Why, hello there, edges of my comfort zone, long time no see! I’ll just go sit over here, K?
I’m having some trouble implementing rule 2 (prepare food, eat food, wash up). It’s easy enough for dinner, but for snacks and lunch it’s just a bit hazy, and I keep forgetting.
So I thought I could make the preparation and wash up stages a bit more special by having something ritual to say. Sort of like saying grace.
This is highly uncomfortable, because I don’t do religion. I don’t do spirituality, and woo woo, and all that. I used to. I don’t want to talk about it right now.
I’ve been working on coming up with a non-religious way of saying grace, and a prayer for after food. Something that suits my need of being more mindful about food, and that doesn’t make me twitchy by being all religious and stuff. It’s not easy.
So far, all I have for the start of the meal is
I humbly receive
This is a translation of itadakimasu, what the Japanese say instead of “bon appétit”. I like it because if acknowledges, subtly, the fact that living organisms suffer, toil and die to feed me. (They do. And that is humbling.) It’s much better than the French, because if there was something wrong with my appetite, I would have quite so many wobbly bits, would I?
For after meals (or snacks!) I’ve settled on
I enjoyed this food,
It was enough.
It stresses the “the eating thing is done now” point, and reminds me to feel, for a moment, that I’m fed and satisfied, and further eating isn’t necessary right now (or in a few minutes). I’m still not entirely happy with my magic formulae though. They’re extremely brief, and haven’t really been tested yet.
I’d love to hear any suggestions or thoughts you have. Maybe you know of a non-religious way to say grace that I would never think of.
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.
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How about: “I humbly receive this food; it looks delicious.”?
Aw, I was going to suggest itadakimasu when I saw your tweet, but I see you’ve already got that one covered! It’s true, though, that phrase is very much about acknowledging where the food came from and giving thanks for everything that went into it, and doesn’t have to be religious at all. My only suggestion (which you can totally ignore if you want because I don’t want to throw any shoulds at you, ew) would be to add an object on the end, such as “this meal” or “this food”, if you want.
Also this food mindfulness experiment is really fascinating, I might have to try something like this myself!
One thing that was suggested to me as a mindfulness/gratitude thing is to thank the animals & plants that have sacrificed to bring you the food.
With multi-ingredient foods, it can become a bit of a list. And it’s also, to me, humbling & a bit embarrassing sometimes to realize just how much I DON’T know about what’s in the food that I eat.
Yeah, it can become a bit of a list. And there’s not just the animals and plants that actually died, there’s the farmers and pickers and auctioneers and truck drivers and container ship pilots and supermarket employees…
The system is so huge, once you start to think about it. What we think of as ordinary supermarket food is actually really amazing. And, what’s the best way of saying this, over the top.
With the ashcloud, there were a few notices in the greens isle after a while saying “we’ve had some trouble getting X in, sorry for the inconvenience, we are looking to resupply our stores as soon as possible” and it makes you think: “bloody hell, they fly this stuff in? But it’s only [insert food here]” It feels so normal, but it’s really not.
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