We all know people, perhaps you are one of them, who suffer from physical ailments. Some of these are life-threatening or at the very least painful conditions that make life a lot more difficult to live. The truth, hard as it is to swallow, is that people who suffer from conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and other unnamed diseases often could have prevented this suffering simply by making better dietary decisions. This is not to slander people for making bad choices or for eating bad food.
What’s the real issue?
In fact, the real issue here is that we, as a people, have become too far removed from the food we consume in order to nourish the body. Many of us do not even think of eating as a means to nourish our body. Food has become a quick grab to provide instant gratification to the brain. We are in fact abusing the system, which also happens to be what keeps us alive.
It is not just these people that suffer, however. Many of us do not have a clue about what is in our food or what ailments are being caused by ingesting it. Pizza rolls probably have ingredients in them that most people can’t even pronounce nor have ever heard of. We have no real concept of how these ingredients affect our bodies, brains, or emotional well being. Depression, anxiety, inflammation, pain, headaches, and addiction are all ailments that we bring into our systems through food. If it isn’t natural, it’s toxic to the body.
5 Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Food:
- Do you know what has gone into the preparation of your food? If you go out to eat often or eat a lot of processed foods then you most likely have no idea what has gone into the preparation of your food. What’s in the dish, where does it come from, is it organic, are there added ingredients? Was it prepared in a clean environment? Was it prepared by a happy chef? We take in negativity in food too. Not knowing what goes into the preparation is one cause of a distant relationship with food that is being put into our bodies.
- Does your food have ingredients that you aren’t familiar with? When is the last time you looked on the back of box only to discover a list of ingredients that you don’t even know what they are.? Is it mass produced, addicting, harmful in any way to you? These are questions we should always be looking for an answer to before we eat.
- Do you take careful preparation of your own food? Do you cook your own food? Soak your own beans, churn your butter, knead your bread? We have forgotten what it’s like to work for the food we have and instead we mass consume it not having any part in the process of its preparation. Cooking as a joyful event gives food vibrance.
- Are you mindful of your waste? How much food do you throw away? Where is it going? How much packaging is being wasted in the process of cooking endless amounts of processed food? Being mindful about food is also about being mindful about waste.
- Do you eat when you’re not really hungry? How often do you eat when you are not hungry just because it’s easy and good? How much do you actually eat for nutrition’s sake? These are all questions to ask yourself to determine if you have lost touch with your food. If you answered yes more than you would have liked, it may be time to practice more mindful eating. In the end, your body, mind, and soul will thank you for it.
When you can, eat local, eat organic and eat with a pure heart loving your food and its preparation.
Good luck!
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