How, what, and when we eat are often unconsciously conditioned by our parents, our friends, and our lifestyle. Food accounts for a significant portion of living expenses, and we spend a good portion of our lives eating to survive, to socialize, and for recreation.

Despite the deep integration of “Eating” into our existence, much of the activity becomes automatic and unconscious, as is commonly the case with daily activities. Many religions and spiritual traditions have rituals and practices to bring awareness and mindfulness back to this frequent activity, but often times those rituals can also become unconscious and simply another automatic habit.

Coming from the Christian tradition, our practice was to say “Grace”, or “Give thanks” before each meal. There was a time in my life that this became habitual, and I would essentially say the same “Thank you for the food, Amen” each time. The purpose of this practice then became lost on me, and found myself simply going through the motions without meaning or understanding. Fortunately, bringing awareness to eating helped me rediscover the purpose and value in saying grace before meals.

I now use that time and opportunity to become present, and exercise my gratitude muscle. Being able to express and feel gratitude is one of the cornerstones to developing presence. Next time you’re sitting down before a meal, try these exercises in awareness:

1. Think about the history of your food. As in, consider the birth and life process of everything on your plate. Every ingredient on your plate took time to grow, had to be fed and nurtured, and was eventually harvested and transported to make it’s way in front of you in that moment. Even if your meal took an hour to cook, it really took months or years to prepare. Beyond consuming just nutrients, you are consuming the energy of a whole host of lives that spanned across time of space.
2. Like sex, eating is one of the few activities that engages all five of our senses. However, if eating becomes a mundane activity, our senses get dull to what is actually happening. So take a moment to get present with your senses and wake them up to the divine joy of eating.
   — What colors do you see in your plate? What catches your eye?
   — Smell the contents of your spoon/fork right before you place it in your mouth. Can you predict flavor from the smell?
   — What is the texture like? How does the meal combine textures?
   — What sounds are made when you ingest the meal? Some cultures audibly slurp their soup to bring more attention and awareness to this aspect of eating.
   — And of course how does it taste? Can you identify what ingredients are present?
3. How does your internal state feel about eating? Are you actually hungry, or are you eating as a result of conditioning? Babies are perfect examples of listening to their bodies’ cues, eating when hungry and stopping when full. Often times we are conditioned to finish everything on our plate, even if we’re full.

Another awareness exercise is to examine how our body reacts to what we consume. There are many different philosophies on what we should eat — high protein, low carb, gluten-free, etc, but at the end of the day, what really matters is how we personally react to what we consume. Become your own best test subject. Use other recommendations as test cases, but let your own experience hold highest truth. To really hone in on this one, keep a journal or what you eat and log how you feel a couple of hours after each meal. See if you notice any correlations.

Bring consciousness into the activity of eating and you may find whole new dimensions of experience open up!