“Everything in moderation…including moderation.”
~ Julia Child
The quote of Julia Child makes me laugh. I love to eat. I love food. How about you? The challenge I find is that I often eat too much, too quickly, and then feel sick later. I usually skip lunch, which then leaves me with a great hunger at the end of the afternoon. Binging on snacks, then swallowing down dinner fills me up, but often leaves me empty. In a sense it’s a metaphor for how I all too often live my life: in binges, bursts, enjoying, then seeking that enjoyment again. In the end I often don’t appreciate all that much what I have, usually blaming it on time, and necessity.
Eating can be a spiritual practice. In fact I think that it is. The last half dozen years I’ve read many books on food, local food movements, reducing industrial food, exposing the industry of making food. There is a deep beauty in cooking, preparing a meal from disparate elements. Adding flavors, tastes, textures and colors to create something new. I love a perfectly roasted chicken, or a succulent piece of duck, creamy polenta, crunchy kale, a slightly bitter Manhattan, or the smell of a earthy red wine. Yet often while I’m eating I don’t intentionally or mindfully enjoy the food – the taste, the smell, texture. Of course we eat out of necessity, and yet as omnivores, we face the dilemma of choosing what we’ll eat. It sound corny to say we should be present in every bit, enjoying and savoring the beautiful bounty of creation that we in term consume, sustained life which sustains our life. Nevertheless, philosophically and morally that’s what we’re doing.
While you eat today, or when you drink, take the time to savor what you are consuming. Notice how it smells, take in the aroma. How does it feel in your mouth? Is it spicy? tart? sweet? crunchy? juicy? Be mindful of how much you eat, or how fast you’re eating. Do you enjoy the food or drink before you swallow it down? When do you feel full? Is it sooner than you imagine? You don’t have to take 30 minutes to eat a piece of toast. Who has the time to do that? But how can eating, this thing we do throughout the day, every day, remind us of creation – of the good that God made for us, and made us to be (as we read in Genesis 1:26-31).