You and your eating habits

[umbridge]

What and how much do you eat?
And has it been changed?

[Tanemon]

When I left my parents home, I was accustomed to a pretty standard "North American diet" - including meat, often a couple times a day. Plus white-sugar desserts and treats, things cooked in fat, candy, etc. I explored vegetarianism, sometimes with more emphasis on grains, sometimes with more on fruit. No more burgers, milkshakes, tall iced cokes.

For many years now, I've been living out of city/town in the countryside. My life is spiritual, intellectual, and physical now - it's outdoorsy, with more physical demands and aspects than most people in modern society experience. And, having experimented a lot, I determined (for myself and my circumstances, only) that adding some fish and fowl to my healthy diet has been good. I feel stronger, and I need to be strong.

Of course, a lot of what I put effort into each year is raising organic food: corn, squash, peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, blueberries, grapes, etc, etc, etc. So I eat organic as much as possible. Fowl? free-range. Fish? wild and free during their lives.

[Adept]

Whatever I want whenever I want to.

[primrose]

I don't think our eating habits have anything to do with our Spiritual development, though for me it was becoming a vegetarian almost 25 years ago.:smile:

[Tobi]

I have always been a person who ate whatever they wanted. I don't gain weight so had no restrictions. I went off meat and milk many years ago in 1981. Mainly because I lived up a mountain in a barn, could only shop once a week, had no fridge, and meat and dairy didn't keep well. The habit stuck, but I still ate meat occasionally -maybe at Christmas time when I visited (meat-eating) relatives and saw what trouble they had gone to to prepare food for me.

In late years (no longer up a mountain!) I still ate eggs, cheese sometimes, and fish. I did that until 2012.

Then it made me wonder about my compassion for living creatures. I found it hard to reconcile my love and care for them with supporting killing them (including fish which CAN form bonds with people, and show intelligence) I absolutely love the taste of fish, and know it contains good nutrients. Same with cheese. But I found I could no longer support the awful way cows are treated, and their calves being taken away from them (bull calves most often killed) It seemed I suddenly became aware of all that.

As I woke up more to spiritual things, and things affected my Heart (deep-felt emotion and spirit) more, it seemed the compassion for them was suddenly very strong in my mind.

So while I used to think food had no bearing on spirituality whatsoever....now I am feeling that compassion to be such a beautiful condition, and we may be holding ourselves back not to embrace it fully (?)

But of course everyone has to do things according to the way they feel most strongly.

[elisi]

my mom was a pretty healthy cook-and we always had salads. but pretty normal fare.

as an adult i eat pretty much everything. i'm not a vegetarian but i just do not eat a lot of meat-perhaps 2 or 3 times a month. i do have a penchant for mexican food. not much of a sweet eater either-i like salty and sour.

as someone said above-i don't think diet has anything to do with how spiritual one is.

[sea-dove]

I'd been thinking about posting a thread on food for the past few days, this is a big issue for me.

I was brought up on a farm where we killed our own animals to eat, my sister went vegetarian throu that after seeing an animal killed for us. At that point thou, eatting meat didnt bother me and I was a big meat eatter.

As an adult, when I went on my spiritual path though, I did go vegatarian for the reason I hated to be the cause of death for animals. I was fully vegetarian for at least a year before slowly going back to meat but not like before... now I also prayed over my meat and the animals life, well aware that something had given up its life for me.

Then I started doing yogi stuff where its taboo to eat pork or shellfish if one is doing certain high frequency meditations.. so at that point over 10 years ago, stopped eatting those and have only ever maybe only 2-3 times since.

Im sure I would of gone back to full vegatarism again and probably permanently but I developed health issues in which Im now needing to eat meat. I have severe insulin problems and my nutritionists have told me I need to eat meat or eggs every meal (3times daily) as meat doesnt have any carbs in it and the protein in it helps stop ones insulin spiking suddenly (all other protein things including nuts have carbs and hence my diet needs to limit those). I get very severe reactions from carbs to the point I can go unstable and start smashing things, it also starts crashing my immune system etc. Im highly sensitive to abnormal insulin levels.

This has left me in a situation where I want to do far less meat eatting but my body and health wont let me. Im really disliking how much meat Im eatting and would like to be doing some of my higher yogi meditations at times again but I cant due to the too much meat eatting. (Meat causes denser energies in the body).

