Ok, so the title is a bit strange, but allow me to explain. I have been reading quite a bit about eating for health - the Paleo Solution, the Paleo Diet, Anticancer, etc. - and strangely enough it is tough to separate eating right, from feeling right, from doing right and/or from "being right" (i.e. additional aspects of healthy living like sports and spirituality).
So how can eating right be spiritual you may ask? Well, if you start paying attention to what you are eating, it is a form of paying attention, of focus, and this in and of itself is very meditative in quality. Now that may be an intellectual shortcut but the truth of the matter is (at least my TOTM) that once you start trying to eat right you are in the process of accepting the "garbage in, garbage out" principle and can't really help thinking of the other ways we "feed" ourselves (TV, cinema, culture, reading, positive people, ...).
And once you start paying attention there is no going back, i.e. it is a slippery slope down to the spiritual path. My "eating right" plan started due to some funky blood tests and it has led me to rethinking everything I eat and the link between eating right and good health. That in turn got me thinking about living right and has led me to the inexorable conclusion that I need to meditate. In other words, I need to work on my "monkey brain" (as many Eastern practitioners are wont to call a mind that believes in the illusion that multitasking is possible) to quiet it down and gain some additional serenity in my life and in my way of being.
Easy? Not really. Which is why I have started by trying to improve my eating habits : ) A bit easier to do (without falling asleep, which is what my meditation keeps leading to - high quality cat naps)...
In any case, allow me to share four concepts that have really left an impression on me:
1/ the way we eat in most Western diets creates inflammation and irritation within the body and weighs heavily on our immune system opening the door to a host of possible "oh-no not that" diseases...
2/ while there is very little consensus in all things "nutrional" there is one apparent consensus concerning the catastrophic effects that white sugar and white flour can have on our health. Again no consensus but out of my various readings I would suggest minimizing (or better yet, eliminiating) consumption of both and if you can't avoid them or can't resist the temptation make sure that you consume them as part of a meal and never alone (e.g. during a snack).
3/ instead of thinking about meals as fleshy major + veggie minor (e.g. large portion of meat/poultry/fish + smaller side portion of veggies, mash potatoes, fries, salad, whatever), you should actually think about it backwards: a veggie foundation which you accompany with a small portion of meat/poultry/fish/tofu for taste (hat tip: David Servant Schreiber MD PhD)
4/ we can think of our bodies as garden - if it is well-tended then the occasional weed will pop up but will be easy to identify and deal with, if it is not tended then weeds will end up invading more and more of the garden and potentially devastate the rest of the garden.
Now that I know how to eat, I will still have to figure out how to meditate without falling asleep. Apparently the two together are the key to a longer, happier and healthier life. But who would want that?!
