Perhaps our current one-dimensional understanding of food stems from the Occidental body-soul dichotomy, so inherent in our thinking. In the Western world, born of Christendom, we lack a sense of the spirituality of food that permeates the philosophies of the East. This is despite the fact that Jesus appeared to understand the importance of food and wine and when he provided them, they were reported to be of good quality. But the bread used in the communion sacrament today, unlike the food used in the religious ceremonies of many other cultures, may offer spiritual sustenance, but is not carnally appetising. Indeed, the communion wafer is designed not to taste nice, not to give physical sustenance, not even to be chewed.
Anyone who has studied martial arts in any depth, or become interested in Buddhism, or taken a yoga course even, will be aware of the integration of food into the spiritual practices and purification rituals of the East. Physical purification of the body is also integral to the tribal cultures of the world. Many of us will be familiar with the Native American sweat lodge ceremony, the Oenikika, during which the body is cleansed, the mind is purified and the participant connects with the gods. The sauna removes toxins through the pores of the skin and the drum-beat focuses the mind. Then the divine is within reach. The Oenikika is used by shamans as a prelude to entering altered states of consciousness. Without the purification of the body, the divine cannot be accessed.
Blessings on your table!
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
21.7.08
Food, Love and Science
It’s all about the love.
---- Troy Maguire
Cooking is the ultimate giving.
-----Jamie Oliver
I like these quotes from the chefs above, because they have an understanding of food that comes from their passion and dedication. But this instinctive understanding that comes from the experience of food is something that many of us are losing touch with in our busy lives, where the complete experience of anything is degraded. Neither is this understanding of the experience of food current in the way food and health issues are discussed in the media.
The subject of healthy food is invariably presented in terms of science, with all the jargon of food chemistry readily invoked when food issues are being explored. The central thesis of all our discussion and education about food is a very simplistic one---that the human body is a machine that needs healthy food, and when it doesn’t get it, the machine breaks down. It’s all very clinical and matter-of-fact. It’s not very inspirational. It’s never going to ignite a passion in us for good food. All it will ever do is make us feel vaguely guilty about our bad food habits, but not convinced enough to ditch them permanently.
Blessings on your table!
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
---- Troy Maguire
Cooking is the ultimate giving.
-----Jamie Oliver
I like these quotes from the chefs above, because they have an understanding of food that comes from their passion and dedication. But this instinctive understanding that comes from the experience of food is something that many of us are losing touch with in our busy lives, where the complete experience of anything is degraded. Neither is this understanding of the experience of food current in the way food and health issues are discussed in the media.
The subject of healthy food is invariably presented in terms of science, with all the jargon of food chemistry readily invoked when food issues are being explored. The central thesis of all our discussion and education about food is a very simplistic one---that the human body is a machine that needs healthy food, and when it doesn’t get it, the machine breaks down. It’s all very clinical and matter-of-fact. It’s not very inspirational. It’s never going to ignite a passion in us for good food. All it will ever do is make us feel vaguely guilty about our bad food habits, but not convinced enough to ditch them permanently.
Blessings on your table!
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
4.7.08
Bread of Life (3)
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
The near-impossibility of buying good quality, nice-tasting bread is one of the most frustrating things about food-shopping today. The white stuff tastes like plastic and if we try to be healthy and opt for wholemeal, we are rewarded with the taste of sawdust! Across the Western world, in the year 2008, in our advanced society, we cannot buy proper bread! In fact, the quality of our bread is in inverse proportion to the wealth of our society. When we travel to poorer parts of the world, we often find that we can eat beautiful fresh-baked bread, made by poor women in shacks, or mud-huts, over open fires. Yet, in the West, the more prosperous we are, the worse the quality of our bread becomes----plastic food for a plastic century. That golden wheat-field, which once inspired harvest celebrations like Lughnasadh throughout the world, now inspires only apathy. To borrow a phrase from Mircea Elliade, the sacred has become the profane. The Bread of Life has given way to the Bread of Plastic, a potent representation of what has gone terribly wrong in the way we produce and consume food.
Blessings on your table!
The near-impossibility of buying good quality, nice-tasting bread is one of the most frustrating things about food-shopping today. The white stuff tastes like plastic and if we try to be healthy and opt for wholemeal, we are rewarded with the taste of sawdust! Across the Western world, in the year 2008, in our advanced society, we cannot buy proper bread! In fact, the quality of our bread is in inverse proportion to the wealth of our society. When we travel to poorer parts of the world, we often find that we can eat beautiful fresh-baked bread, made by poor women in shacks, or mud-huts, over open fires. Yet, in the West, the more prosperous we are, the worse the quality of our bread becomes----plastic food for a plastic century. That golden wheat-field, which once inspired harvest celebrations like Lughnasadh throughout the world, now inspires only apathy. To borrow a phrase from Mircea Elliade, the sacred has become the profane. The Bread of Life has given way to the Bread of Plastic, a potent representation of what has gone terribly wrong in the way we produce and consume food.
Blessings on your table!
Bread of Life(2)
Even though in the Western world, most of us live at some remove from the land and no longer grind flour for bread, we still carry the ancient ways in our hearts and souls. While we buy bread in neat sliced pans in supermarkets, some part of our deep, wild selves must still be bound to the Wheel of the Year, wanting to jump for joy that the earth has again given unto us the crops to make our bread, for bread is life. Perhaps this is why we feel something is amiss when we go hunter-gathering for our weekly shop through the jungle of the supermarket. How could we jump for joy at the sight, or smell, or taste of a sliced pan, that tasteless, cardboard stuff that turns to mush and sticks like paste to the roof of our mouths? How can this connect us to nature?
Blessings on your table!
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
Blessings on your table!
www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com
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