Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

There is a meditation exercise in which you place a raisin in your mouth. You do not eat the raisin. You meditate and allow it to sit in your mouth unmolested. The raisin plumps up and becomes a juicy fruitness in your mouth, tempting you to bite it. This is a powerful example of how eating is different when you are truly aware of each morsel.

• Mindful Eating: Thich Nhat Hanh Discusses Mindful Eating

I have done this with M&Ms. When I only get a tiny amount of candy, I eat it slowly in order to savor it. The candy coating becomes thin shards that poke the roof of my mouth. The chocolate melts and escapes from the candy coating as soon as a crack appears. I never used to eat M&Ms that way. I used to crunch them by the handful, but now I’m more aware of their tasty goodness.

Here is my favorite quote from Thich Nhat Hanh’s entry about Mindful Eating:

“There are some people who eat an orange but don’t really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future.”

How many times have I eaten my sorrow, fear or anger? Too many to count. Even now, I am still learning to just eat the food instead of eating my emotions. I hope to master this someday.