You Are What You Eat, Reconsidered … You Eat What You Are: How Mood Affects Your Food

I love food. I haven’t met many people that don’t share in this adoration but there have been a few. Nevertheless, eating takes up a significant portion of our life. I’m not sure how accurate these figures are but apparently we spend approximately 4 years of our life eating, consuming close to 35 tons of food!

That’s a surprisingly large investment of time and it raises an important question, ‘If I am spending all this time eating, am I using and engaging with this precious commodity wisely?’ In other words, whether you are a ‘foodie’ or not, whether you eat one meal a day or ten, how wonderful it would be for all of us if we could develop a better, healthier, more meaningful way of engaging in one of our favorite and most necessary past times.

Our normal relationship with food and eating is quite ordinary. As we process through our 35 tons of grub our mind is most often rambling, wandering about the universe, distracted, worrying we are running late, planning, daydreaming, rehearsing sarcastic responses, fantasizing, forecasting disasters that generally never come to pass, mindlessly stuffing our face with bite after bite — chew chew chew chomp chomp chomp nibble nibble nibble — then we are done. Burp. And there you have it {wipe your mouth} another meal in the books. And whether it was 5-star quality, accompanied by 2, maybe even 3 Michelin stars or just downright gag worthy or neither of the two — it’s still just a meal … never to be seen again. We didn’t necessary extract any essence from the experience and/or any real value other than maybe commenting on how amazing it tasted, basking in the flavors and subtle nuances or regretfully admitting how terrible it tasted (or had no taste at all), that we will never be back to this restaurant again and then yelping about our experience or giving it no real thought at all, paying the bill, grabbing a toothpick on the way out and just carrying on with business as usual.

Thankfully there’s a much more sublime, helpful and meaningful way to eat.

According to Buddha’s tantric teachings the most beneficial way to eat your food is to regard it as blessed medicine nectar possessing three qualities: it is nectar that cures & prevents sickness, nectar that increases your lifespan and wards off untimely death and nectar that purifies your mind. Viewed in this light food becomes a profoundly healing medicine; it is no longer ordinary — just a sweet potato, some quinoa, almonds and a salad. Recalling these qualities every time you eat not only creates an effect similar to the cause: healing your body, preventing disease, increasing your lifespan and increasing your wisdom, but you will eventually develop a very pure relationship with the food you eat. Interestingly enough and/or debatably so, how you think about your food almost matters more than the food itself.

For example, if you decide against your better judgment to eat a bag of Oreo cookies, and whilst eating them feeling guilty about it, passing judgment upon yourself, the added guilt will automatically create a much more powerful negative chemical response in your body, multiplying the already harmful effects of the sugar and chemicals: excess cortisol (the guilt, stress, worry, anxiety hormone) will be released comprising your metabolism causing increased weight gain and leading to exhaustion, irritability and low mood, the sugar will stay in your digestive system longer possibly creating toxic buildup and you will slowly be creating unwanted, long term health effects.

On the other hand (I am treading very dangerous ground here), if you eat Oreo’s with a happy, positive mind — guilt free — imagining they possess the three medicine-like qualities, the opposite effect will be triggered within the neuroendocrine system: the lack of cortisol will trigger better digestion and less exhaustion, less toxic buildup from sugar, less (not none, but less) weight gain and you will undoubtedly experience far fewer (or none, depending on how strong your concentration is) unwanted deleterious health effects in the long run — granted they are Oreo’s, you can’t expect to get off scot-free. AND, at the very least you will be enjoying yourself! I am clearly not advocating a cookie diet here, but if you’re going to eat Oreo’s, ENJOY … deeply enjoy! Plus, there’s no need to feel guilty. Guilt serves no purpose — you’re going to eat them anyway so you might as well enjoy. Plus, your body will eventually let you know it’s not a good idea either way.

As prohibition time gangster Al Capone recognized, “When I sell liquor, it’s called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it’s called hospitality.” So if the idea that how you think about your food almost matters more than the food itself is true for bootleg alcohol, how much more accurate is it for the organic, non-GMO healthy food you spend all your hard earned money on! Organic, non-GMO is wonderful, but finally, it is just food. Yes it’s healthier, has more flavor and is much less toxic but if you are not imbuing it with any real meaning, using your mind to transform it into healing nectar, you are not extracting the real essence from the food and from the act of eating itself. That’s 4 years of your life wasted. And so, how exceedingly more curative and medicinal is organic, non-GMO food that possesses the three medicine-like qualities. With every meal practice bringing a happy, healthy mind to the experience — pause for a moment before you take your first bite recalling your food is healing medicine — and your daily food consumption will become a profoundly healing practice, as well as an invaluable method for traveling the quick path to an increasingly healthier lifestyle. You will not just spend 4 years of your life mindlessly filling your belly, you will be using and engaging with this time wisely, actively creating the healthy body and mind you need and long for.

Thanks so much for reading.

Please share or recommend to others.

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Hello my dear friends! I am a Doctor of Acupuncture, a practitioner of
 Naturopathic Medicine, a longtime Buddhist meditation teacher and an activist involved in many personal and community based projects.
 I am also the founder of Neighborhood Natural Medicine in Brooklyn, NY.