You eat like an animal

Everybody does.  Because we ARE animals.  

Most animals spend a lot of their daily energy foraging (that's biologist talk for looking for food).  The ability to get good food is a major selective pressure (more biologist talk for the situation whereby if you don't eat, you don't have kids, and you therefore don't pass on your crummy inability to find food genes to any future generations).

Of course, most of us in North America don't live like the other animals anymore.  We are bombarded by an obscene excess of food options.  Most of the providers of those options are driven by capitalism.  So, now the pressure is on the food providers to make sure their food items get picked by us.  Instead of all us humans out there on the savannah competing for scraps of berries and meat, the various forms of froot and chik'n are competing for us.  

Food companies lure us in through marketing, and through engineering food to make it hyper-palatable: easy to eat, salty, fatty, and sugary, and strangely unsatisfying.  These foods are designed  to over-ride your animal brain and to leave you wanting more.  As I've mentioned before, some foods are really really hard to eat mindfully, and that's because they're made to be that way.

I've been thinking about this lately because of various books I've been reading about industrial food.  Mindful eating is supposed to be about HOW you eat, not WHAT you eat.  But I'm starting to realize that some food-like items make it almost impossible to eat mindfully.  A truly mindful eating practice would be careful with those foods.  

Eat this.

I am inspired by the carrot.  Specifically, the tiny carrots currently available from a local friendly farm, Patchwork Gardens.  Now, these are real carrots.  Lumpy, a little dirty, and packed with so much flavour that you only need to eat a few to feel blissfully happy. I LOVE them. 

Contrast this with those bags of creepy, soggy little carrot cone-clones.  I've often mindlessly eaten dozens of these things, without deriving much satisfaction or enjoyment.  Don't try to tell me you haven't done this.  These are industrial carrots.  They've gone through a lot of steps before they've gotten to you, and they've lost most of their vitality along the way.  You could eat worse things, but why not eat better things?  The real carrots I've been eating satisfy eye, nose, mouth, heart, and cellular hunger.  Mini-carrots are just cold wet crunchers with a bit of sweetness.  How impoverished.

Not this.

I don't like to tell people what to eat, or to push my food ethics on others, but I do want to encourage people to consider eating more real food.  We are so lucky in Kingston - with a little effort, we can find local food for sale in grocery stores and delis 365 days a year!  Hard to believe during a winter like this. 

 And, I'm very happy to discover that there is a blog that pulls information together: Eat Local, Kingston.  There's a Facebook page too.  Check it out and help this community grow!

Eat what YOU want

And by YOU, I mean your body, thinking mind, unconscious mind, the spark of light that is your life-force - all of it!

What part of "you" makes most of your food choices?  Our bodies sends us the signal that it's hungry, but then our analytic brains get all up in our face and take the fun out of eating.  Or, the conditioning and habits that are the realm of the unconscious mind cast their spell and make choices we later regret.  If you're eating something "healthy", but not delicious, chances are it's the poor brainwashed and bombarded thinking mind doing all the choosing.  If you're buying a triple-thick Harvey's milkshake to suck back in the car, you could be following the commands of your shadow-side, to your body's chagrin (or perhaps delight!).

What about tuning in to what the body desires, or what will truly satisfy your soul?  How about making food choices that have balanced input from all aspects of yourself, instead of letting one facet dominate the rest?  Mindful eating is like a democratic revolution of your self!  Don't most grass-roots revolutions start in the kitchen, or at least involve pots and pans? 

This post was inspired by several things that have happened in the past few days.  I heard this fascinating interview with Nina Teicholz, the author of "Big Fat Surprise". I had a great discussion with a good friend about a cleansing diet she did, how she felt, and how she wants to integrate what she learned into her life.  I've been reading "French Women Don't Get Fat" (more on that another time), which is really a manifesto of the French approach to mindful eating, with some weight loss tips thrown in.   And I read this excellent blog post from a woman advocating size acceptance (as opposed to judging fat people).

Remember grade school biology?  The definition of a living being is something that eats, digests, breathes, and reproduces (basically). I'm so done with the miasma of information and mis-information that has turned one of our most elemental functions into yet another plaything of capitalism, politics, scientific debate.  

I've been researching and considering my food choices to ensure that they are healthy, ethical, and environmentally sustainable for over 20 years.  There's just one piece of advice that I bother trying to follow anymore: 

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants. (Michael Pollan)

The (persimmon) Tree of Knowledge

Do you even know what a persimmon tastes like?

