Can you imagine a cafeteria full of students, silently eating and mindfully enjoying their lunchtime meal?
Perhaps not, but try this mindfulness meditation yourself and see if there is a take away you can use with you own family.
“TRY this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli. Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.”
This concept has Buddhist roots, there are forms of meditation that use sitting, breathing, walking and many more, why not eating? We engage in it naturally 3 times or more a day.
I came across this fascinating article in the New York Times last week about this concept, it stated that this is not a diet, it is truly a way of relating to and experiencing food more intensely. When you do this, it is easier to really tell when you are full, satiated or when you actually need a certain food.
Here is the link to the article. Give it a read and think about your own relationship with food. Perhaps, savoring the food we eat instead of scarfing it down will inspire us to form a new take on the very stuff that fuels our life!