Food and mindfulness

We eat more than we need.
When we eat, we forget to appreciate the flavours, colours, textures and sounds of the food.
Instead, we immerse ourselves into the storm of thinking about the future, about the past and we let the worries entry into our plate, our palate and our mind.
Food that has been grown with the light of the mighty sun, the water of our wild oceans and embraced with the generosity of our Mother Earth.
But we lose our connection with the food, and in doing so, we lose our connection with ourselves.

- jkn 

Not only philosophers and sages talk about the mindfulness and the food. Science has also something to say. Evidence from Sweden shows us that food can be very useful as a self-therapy that helps us in  improving our individual well-being and easing different problems in life via mindful attention, empathy, imagination, and inventiveness (Von Essen & Mårtensson, 2014). Also, people can manage pressures, set boundaries and develop their capacity for positive feelings of happiness, curiosity, and love through their mindful food choices and mindful food practises (Fredrickson, 1998). But this does not end up here. Mindfulness has many direct and indirect connections (Bishop et al., 2004; Kabat-Zinn, 2013; Mehling et al., 2011). Food can be understood as a powerful tool through which people can experience and make the world part of their body in a way that enhances their mind-body awareness. This is something. Coming back to our bodies. Coming back home. Where have we been so far? 

Experience with food is similar to experiences described by people taking part in mindfulness training (Kabat-Zinn, 2013), meditation (Pagis, 2009) and garden therapy (Adevi & Ma ̊rtensson, 2013). We live in a constant uproar. Stress has become a part of our daily life that severely threatens our vitality and conditions our health, physical and psychological. When we interact with our surroundings, everyday, we live in stress, fear and worries for a "symbolic" survival. But we have the opportunity to restore our levels of well-being. Food can help us in this endeavour. For example, people describe how food stops time and takes attention away from everyday worries (Gallagher & Lopez, 2007), the relaxation of repetitive movements during preparation (White et al., 2013), and how food helps to create an inner space for rest, calmness, and empathy for themselves (Baer et al., 2012; Neff & McGehee, 2010).  

In conclusion, mindful food practise and experience can be, on one side, an inward looking activity (connection with ourselves), but it also could be an outward bound, social and creative activity (Heenan, 2006), in which we connect with others. In the end, in our life we aim for a higher understanding of the surrounding world, trying to make it more friendly and less hostile as a consequence of our mindless actions over time. We have here a possible approach to a challenge (Dodge et al., 2012; Von Essen & Materson, 2014), through the way in which we nourish our body and mind.