Sunday Story…Food as Art
I love to eat. I love to prepare food for other people and sit down and enjoy it with them. I love to browse my way through a wonderfully stocked produce section, followed by an amazing cheese selection and then of course there is the butcher’s area. I look for new and unusual foods I have never tried before as well as the tried and true favorites.
I remember the foods my mother used to prepare for us. We weren’t (at least I wasn’t) concerned about whether or not the dish was low fat or low carb, high glycemic or low glycemic, organic, natural, or conventional. A lot
of the food we ate came from our own efforts in the garden behind thehouse. And yes, all of the children
worked at pulling weeds and anything else we were told to do. As we grew older we earned money in the
fields around where we lived. Asparagus in the early spring (back breaking work if you have ever done it), cherries in the early summer, peaches, apricots, apples and grapes as the growing season
progressed. We picked and often ate sunshine fresh from the tree. It was a life of food abundance.
Somewhere along the way the relationship changed. It may have been the food, it
may have been me, and I am not sure where to lay the blame. But change it did. There became a point where fresh wasn’t as common. Canned, frozen, pre-prepared, microwaveable,
all became the norm. And slowly I fattened up as I aged. For those of you who know me personally would be a little surprised if you saw a picture of me 20 years ago. I was well on my way to the normal middle aged weight belt. My health was breaking down. Yet I was exercising (think hamster on a wheel) and eating “right” and getting fatter every year.
I shifted my relationship to food again. I began to eat smarter but I was still ingesting a lot of processed foods but it became protein powders and energy bars and special concoctions designed in a laboratory somewhere to promote health, vitality and strength. Pressed, processed, and fortified with some nutrients I didn’t know I needed and didn’t know existed; these “franken-foods” were supposed to help me become healthy and wise. Certainly not wealthy based on their cost, however! I was in better shape though and had managed to slow if not stop the constant weight gain that seems to come with the passing years (and I have passed a few!).
And today I have returned full circle. I eat fresh food, in season, as much as possible. Yesterday we were getting the planting beds cleaned up for the coming spring plant and dug up 14 or 15 fresh carrots. Quite a reward for an hour or so of work for myself and my fellow workers. Eating a freshly dug carrot in February that you didn’t know would be there…a bit like Christmas and summer all rolled up in a neat little orange
stick. There was a joy and excitement when the kids working with me realized there was gold under the ground. Their enthusiasm for digging increased 10-fold as soon as they realized the pot of gold that lay just beneath the surface. And the bed is nicely churned now and ready for spring vegetables! And
a half dozen or so kids now have a food story that relates to a natural process not an industrial one.
I believe our relationship to food is not just about the food. No relationship is really one
sided is it? A laboratory can create a product that will sustain life. A factory farm can produce food that will nourish our bodies. But when I think about food I think about the people I share it with. I think about
the laughter and the stories and the interplay between the participants at the table. The gratitude expressed through eating food shared with people I love and care about. I may not remember the meal but I will
remember the engagement announcements, the joys shared, and yes, the sorrows.
We eat when we are sad. We eat when we are happy. We eat to celebrate and commiserate. Food and the rituals of eating permeate our everyday life. Even when I eat alone I sit down and eat. I don’t “grab and go”. Breakfast for me is often a grapefruit. I eat it at my desk or in my car. But when I eat it I try and make sure I am only doing that---eating the sunshine contained in the fruit, giving gratitude for all the people and creatures who made possible this delicacy that fills my mouth with taste and my body with nutrients and my soul with joy. It is not just a grapefruit. It is an instrument of both satisfaction and gratitude.
Food is not just about nutrition. Your attitude about the food, your mental state when you ingest it and your compatriots complicit in the ritual all contribute in creating an atmosphere of health and fitness. It matters less what you are eating, and matters more how and why and with whom you are eating it. Your thoughts create your reality, remember?
Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 1:45PM 
