Eating can be a sacred experience.  Right before our eyes we get to witness the transformation and transmutation of matter into energetic potential. Food gives us the fuel we need to live our best lives and the way we choose to eat can change the world. Nothing has had a greater impact on our methods of food production and delivery systems more than processed and fast food. So we get a vote 3 times a day on how we want the world to be run. So in understanding our impact, how can we best honor our world and ourselves? Well, we can eat like it is a spiritual experience, because it is.

Making Your Food Meaningful

What is the difference between adding chia seeds and flax seeds to your smoothie and why would you choose one over the other? Ultimately, they both have a benefit, so why does it matter? Well, if you do your research, educate yourself and then choose consciously based on the needs of your body, you start to create meaning around your choices. Even between these two healthy options there are subtle differences. As we fine-tune our preferences with education, awareness and research, our choices become more important to us.

Every day your body is slightly different, it feels different and requires different things depending on what activities you have lined up for the day. For example, maybe you have a morning packed with meetings and you won’t be able to get a snack in before lunch. Plan your breakfast accordingly. If you normally have a smoothie, make sure on that day you add in some almonds, perhaps some avocado so that the fat and protein can hold you over until your next meal. When we know what our food has to offer us and then match it to our needs accordingly, we create purpose in our choices. When we understand what it takes to sustain us, we create harmony in the body. Sustainability is harmony in action. So when we consciously choose how we are going to feed ourselves, we create context and meaning around our choices. Choices that have become meaningful to you, become enduring. 

Food and Thought

How do you feel about your food?  In The Mystic Cookbook: The Secret Alchemy of Food by Denise Linn and Meadow Linn, they speak of a word association study where groups of American and French women are shown a picture of a chocolate cake.  The French women, more often than not, would associate that piece of cake with the word ‘celebration’. The American women would associate it with the word ‘guilt’. How does food make you feel? We need to ask ourselves, what are we really feeding? Am I using food to satisfy something other than the nutrient needs of my body?

If you view your food with a negative emotional charge, the body does not receive or assimilate that food in the way that it could. Something like guilt has a low vibrational frequency and it prevents the body from functioning in an optimal state.  If you view your food negatively, how does that shift your consciousness and the consciousness of the food?  Spiritual nutrition is not about following a fad diet; it is about nurturing and nourishing the body so your spirit has a vibrant outlet for expression.   Making any changes in your eating habits won’t be an enduring change if you feel deprived all the time or if your food makes you feel bad.  So when you eat those ‘forbidden foods', instead of eating them in a dark corner away from peering eyes, make it a celebration.  Enjoy every minute of it. When you move from a place of abundance, purpose and mindfulness, food no longer controls you. It becomes a sacred experience.

The Consciousness of Food

Have you ever eaten an apple you just picked off the tree?  You can feel the warmth of the sun-kissed fruit as you bite into it.  This fruit has tremendous life force energy running through it, and as you eat it that life force energy is passed on to you. Now imagine a box of mac and cheese.  The bright orange synthetic color, MSG and other food additives alongside the semi cooked processed noodles.  Is there any life force left?  A food's nutrients are very important, but so is its transfer of life force energy.  Contemplate your food choices in terms of the life force energy it has to give you. While you are eating think about what that food is providing you nutritionally and energetically.  Is it adding to your Light, or is it dampening it? 

Eating Intuitively

Our bodies are speaking to us all the time.  The more conscious we are, the more aware we are of their messages.  Hunger is a signal, while more obvious than some, it is often misused or misunderstood.  There are many opinions in our culture on the ‘right’ way to eat. Eating intuitively requires us to let those opinions go. Your body, mind, and spirit create a unique biochemistry and because of this there will never be a one-sized fits all way of eating. So we need to learn to trust the cues, our bodies and ourselves. Eating slowly and mindfully helps with this process. Also, keeping the body in balance prevents us from going to extremes or binging eating to make up for lost calories. Ask yourself, do these foods fulfill the needs of my body right now and are they in alignment with the demands of my day? Hold your hand over your heart, take a few conscious breaths and listen to the answers.

A Saving Grace

Nobody is going to eat perfect all of the time. Lucky for us, saying grace before the meal can help to mitigate poor digestion and assimilation of nutrient weak foods. Saying a blessing over our food and asking that it be accepted by our bodies in our highest good, can change the way we interact with it.  This is because everything has a consciousness and that energy permeates all things. So when we are grateful for our food and what it has to offer us, we create a sacred agreement between our food and our bodies. 

While all gratitude is wonderful, remembering to direct your appreciation to someone or something specifically makes it an even more powerful practice. Being thankful for the farmers, the truck drivers, the stock person and the cashier are only a few suggestions. Of course being thankful for the Mother Earth, the soil, your body and the food itself are important too. If we look at life and the things in it as blessings, they bless us back. 

We spend a significant portion of our lives eating and the way we eat has an effect on our health and the world at large. We have the opportunity to ‘Be the change we wish to see’ by eating in alignment with our hearts and values.  The more Spirit we can bring into our daily lives, the more Spirit we bring into the world.  Nutrition seems like a good place to start.

About the Author

Angela Levesque is a writer, intuitive and host of Entanglement Radio on iOM.fm. She works with clients doing intuitive readings and lifestyle coaching, awareness development and mind/body weight loss. Angela also teaches several classes on self-care and is the author of Healing Environment: The Conscious Creation of Health. Visit www.hestiahealth.com for more information. Find her on https://twitter.com/HestiaHealth and http://www.facebook.com/hestiahealth.