Our Relationship With Food

Imagine food being a joy and a pleasure in your day, free of any anxiety, guilt or 'shoulds'. Imagine you were also able to work with food to be a primary source of healthcare in your day, both for yourself and your family. This is how our relationship with food can be in our lives, yet we have many blocks that get in the way.

I enjoyed exploring such ideas with attendees of our recent Food as Medicine workshop. It was interesting to hear common themes from people around what gets in the way of having a healthy relationship with food. Unless we consider the deeper driver's of our food choices it can be nearly impossible to shift ourselves into healthier eating patterns. What if sweet foods were our only sense of sweetness in life? Perhaps the only place we allow ourselves to feel pleasure? If we try to cut sugar out of our diets in this state, but don't stop to examine these beliefs, we can simply end up feeling sad and deprived instead of more healthful.

On top of this, our emotional state has a profound impact on the functioning of our digestive system, which in turn effects how much nourishment we are able to obtain from our food. Eating while stressed or anxious activate the sympathetic branch of the nervous system – we get ready for fight or flight. This reduces blood flow, and so activity, of our digestive tract and means food arrives without the digestive juices to process them effectively. Poorly processed food not only lowers the nourishment we derive, but can also cause toxin formation, inflammation and bacterial imbalances within the gut. This can in turn be an underlying cause for many illnesses to develop, including increased frequency of colds and flus, autoimmune conditions, mood disorders and even deeper illnesses such as cancer.

Appreciating the relationship we have with food and the impacts of our mental-emotional state on digestion and health, we can learn new ways of being. We can choose to prioritise meeting our emotional needs. What might need to shift in our daily lives to give us the time and space we need to make healthy food choices? Can we support our future selves by soaking or preparing food in advance of busy family times, such as the morning rush? Can we bring more sweetness into our lives through prioritising time to connect with others or pampering ourselves with a bath or a rest? Can we gentle on ourselves when we haven't  been able  to prepare  the most healthful meal and instead eat the food we do have in a relaxed and appreciative state of Mind?

Having knowledge and awareness of both ourselves and food, we can truly start to eat consciously and make healthful food choices for ourselves. We can meet our bodies needs easily and with enjoyment instead of stress and worry. In this way we can make the most of the powerful healing effects our food has to offer us. Our food truly becomes our medicine.