Mindful Consumption

During a conversation over a nice vegetarian lunch with my love and hate friend "Mr White", I realized that this is something I should share with many, and exercise more than I already do in my own life.

Whenever you eat something, a piece of fruit, cereal, a steak, whatever, you're not just ingesting the particles of that food - you're also absorbing the energy that's been put into it.

For instance, when you eat an organic orange, you can feel good knowing that the energy put into growing this fruit was healthy. The tree was grown naturally and without pesticides or biological changes to the seed itself.  This means the farmer also had to take extra care of his crop, rather than just spraying it. Caring for something is understanding it and understanding is love.

So, you guessed it... the organic orange you are eating is full of love. Call it cheesy but I believe this to be true.

Now take a look at a hotdog. This pig or chicken in this was more than likely, unless stated on the package as holistic/cruelty free, was treated rather poorly. Typically kept in small confines, fed artificial foods to make it fatter and more delicious, and most likely killed inhumanely. So you can imagine the energy put into this hotdog is not something of a positive nature and knowing what hotdogs already are, adding cruelty to the list of ingredients isn't going to help the case.

Before you get all skeptical, I'm not telling you that eating animals is wrong, and I'm not asking you to change your diet.

All I ask is for ONE thing.

The next time you eat something, think about what it is you're eating. Perhaps think about the origins, including the farmer who raised it, the family he/she is supporting, the grass or soil it lived off of, the air it took in, the sun....the entire universe.
Mindful eating, that is. A form of meditation I should practice regularly to help me become truly connected with what I'm putting into my body and into this world. If we can understand the deep connection between us and what we're eating, I believe that understanding can turn into love, and we can truly begin to appreciate the beauty of this world and the reasons we need to conserve it.

Mr White said: Maybe we should do something together with this. - Why not?