Elevating the Eating Process

Our son is a ridiculously picky eater. Yet when I tell people that they don’t seem to realize how much I mean it. The other day we were out of town and he stayed with friends of mine. And sure enough, she saw it firsthand when he would only eat watermelon after picking out the practically invisible seeds one by one. And that was the only fruit he was willing to eat.

She thought maybe a bribe would work to get him to expand his repertoire of foods. She offered him $10 to be blindfolded and taste 5 new fruits and vegetables. I was on the phone with my son when the offer was made. I had a feeling he would never agree (which he didn’t) but when she explained the plan to him I realized there was a different and bigger issue. He wouldn’t be able to put something in his mouth without knowing where it came from because before any bite or sip he takes, he says a blessing. I therefore told him if he were to agree, he would need to ask if the food came from the ground or a tree.

Foundational to being able to eat our food is to recognize and acknowledge where it comes from. The blessings for the foods are specific and before we can say them we must decipher what the main component of the food is and then what is secondary. We don’t just eat but we really pay attention to what we are eating, how it is made, where it comes from and how it provides us this sustenance.

And we all have to eat. There is no escaping it. But we can choose whether or not our eating is something simply necessary or something that we make holy. Every living being eats to survive. But only humans have been gifted with the ability to say a blessing, acknowledging where our food comes from and giving gratitude for the fact that we have it and it sustains us.

Stopping to say a blessing both prior to and following our consumption teaches us some important life lessons. For starters we have more self-control than we think. The idea that we can feel famished, and yet rather than devour food when we encounter it we stop, reflect, figure out where and what the food is, and then say a blessing accordingly, shows us that we have the ability to overcome that natural desire to only satiate our hunger. The question is not if we have self-control, but whether or not we utilize it as often as we should.

A few years back there was this diet supplement that was all the rave. It promised to match every pound lost with the ability to lose another. Like a matching grant on the scale. And who wouldn’t want to get a free pound off for every one legitimately burned? So I was all for it. Being that I assumed I didn’t have the self-control to simply eat less, I wanted this magic pill to help me do what I was convinced I couldn’t do myself.

Off I went to the pharmacy and purchased the kit which was far from cheap. Yet right before I was about to swallow my first pill, I discovered that the coating of the pill itself was made from some kind of pig product. Needless to say, the pill never touched my mouth. But it did the trick anyway. Realizing that a non-kosher product was all I needed to prevent myself from ingesting something I was convinced would help me, was the proof that I had more willpower and self-control than I had given myself credit for.

Each and every time I want desperately to take a bite of food or that sip of water and I stop to say a blessing I remind myself of this lesson.

Furthermore, gratitude is everything. When we stop to bless our food it reminds us of how fortunate we are to have food to eat. Especially when so many do not. This winter was especially harsh in Philadelphia where we live. Our kids had at least 8 school days cancelled from the snow. For me that meant it was harder to get work done and I had bored kids stuck at home. Yet for my friend who is an inner city schoolteacher, that meant that some of her students weren’t eating. She knows that when there is no school a few of her first graders might go without breakfast and lunch that day. Reciting the blessings before we put anything in our mouth is to remind us to never take for granted what it means to have food when we are hungry.

And the more we are grateful for what we receive, the more we are motivated to want to give in return. We all want acknowledgement. We all want recognition for who we are and what we do. And the best way to receive it is by becoming better at providing it. When it becomes our second nature to say “thank you” both before and after we do something so essential and so necessary like eating, we become that much more sensitized and aware of the need for gratitude in all the other situations in our lives as well.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/food-for-thought-and-thought-for-food-part-4/

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/food-for-thought-and-thought-for-food-part-2/

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