We are failing at such epic rates that it’s strange that it doesn’t occur to us that this is weird and something is very off.

It’s not that your nutritionist didn’t give you a good diet plan – in fact almost any healthy diet plan, if maintained, will give you the results you seek. It’s not that you do not have access to information about what to eat and what not to eat – do you. It’s also not that you are lazy or have no will power – you do.

So what is it?!

Back to Basics

Eating is one of the most intimate acts of self care that we can practice.

Our body cells renew themselves all the time. And where do they get the energy and materials to do that? From the food we eat.

We eat to build ourselves, literally.

Every bite we take is a foundation laid for new cells, new organs, new hormones, new skin, new hair… new you.

Perspective

Whoever said we should be grazing all day long – is wrong. Sorry for the bluntness but it’s true.

Food and eating is so special and should be treated as such. Since you are literally creating and re-creating yourself with every meal you take, don’t you think you ought to treat the whole thing with a little more grandness, more wonder, more respect?

The Sacred Daily Ritual

Make each and every meal you take an occasion.

Eat your meals with the people you love – what happened to family meals?

Present your meals nicely – arrange everything on the plate in a way that is pleasing to you.

Use your very best plates and cups and cutlery – yes, those “special occasion” ones you have in the back of your cupboard. Every meal is a special occasion.

Lay out the table nicely and watch how all of a sudden, without intending to, you’ll summon the whole household (hehe).

And then sit and look at your food. Look at the delicious, healthy, natural food which soon will become a part of you, and say thank you. Thank you to the supermarket worker who put your food out on the shelves, thank you to the people responsible for transporting your food from the farm to the supermarket. Thank you to the people who picked your food from the soil. Thank you for the food itself, for growing, for giving you its nutrients and lastly thank you to the sun – the main source of nourishment for giving you it’s life-sustaining energy. (Interesting fact – It has been proven that if you bless or thank your meal before consuming it you actually absorb a much higher percentage of the nutrients in the food!)

Finally eat your food slowly and mindfully. Enjoy each bite and enjoy the company of the people you love around you.

Do this and watch your health, your relationships, your overall well-being turn around completely. Like magic.