I had no idea, but I thought I knew what they looked like.  I am a biologist who identifies trees for a living, after all.  My sweetheart and I were recently on vacation on the U.S. Atlantic Coast where we encountered an enticing tree with succulent orange fruits hanging from its boughs.  We were in a state park, so we knew that we shouldn't pluck the fruit of the tree. However, like any good omnivores, curiosity took hold of us.  This story may be familiar to you.

No, we were not visited by a talking serpent, banished from the park, or smited (smitten? smote?).  Instead we experienced an indescribably unpleasant mouth experience.  It was truly shocking.  Have you ever eaten a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide?  Don't.  You can just eat an unripe persimmon instead.  According to Wikipedia, which I checked out later that night to make sure we weren't going to die, I learned that persimmons: are unpalatably astringent (or "furry" tasting) if eaten before completely softened.  You don't say.  I also learned that if we ate too many unripe persimmons we could develop an adhesive "foodball" in our stomachs.  The stuff of gum-swallowing children's nightmares.

Beware the beckoning fruit

I just finished Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma".  The dilemma is this: when you are an animal that has evolved to be able to eat many, many things (in contrast to animals like koalas, who can only eat eucalyptus leaves, or monarch caterpillars, who only eat milkweed), how do you choose what to eat?  My sweetheart and I had undertaken the timeless omnivore's experiment when confronted with a novel food item: try a tiny bit, see if it tastes good, and wait to see if you get sick. Very much like the "mindfulness classic". 

This problem was much more fraught when we were foraging on the savannah in our loincloths.  Today we are surrounded by such an abundance of food that our omnivorous brains say "Yay! Eat everything!  It's ALL good!".  And so, we are a society of mindless eaters.  Surprise?  

I had forgotten about the persimmon experience until I discovered the online mindful eating tracker, created by Pavel Somov, the author who inspired me to begin this blog a year ago.  A woman describes the taste of eating a RIPE persimmon, for the first time.  Very, very different from my experience, but both were mindful in their own special way.

A year of eating mindfully

Or at least, a year of THINKING about eating mindfully, and many days of actual mindful eating.

I started this blog just over a year ago as a way to motivate myself to eat mindfully more often.  Accountability through the creepiness of the internet.

As Jon Kabat Zinn, the grandmaster of modern mindfulness says, you've got to walk the walk.  You can't just agree with the principles, or read about it, or think about it.  Mindfulness is a way of being.  He admonishes: every time you think about talking about your mindfulness practice, shut up and DO it (I'm now about to ignore that great advice and continue writing this post).

Mindful eating is becoming a way of being for me. (Dear sweetheart: Yes, even that last long day on our recent roadtrip counts!  I was fully aware of how mindlessly I was eating ALL of the crappy weird American junk food and I consciously made that choice because I was being bored to death by the audiobook we were listening to.  I didn't actually mean it when I said it was your turn to choose.)

You mean nothing to me.  Today.

What really transformed mindful eating from a nice idea that I studied thoroughly to something that is part of my lifestyle was participating in the online course based on Jan Chozen Bays' work.  Having a supportive, if virtual, community to share experiences with and learn from created a quantum leap in my mindful eating practice.  So, I'm so excited to be launching my own mindful eating introductory course in my city, with real live people! (Send me a comment in the box below if you want to learn more.) I have some more blog posts simmering, but I'm going to be focusing on the course for the next few months.


There were recently 2 huge validations of the progress I've made on my mindful eating journey.  I'm sharing them so that you might be inspired on your path too.  

Huge Validation #1:

I read some of my earlier blog posts from a year ago.  There's no better evidence of your own transformation than seeing your thoughts in black and white.  That's why so many different kinds of programs advocate using a journal.  

Tip for you: If you're trying mindful eating, consider keeping some notes on your experience.  The "Before I Eat" mindful eating app is one handy way to do that.

Huge Validation #2:

I attend many meetings each year where meals are provided.  I just came home from yet another one, where the food was plentiful and quite tasty.  There were yummy desserts at every meal, and - get this - hot chocolate AND chocolate milk dispensers!  And, of course the best part was I didn't have to shop, cook, or do dishes.  

In such circumstances I used to struggle with the temptation to eat so much that I was uncomfortably full, to eat desserts every time they were available, and to drink chocolate beverages all day.  This time there was no struggle.  My body wanted to eat mostly fruit and veggies.  I didn't even think about the chocolate milk.  I quickly recognized that the hot chocolate was sub-par.  I chose to have 2 chocolate desserts over the course of a few days, and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  I was not a perfect mindful eater.  But, I was not a total mindless eater, either.  I'm talking sea-change here!  

