Six Healing Secrets of Food by Arianrhod Wolfchild

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

by Deborah Kesten

Because
our current approach to nutrition isn't working well for so many of us,
as a
nutrition researcher, educator, and health journalist, it appalls me
that so
much of the literature in my field continues to focus exclusively on
only one of
the six secrets: what to eat. If the dice in Las Vegas casinos were
fixed so
that only the same side kept showing up every time you rolled them,
everyone
would scream "cheat!"

We are being cheated nutritionally. Food constitutes a six-part gift, but all
we're hearing about is one thing. But this skewed perspective, focusing
solely
on the physiological aspects of food, has become the norm. I call our
one-sided,
limited view the Dark Ages of nutrition. We think that nutritional
science is at its pinnacle, but in fact, most of us are still in the
dark about
what can most benefit us about food. This is because we're ignoring the
most
important elements of food and nutrition -- the healing secrets of food
-- that
have served humankind for centuries. They are:

1. Unite with others through food.

2. Be aware of your feelings before, during, and after eating.

3. Bring moment-to-moment nonjudgmental awareness to each aspect of the meal.

4. Appreciate food and its origins -- from the heart.

5. Create union with the Divine by "flavoring" food with love.

6. Eat fresh, whole foods in their natural state as often as possible.

All these elements count -- not just one or two in isolation.

From Secret to Celebration

As powerful as the healing secrets of food are, I am disappointed that experts -- from food writers to dietitians and religious leaders --
don't learn,
practice, and teach what these secrets have to offer, emphasizing their
valuable
health-giving properties and benefits every opportunity they get.

I am disappointed that we consider only what can be measured in food, while
we've forgotten that what is not so easily measured might be much more
valuable
to our health. I am disappointed that society as a whole isn't paying
more
attention to the healing secrets of food. Instead we choose to ignore a
powerful
truth: food has the ability to heal us in many ways -- if we take the
time to
tap into its powerful healing properties.

Where, I wonder, is the meaning, the invisible satisfaction in our food? The
human connection? The pleasure? The delight? The soul satisfaction?
Where are
the missing "secret ingredients," what philosopher Huston Smith calls
"forgotten truth" about food and its meaning in our lives? Author Ken
Wilbur articulates this dilemma of objective scientific truth versus
underlying
meaning that cannot be measured objectively. In his book The
Marriage of Sense and Soul, he writes, "Science is clearly one of
the most profound methods that humans have yet devised for discovering
truth,
while religion remains the single greatest force for generating
meaning."

Our ancient ancestors understood instinctively the significance of putting
meaning into meals. Throughout the centuries, people of many religions
and
cultural traditions have infused food with meaning in ways that are
still
evident today. For instance, devout Christians begin meals with a prayer
of
thanks; Indians refer to bhoga, a collective term for any food
ingredient being
used as an offering to God; with compassion for food animals as a
guideline,
Jewish dietary laws specify prohibited and acceptable food; and a
reverence for,
and connection to, nature and food is an integral part of Native
American Indian
beliefs.

When the meaning in our meals is lost, what's left is a list of rules and
regulations that are not meaningful and therefore not motivating or
sustainable.
This truth became evident as my mom and dad struggled to overcome their
heart
problems. I knew they understood the heart-healthy dietary information
I'd given
them, but in retrospect, I realize that the underlying message was, "You
should be eating differently. You should stop eating familiar and
comfortable
foods. You should assess and analyze what you're eating." Should.

Surely what we should do or eat isn't a great motivator (nor is it emotionally appetizing). Indeed, the dictionary states that the word
should
implies obligation. Is this what food is really about? Is it something
we're
obligated to eat, to analyze, to weigh, to judge, to avoid, to crave, to
overconsume, to underconsume, to control, to love, to hate, to fear, or
to
revere?

When we assess the vast nutritional resources of our culinary heritage and
merge this wisdom with what modern nutritional science has to tell us,
our
relationship to food becomes integrative and therefore optimal. In lieu
of being
tossed around in a storm of nutrients and numbers, you become empowered
to
actualize an eating style that holds the potential not only to nourish
your
physical health but also to enhance your emotional, spiritual, and
social
well-being. Food becomes a celebration of life.

The Main Course

I'm calling for a renaissance -- a reflowering of the way we view food and
nutrition. This new view asks that we pay attention to all the healing
secrets
-- and to demystifying, understanding, and practicing them every day.
I'm
especially thrilled to tell you about these long-lost healing secrets --
not
only because of their timeless wisdom, but because they contain the
answers
we've been looking for -- but in all the wrong places.

Ultimately, their message is simple: the healing gifts of food are available
to us each time we eat. As a matter of fact, every time you shop for,
prepare,
and eat food you have the opportunity to connect with the life-giving,
life-containing mystery inherent in food. These activities are also
opportunities to connect with loved ones, with the earth, with life
itself. In
this way, you can heal not only yourself but, ultimately, the planet.

---

This article is excerpted from:

The Healing Secrets of Food  
by Deborah
Kesten.

DEBORAH KESTEN, MPH is an award-winning author who has also been a research nutritionist, nutrition educator, and health journalist for more than 15
years.
Her first book, Feeding
the Body, Nourishing the Soul, received the prestigious Independent
Publishers' Book Award in 1998. She has taught courses on integrative
nutrition
at California Pacific Medical Center's Institute for Health and Healing
in San
Francisco, lectured at San Francisco State University's Department of
Holistic
Health, and continues to lecture and conduct workshops internationally.