The Nutritional Institute

“I believe that if we really and truly listened to our bodies, we would intuitively know what to eat and there would be no need for practitioners like myself, there would be no obesity or ill health due to poor food choices, and that producers of inferior quality food would go out of business.” These were more or less the opening words of my presentation on mindful eating for Step 4 of the 12 Steps to Wholesome Nutrition course.

Instead of this idealistic scenario, we let diet books, newspapers, magazines and food giants (with massive marketing budgets) dictate our day-to-day food choices. Now-a-days we need to become a scholar of food, nutrition and agriculture, combined with having a yogic mind-body presence to actually figure out the good from the bad foods for our bodies.

If you deep down actually care about your health, it’s time to synchronise your mind with your body - ‘sync’ is a term we would rather use in an IT setting, but what about this lump of lard (for some people) or ripped musculature (for others) that we carry around with us - does this not deserve a regular defragmentation with our minds?

Our body does try to communicate constantly with our mind, especially at night when it downloads messages into the Inbox of our minds during dream state, but the power of our belief and faith in external information always appears to ‘trump’ our faith in our own body’s wisdom.

On the 12 Step course, I started with a wine tasting exercise. Just by mentioning wine, your pre-loaded beliefs will have already formed some kind of judgement about my course - either that it must be a really cool course, or that I’m not being true to my profession of nutrition, or even that I may be doing Satin’s work…. I chose one cheap and one middle-cost bottle of wine to share amongst attendees, but for the sake of the experiment, it could have been chocolate, coffee, biltong, or even tomatoes. Without revealing which was the cheap and which was the expensive bottle, the purpose of the experiment was for everyone to slow down the experience and to get in touch with their taste buds.

Many of our taste buds have unfortunately become adulterated by poor quality foods and drinks, loaded with sugar, salt, favouring and the likes; so much so, that many people actually like the taste of a cheap take-away burger more than one made from scratch using real meat. Just like changing a habit, I suggest that you stay with a new taste experience for at least three weeks until the better quality food actually tastes better than the inferior quality food. In this way, you are initially using your academic knowledge of a particular food to make the ‘healthy’ choice for you - over time, your taste buds will slowly wake up to the point that they can make the healthier food or drink choice for you. This is akin to a wine connoisseur not being able to stomach the taste of a cheap bottle of plonk. Likewise, unlike my younger student days when anything went, as a Scotsman I now feel that life is too short to drink cheap beer or whisky! The same applies to food - if you develop the taste for an authentic thin-crust Italian pizza with quality toppings, try going back to a stodgy glutenous take-away pizza lathered in cheap cheese…

Try this exercise:

• - Five minutes before you’re about to eat your meal, remind yourself of that fact - start to smell the aromas in the kitchen (or coming from the kitchen if you’re eating out), anticipate what it is that you’re soon going to be putting in your mouth and become aware of saliva building up in your mouth, and your stomach maybe gurgling just a bit.
  - When you have your food in front of you on the table, smell it and be aware of which food smell is most apparent (garlic, fish, fragrant herbs etc), visualise your first mouthful of food and then take a deep breath and sigh it out (this is a really good method to initiate your ‘rest and digest’ nervous system, required for optimum digestion and absorption).
  - During eating, chew your food until it is just about melting in your mouth and then swallow; eat slowly and stay present as to what foods you’re eating at any one time (i.e. can you taste what’s in your mouth at a chosen moment)?
  - Linger at the table for a minute or two after your meal.
  - Throughout, there should be no phone or electronic device in sight; rather, engage in easy conversation with friends and/or family - one rather important part of the ‘Mediterranean Diet’.

For more information on this and other issues, register your interest in the 12 Steps to Wholesome Nutrition on-line course.