I have lots of different food issues, food sensitivities too to various things.. peanuts (told to avoid as my reaction could go lifethreatening), plums? (new major allergic reaction.. my mouth and lips swelled up. Im having allergy testing with a specialist on thursday), artifical sweeteners etc and have had issues with dairy as well (the protein in it I think). I have celiac disease genotype, with my father and all his brothers being celiac so probably have isseus there too and due to another condition I have.. I have a fructose intollerance 50% risk. I also have CBS gene mutations in which sulphur kind of foods are not good for me either eg brocolli and eggs started affecting me due to that .. all on top of my severe carb issue which already leaves me severely restricted in what I can eat.. so there isnt many foods I can eat without my health being affected.

So the meat eatting as much as I hate doing it.. at least it isnt affecting my physical health even if its affecting spiritually. I really really dont know what to do about my diet (Ive seen two different dietitians and they didnt know what else to suggest).

[Mr Interesting]

I eat what's put in front of me... simple as that. If I cook for myself then whatever's about goes in. I like cheap low brow food, the rubbish leaves thrown under the good shiny produce, cheap meats for pets, stuff past it's use by date... all the stuff other frown on.

And I don't eat until about 3 in the afternoon because it weighs me down. I like being light.

[froebellian]

I have been vegetarian for 25 years, my diet rarely changes depending where I am in the world. I am not a preachy or all salad and fruit person.
I love chocolate, noodles, chips, fries, pizza and veggie burgers!!
I don't think food affects me, it may others.
But I am aware and don't binge and balance as much as I can.


When I lived on a a spiritual retreat like many they serve mainly vegetarian because of peoples practices, it was cheaper and easier to prepare. When a guest wanted extra protein it was usually chicken which was ordered in.

[Baile]

Raw veg soups heated slightly, 100% fruit/fruit juice shakes, a ton of water, that's it, nothing else no coffee or tea or alcohol or treats, going on 4 years now. This is how my diet has evolved over three decades when I stopped drinking alcohol and started becoming aware of what I was putting in my body. It's not because I think it's spiritual, it's what my body/soul wants.

[Squatchit]

I'm taking my first few baby steps of listening to my body and what it wants/doesn't want. And training it to eat less rubbish. A middle-age body is harder to keep healthy and tends to reveal all sorts of *eek* bits compared to a younger body. :tongue:

If my body says 'biscuit', it gets a piece of fruit/raw veg instead. Early days, but I'm hopeful I will feel better/lighter as time goes by.

Not doing it for any spiritual reason, purely for my health.

The good thing is I love raw vegetables anyway, especially carrots and cauliflower. I was probably a rabbit once. :D


:bunny:

[Gem]

What and how much do you eat?
And has it been changed?

I don't really talk about it from a personal perspective, but I eat pretty healthy in view of the fact that I'm too lazy to cook. I only eat meals that take under 20 minutes to make, but if I go to someone elses house for a meal, I just eat what they serve, and don't fuss them with vegetarianism of anything... I don't take any alcohol, and that's a big change I made a number of years ago.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

One big idea we let go of was that food determined spirituality . The bigger flipside of that coin, that's still hard to actually integrate (intellectual understanding and acceptance are one thing but functional integration is another :icon_eek: ) is that spirituality determines what happens to food. the way we heard it stated was " Food does not determine consciousness; consciousness determines (what happens to) food".

Being somewhere inbetween letting go of the one and integrating the other , I myself have gone (starting back as a kid ) from food abuse (eating poorly, anorexia/bulimia) to alcoholisim and drug abuse , to cleaning that up , quitting smoking, and eating okay but not health-nuttily for 25 years until recently. A year or so ago I went health-nutty ; seemed like a good idea , being closer to 50 than 60 now. Feels good ...

[Baile]

Food does not determine consciousness; consciousness determines (what happens to) food.I could see how that might apply to adepts and ascended masters who have learned to consciously transmute physical substance. But for most if not all of us, food determines what happens to the body and one's consciousness. Eat garbage food; your body-temple will be unhealthily and consequently won't be much of a vessel for spirit and higher vibrational activity.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

I could see how that might apply to adepts and ascended masters who have learned to consciously transmute physical substance. But for most if not all of us, food determines what happens to the body and one's consciousness. Eat garbage food; your body-temple will be unhealthily and consequently won't be much of a vessel for spirit and higher vibrational activity.
Yeah, that's where my thinking has ended up, still living here in a body that operated according to physical and chemical processes . Still, the first part made sense as soon as we heard it , and our reasoning was like this :
how strong is my spiritual reality and connetion that it could be impaired by,
say, some ice cream ?. So we lightened up . At the same time, it only makes logical and practical sense that filling the body with **** can serve no constructive purpose, and can get in the way . We want to facilitate the body being the optimal vessel of Spirit , but see some leeway in how that is defined.

