Food is nourishment for the body as much as it’s nourishment for the mind. An energizing breakfast or an aromatic cup of coffee can really change how the day “tastes”. A hearty meal at the end of a long day can bring you back to feeling safe and warm.
We generally talk about food as a physiological need, and technically speaking, it is that.
In our Western culture, diet culture has made food a calculation of calories and macros, which has distanced us from the various other meanings it used to have and still has in many cultures as a practice. Food brings family members together on a Sunday, brings memories, can make us feel bliss and joy, and is a source of health and life.
We have also lost the connection of the awareness of how we feel eating. We eat while working, or while walking under stress without even caring about what we eat, because we already need to be somewhere. Sometimes we feel the need to finish the plate, even though we are full, because we are conditioned to do that. In that, we ignore our body’s messages of already being full.
Food holds many meanings to us. I want to suggest that he experience of enjoying food can even be a spiritual experience.
Does energy only come from food?
We can feel like our energy elevates or goes down depending on what we eat, and even more, how we eat it. We have all felt the impact of a meal to our mood. Is it only the food that gives us energy or do we also get energy from other things?
Food and water are the fuel for our cells, so undeniably we must eat for energy. Yet, there are situations where we have plenty of food during the day, but we still don’t feel energetic. So the “feeling of having energy” is not directly correlating to the amount of food we have.
The experience of eating is equally as important. The environment and the social connections impact our emotions making our digestion more or less receptive to the food. The presentation of the meal, the combination of colors, textures, and flavors feed our senses at the same time as we digest the nutrition making us feel “emotionally satisfied”.
How you feel during a meal as well as the food in itself affect our “second brain”, the gut. The millions of bacteria in our gut communicate with each other and send messages to our nervous system.
I invest in my nourishment, and take time for the meals, because it’s important to me that I can genuinely enjoy my food while knowing that it’s nourishing my body as well. With this I refer to the quality of food, but also, the experience of it.
Food is not good and bad
I used to divide foods into good (safe) foods and bad (anxiety increasing) foods. Good foods such as vegetables, berries, almond milk, eggs, chicken, and oatmeal were safe to me. Bad foods were the ones that were not allowed during the week, like pasta, bread, wine, cheese, ice cream, chocolate or any bakery.
Whenever I ate those bad foods, I would feel increased anxiety only for eating something I shouldn’t. It wasn’t that the food made me feel bad – I created the feeling within me.
I started releasing my food rules a few years ago, and it made my life so much more enjoyable. My digestion improved so much and my hormones found their balance.
Today, I’m very conscious of how I speak about food. I try not to put any moral labels on any food. I no longer classify foods as bad or good, and nothing is forbidden. I also don’t like to say “healthy recipes”, because healthy is so complex. Balance of everything is more healthy than sticking to only “healthy” foods.
Food can be seen as only fuel, but it has a connection to our emotions, feelings, relationships, energy, and health. I love creating mindful recipes. They are not just food for macros, but I want to focus on them giving also a positive experience. Abundance over restriction. Nutritious and quality ingredients – that’s just what feels good to me.
I’m a celiac, so the only thing you don’t see in my recipes is gluten, so all recipes are suitable for others avoiding gluten.