Tip for you:  If you've been trying to eat mindfully and feel like you're not getting anywhere, try to notice if there are any specific habits, cravings, or ways of thinking that have changed for you.  Even if it's something simple like putting down your fork between bites.  That's a big deal!  You've changed a lifelong habit, and if you look at the people around you, you'll notice that you're having a regular moment of awareness while you eat that few others are experiencing.

3 more tips for you:

Be patient.  Try again.  ENJOY eating!

The Secret Sits

Sigh....this is not my sweetheart.

I just had a textbook demonstration of our collective mindlessness sucking the richness out of experience.  It was at a Royal Wood concert.  What?  You don’t know Royal Wood?  Well, as they say on the good ol’ CBC (which you obviously don’t listen to), your next favourite song is right here. Or here.

His voice is resonant as a cello.  His songs are Michael Ondaatje novels, or maybe Tom Thomson paintings.  His live shows are aesthetically satisfying in so very many ways.  You know that corny term “dreamboat”?  This is a man to whom you could apply that word without irony.  I mean, he closed his show with his own adaptation of my favourite Robert Frost poem.  Mercy.

Excuse me.  I’m getting carried away.

Anyway, there was this moment in the show.  The intimate little theatre was dark and still, with a single spotlight glowing on him. He was at the grand piano, carefully drawing the song to a close.  Before he could conclude the audience started in with the clapping.  It was so unsatisfying.  Even he seemed a little frustrated, like we cut him off before he got to his final point.

Wait for it.  This post actually relates to mindful eating.

This happens at movies too.  I didn’t mind people getting up before the credits of American Hustle at the multiplex, but when I’ve just had my mind blown in some moving or thought-provoking way at the local art-house theatre, I’d like to sit for a quiet moment before the lights come up.  Where’s everybody in a big hurry to get to?  It’s not like there’s going to be a traffic jam on the sidewalk as they walk home.

I’ve realized I do this same thing pretty much every time I eat - as do most people, I’ve observed.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a square of my new favourite mint dark chocolate, or a delicious (or mediocre) meal I’ve cooked.  Before I’ve finished chewing the last bite, I’m outta my chair and on to the next thing.  Filled my gut; time to hit something else on the to-do list.

Ridiculous, isn’t it?  So, my practice lately has been to try to notice the urge to wrap things up before the last bite has reached my belly, and to just PAUSE.

At the end of a yoga class we don’t put on our sneaks and scram.  We rest in corpse pose – sometimes for a long time.  And then we sit.  And then we chant Om.  There’s a reason for this.  Why not treat our meals with the same appreciation? 

Way back in the early days of my yoga life, I sometimes left the class before the final savasana.  Too busy to lay around doing nothing!  This was a lie, of course.  I was a grad student.  I had nothing to do but find ways to avoid finishing my thesis.  I really didn’t get the point of yoga back then.

I’m more aware now.  Taking a moment to appreciate my food with some gracious thoughts at the beginning of my meal still eludes me, but I can remember to rest in satiety after eating.  I used to be a premature clapper too.  But where’s the pleasure in that?

Sigh...THIS is my sweetheart.  Making me coffee in our outdoor kitchen.
That's way dreamier than playing the piano.

Gratitude

In Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving several few weeks ago.  This coincided perfectly with the last assignment of my online mindful eating course: looking deeply into our food.

(An aside: I'm sorry, my American friends, but it makes SO much more sense to have this holiday in October. I recently visited your fair country and saw plenty of Christmas decorations, but no cheerful orange pumpkins, happy turkeys in pilgrim hats, or wreaths of colourful autumn leaves.  So why bother celebrating Thanskgiving at all?)

The point of "looking deeply into our food" was to trace the path the food took from a seed in the ground to my plate, and then to feel gratitude for each person and energy source involved in each step.  I struggled with this one.  I'm pretty righteous when it comes to food choices, and for my most righteous foods the exercise was so easy it seemed almost pointless.  It went like this: farmer's market, shopping bag, bicycle basket, fridge, cutting board, stove, plate, mouth.  Or even better: backyard, hand, mouth (this applies to my fall raspberry harvest).  

Of course, if you want an A+ on this one, you could think about the people who first domesticated raspberries from the wild fruit, the carbon sources that went into making the soil I planted the canes in, the First Nations people who were displaced when Europeans founded this city and started building it, the family who first built my home 100 years ago, etc. etc.

