Swami Sivananda
This isn’t a discussion about the purity of organic food – there’s a wealth of information and nutrition experts available, but I do believe we need to understand what is good for our body and why. We can ‘tune in’ to read the signals our body sends us in response to what we eat and notice what is good or detrimental to our body because “we are what we eat”. We need to adjust our eating habits as our lifestyle and body changes and remember that we ‘eat to live, not live to eat’, but nevertheless enjoy and savour our food to aim for a well-run body ensuring health and productivity.
I love food and enjoy cooking, so I find it very pleasurable to sit down and eat slowly and peacefully or in the company of good friends who also enjoy food. Digestion starts in the mouth, or even before, with the sight and smell of food activating our salivary glands, so, for me, the ritual of preparation is very much part of the eating process.
Eating in the street while rushing from shop to shop or between work appointments, we are not concentrating on the eating ritual and may tend to overeat because we are not ‘tuned in’. By eating on the move, we divert energy from properly digesting food and put stress on our (probably already over-stressed) body systems.
‘Fast processed food’ is so readily available that rather than eating healthily at regular times we may grab the nearest easy option – crisps, biscuits, sugary treat, even if our ‘hunger scale’ is saying that we’re perhaps only slightly hungry and a glass of water or cup of green tea or a piece of ‘fast healthy food’ such as fresh or dried fruit, would tide us over till the next proper meal.
‘Tune in’ to your eating habits and taste the benefits.
‘Southwell Life’ – Nov 2007