What Is Mindful Eating?
Eating mindfully is being more aware of the tastes and sensations of the food we taste, which can change our perspective of the experience. In this video, meditation specialist Andy Puddicombe explains how to practice and enjoy mindful eating.
Transcript
So mindful eating is probably my favorite application
of mindfulness. So it's something that we do kind of on a regular basis every single day. Now if you think about the last time you had--
let's use kind of a bar of chocolate as an example. So maybe you taste the very first piece. And you actually kind of do taste the first piece,
because it tastes really good, right. You haven't had it for a little while. But then, you know, we settle down and maybe we're surfing the net or watching TV.
And to our side, we're just helping ourselves to the chocolate and not really thinking about it. We're just putting like one piece
after the next into our mouth without really kind of tasting it. We're aware of it, but not so much. It doesn't have our full attention.
Now instead of doing that. What about if just like we did with the tea, what about if we actually took some time to be aware
and to give it our full attention? So try this one time. Take a piece of chocolate, or it can be a piece of fruit, anything that you like.
And as you just hold it in the hand to begin with and look at it. Where does it come from? What does it look like? For example, an orange, right.
We think OK, it's round, it's orange. But actually, look again. Very rarely is it round.
It's not so smooth. Actually, it's quite kind of textured. The more we look at it, the more we start to think, well, where does that come from? Well, that didn't come from a factory.
That didn't come down the street. I think about what was involved in the growing process. Who was involved in that process. All of these things help to change our perspective sort
of around the way that we eat and what we eat as well. Next thing, move towards your senses.
So what does it smell like? As you bring it towards your nose, actually breathing in, sort of smelling it, you know.
Very often we miss that bit out as it goes straight in our mouth. The next bit, as you place it in your mouth, so whatever it is,
try to resist the temptation to chew it, if you can. And just allow the food to sort of melt in the mouth.
Especially if it's chocolate, it's perfect for this exercise. And as you move it around, starting to notice where you taste the different sort of notes
of flavor, if you like. It's a bit like wine tasting. You can taste some more at the front of the mouth, some more out the sides, some more at the back.
And as you do this, actually enjoying the process, being with the sensation of taste rather than thinking
about what you're going to do next or a conversation you had last week.
healthy eating
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