Why the Rush?

I know you have had one of these days: you have been running around all day taking care of errands or sitting at your desk and you don't eat lunch. It is not that you forgot to eat lunch, you know you are hungry, but you just want to try to get some more work done before sitting down to eat. By the time you do eat, it has been at least anywhere from 2 to 3 hours from when you should have eaten and you practically wolf the food down without a thought about what you just ate, how good or bad it tastes or what is actually in your food. I know because this happened to me today. I knew that I would be running around most of the day today and needed to get certain things done before moving on to the next. I do take the time to stop by and grab a veggie burrito, but did not want to waste my time sitting down to eat, hoping I would be able to at the next place I was at. When I finally do take the time to eat, I am so hungry and still engrossed on a conversation with my friend, that my attention is more focused on the conversation rather than on the food I am eating. I am literally just stuffing the burrito down my throat without really getting a chance to enjoy it.

So, why the big rush?

I ask myself this question every time I catch myself, after the fact, of going through ingesting my food so fast that I could eat it in less than 10 minutes. I have fortunately begun to develop a practice of just closing my eyes and smelling the food or looking at the food and just observing its color or smell and giving a simple blessing or thanks for the food and I feel that my body is much more ready to accept it. To my disappointment, this did not happen this afternoon and I have to ask myself why? Was it because I did not want to break up the flow of the conversation, was I maybe embarrassed, or just not even conscious of what I was doing because the primal part of my brain was just saying over and over again, "FEED ME!".

So, besides providing a blessing and taking the time before eating to breath and smell and see my food, I also try, again, I say try, to avoid eating and reading or eating and sitting in front of my computer. Again, it is hugely distracting and takes away from the enjoyment and pleasure of eating. I am not one for following rules to the T all the time and look for ways that it can fit my lifestyle and find it hard for me to follow this one sometimes. You may have heard of chewing your food for a set amount of time. One of the reasons being that you don't fully assimilate all of the nutrients that are found in food. By not chewing and swallowing the food right away, you don't actually break it down with your saliva or teeth and it goes undigested out to your other side. So, in a way, the food is being eaten without not providing much benefits other than making you full if you happen to be this type of person. Although it is not something I do all of the time, really chewing my food, it is something I do think about. Lastly, if you finish your meal in less than 10 minutes, you should probably think about slowing down a bit more, unless it is a melting ice cream than you have free reign :)

I intend to address many of these issues and look at the rhythm of eating in our society and how we can improve it for the better through the community dinners that I will begin hosting this Friday. Even through eating, we can cultivate more awareness about ourselves and our habits. Be on the look out for more information and photos from my pilot dinner!