Honouring Hunger
The debate about whether quantity or quality should triumph in our world is one of constant discussion. This concern is one that shows up in the way we eat and consume food on a daily basis for few, and often for many. Nutritional awareness or literacy is often drowned in the controversy around what to eat and how much of it. Everything from diet culture to a misunderstood, perverse grasp of what it means to truly be healthy. What green is the best addition to my salad, how many scoops of ice-cream should I be eating right now? Etc. This issue has been deeply explored by several thinkers and experts in the nutrition and food systems world. Better known as “the French Paradox” to quote Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, where he explores how a culture crazed and obsessed with health, is in fact unhealthy, and he tells us why:
“ ...such a culture be shocked to discover that there are countries such as Italy and France, that decide their dinner questions on the basis of such quaint and unscientific criteria as pleasure and tradition, eat all manner of ‘unhealthy’ foods, and lo and behold, wind up actually healthier and happier in their eating than we [westerners] are. We show our surprise at this by speaking of something called the “French Paradox, for how could a people who eat such demonstrably toxic substances as foie gras, and triple crème cheese actually be slimmer and healthier than we are? Yet I wonder if it doesn't make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox - that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.” (page 3)
He goes on to share that there is more to food than simply calories. Food is an experience, and as I have shared before, a fascinating gift in my estimation. The question of what to eat, and how much to eat limits our ability to tap into the gift of food beyond the calories digested.
I believe that the question deserves a reframe. Perhaps we need to shift our focus from what we eat and how much to eat, to how we eat or who we are when we eat. What do I mean by this? The questions we bring to the table frame our approach to responding to hunger, beyond simply a caloric intake. Rather, asking these types of questions allows us to honour hunger in a whole new way. As Pollan has outlined in the quote above, the benefits of such a reframe can be seen as a positive change in our health and state of wellbeing, and a more valuable reward, in my opinion, is that it sets a foundation that establishes or rekindles a relationship with food. Asking the question of who am I when I eat, why do I eat, or how do I show up when I eat, are as essential to reaping the health benefits of food, and serves as an important check-in that can ground us to build this positive relationship with the gift of food.
Food is more than health, and more than sustenance. It is an experience that finds itself etched in our very makeup (literally in the form of DNA, and metaphorically in a sense of how we experience it on a daily basis). Our relationship with our food sets a foundation and precedent for what we allow to enter our bodies, and until we understand the gravity of the presence or lack thereof that we have with food, we will be missing out on a component of the food experience: honouring hunger. Building this sort of heartful approach to eating begins by bringing these questions to the table. Nature has a way of reminding us of the importance of food by inflicting us with hunger. This is an essential way that we can honour hunger, and respond to it with more than calories and food. It is imperative to at least try to respond with an intention to nourish ourselves in a totally revolutionary way.
I leave you with a morsel of wisdom shared with me by a beloved teacher of mine:
The quality of food can be measured by three things:
The spiritual state of the person who prepared the food
The company with which the meal was consumed and shared with
The quality of the ingredients themselves (and I would add the food chain it passed to arrive in between your chompers).
——
Sources:
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A natural history of four meals. Penguin Publishing Group., 2007.