Although I'm righteous, I have my vices, too.  For the vice foods (say, instant hot chocolate or coffee), this was so difficult and abstract I couldn't train my mind to concentrate on it.  I found it easier to do this when I actually went to Nicaragua and saw how coffee is grown.

But being the keen student that I am, I wanted to make sure that I completed the exercise properly.  I chose a beautiful heritage squash that I had bought from  Freedom Farms, my favourite vendor at the local farmer's market.  I've visited this farm during an Open Farms event, so I could even picture where the squash was grown.  This farmer is friendly and chatty so I know a little bit about the trajectory that brought him to the farm, and the squash to my home.  

Here is a list of gratitudes that came up as I prepared, cooked, and eventually enjoyed my lovely little squash.

As I look deeply into this heritage squash, I am thankful that:

- it was part of a lovely centrepiece I arranged for the Thanksgiving meal I shared with people I love

- there is some left over to eat on another day

- it is full of intense orange nutrients

- it is feeding my healthy body, which I will use to go do fun activities

- there is an amazing farmer's market down the street from my house

- the farmer that sold me this squash is so pleasant

- I can roast the seeds for a yummy snack

- I can put the skin into my compost and one day it will become part of my garden

Who wouldn't feel thankful buying beautiful veggies from these smiling faces?

"Meditation" on a mug of hot chocolate

One of the participants in my online mindful eating course inspired me to try a fascinating exercise.  She described how she took a small plate of PC chocolate chip cookies (the drug of the nation*) and took the time to deliberately apply all that we've been learning in the course to eating them.  She ended up feeling full after only 2 cookies, and only ate a total of 4 cookies in the space of 40 minutes.  I was impressed.

I tried a similar approach with a cup of hot chocolate.  I had been thinking about having a hot chocolate all evening.  I do love a hot chocolate - as much as I love a chocolate chip cookie (or 100 chocolate chip cookies).  Hot chocolate can quickly transition from a rare treat to a can-a-week habit for me.

Here's what I did. I treated the mug and its contents as an object of meditation, much like you would use a candle, or a sound, or your breath. I even turned off the music, sat on my meditation cushion, and lit the candles on my little meditation table (Hey, I'm a yoga teacher.  Having such items hanging around the living room is part of the job description).

Much like any other meditation practice, a series of impressions floated in and out of my mind:

• The swirls of bubbles in the surface of the hot chocolate mirror those in the mug pottery.  I love this mug.  I'm so glad I bought one like it for my friend.  What's the name of this potter again? I better find out when the potter's guild sale is.  Oops.  Thinking.
• A sudden very strong and happy image of drinking cheap hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup while skating on the frozen lake in the centre of my hometown on a cold and bright blue day.
• The liquid is surprisingly viscous.  That might be gross.
• The heat coming from the mug is very pleasant on my hands.  Where should I place my hands for the optimal level of warmth?
• How come this is so ridiculously sweet?  Why have I never noticed that before?

Like any other meditation practice, I also got distracted and forgot what I was doing.  I stopped for a bit I took a bunch of blurry underexposed pictures of the mug.  I looked at all the little doodads on my meditation table.  I wrote this whole blog post in my head.  I wondered about the lady who shared the idea of this exercise with me.  I thought about going to bed.

Sometimes, on very special occasions, insight or inspiration may arise during meditation-like activities. Tonight was my lucky night!  I was able to detach myself from pure desire and all the other non-stomach forms of hunger for the hot chocolate.  It was very much like when you say your name, or any other word, out loud or in your head too many times.  It stops sounding like a word and you start to question whether it really is a real word, or your name.  (C'mon.  Every kid has done that at some point, haven't they?)  It's a disconcerting experience.  The mug of hot chocolate became a neutral object that I could observe with curiosity, but I lost my interest in ingesting it.  In fact, the thought of pouring it in my mouth and swallowing it seemed faintly absurd. 

Now kids, be careful if you try this at home.  This is not for the newbie mindful eater. I'd call this an intermediate level act of liberation.  Liberation it truly was though, because I usually down a cup of hot chocolate fast enough to poach my stomach lining.  Tonight it took me a good 20 minutes to drink 3/4 of it, and I let the rest go cold because I lost my interest in it.  That has NEVER happened in my entire life.  Doing this exercise with a bowl of canned fruit cocktail or "wax" beans or sardines with entrails intact would not be nearly as powerful, if you want to ease into it.

*Fans of Michael Franti should check out this thought-provoking video he made in the days before he did yoga and got all joyful.  Hmm.  I just realized this man has been influencing my thoughts since 1992...