[Baile]

Still, the first part made sense as soon as we heard it , and our reasoning was like this :
how strong is my spiritual reality and connetion that it could be impaired by,
say, some ice cream ?. So we lightened up . At the same time, it only makes logical and practical sense that filling the body with **** can serve no constructive purpose, and can get in the way . We want to facilitate the body being the optimal vessel of Spirit , but see some leeway in how that is defined.I guess I don't see it as a complicated question, it's like everything else really. There is high vibrational reality and activity, and low vibrational. Food is just one many examples. If I listen to heavy metal music all day, I'm not going be as receptive to spirit than if I spend my time in quiet nature. The problem as I see it, is anything-goes new age thinking tends to invalidate anything resembling spiritual rules: Eat what you want, it, makes no difference spiritually sort of thing, which is uninformed.

It's a consciousness question really. It's not that ice cream is or isn't spiritual. Ice cream is ice cream. But eat ice cream all day and see what happens to your life. And your life is your spirituality and spiritual path.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

I guess I don't see it as a complicated question, it's like everything else really. There is high vibrational reality and activity, and low vibrational. Food is just one many examples. If I listen to heavy metal music all day, I'm not going be as receptive to spirit than if I spend my time in quiet nature. The problem as I see it, is anything-goes new age thinking tends to invalidate anything resembling spiritual rules: Eat what you want, it, makes no difference spiritually sort of thing, which is uninformed.

It's a consciousness question really. It's not that ice cream is or isn't spiritual. Ice cream is ice cream. But eat ice cream all day and see what happens to your life. And your life is your spirituality and spiritual path.

I don't disagree with that but I allow myself some flexibility . A scoop of Heavy Metal or a blast of ice cream now and then isn't sending anyone
off the deep end , or if it does, they didn't have much of a grip in the first place ; that's all I'm really saying :cool:

[Baile]

I don't disagree with that but I allow myself some flexibility . A scoop of Heavy Metal or a blast of ice cream now and then isn't sending anyone
off the deep endWhich is why I said if you listen to heavy metal "all day" and eat ice cream "all day."

[Squatchit]

*bops Baile and Dar over the head*

Bicker-ye-notteth and get on wi' thread. So sayeth SquatchGuru. :tongue:

[umbridge]

I don't think our eating habits have anything to do with our Spiritual development, though for me it was becoming a vegetarian almost 25 years ago.:smile:


really? :icon_eek:

[Mr Interesting]

Yeah, it not what you eat but how you eat it that counts and maybe there's a misconception that you become a master... then are able to do this when the reality might be you become a master by doing it.

Foods just like anything else. Clothes, sleeping habits, weeds in the garden. Whatever's in front of you is what's in front of you. Eat it and be grateful you even have something to eat.

A while back I found a weed growing in the builders mix and I thought that looks like it likes lime... then I smelt the leaves and they were like celery and so I pulled the weed out and it looked like a tiny carrot... and it was yummy, it was a cross between a carrot and celery... celeriac is the closest I can find but it wasn't. I didn't die.

[umbridge]

I could see how that might apply to adepts and ascended masters who have learned to consciously transmute physical substance. But for most if not all of us, food determines what happens to the body and one's consciousness. Eat garbage food; your body-temple will be unhealthily and consequently won't be much of a vessel for spirit and higher vibrational activity.

Yes, very true!

[umbridge]

I don't disagree with that but I allow myself some flexibility . A scoop of Heavy Metal or a blast of ice cream now and then isn't sending anyone
off the deep end , or if it does, they didn't have much of a grip in the first place ; that's all I'm really saying :cool:

And I am saying that as we love and try to embrace our other bodies - etheric, emotional, mental, spiritual, we should also love our physical body. This whole thing is connected. So whatever happens to the one..affects them all.

[umbridge]

Thanks for your answers!
I really appreciate it.

[Tobi]

The good thing is I love raw vegetables anyway, especially carrots and cauliflower. I was probably a rabbit once. :D


:bunny:

Raw carrots and cauliflower are really nice to crunch on! I agree. Did you know Cauliflower contains a small amount of Omega 3? I only just found that out.

[Squatchit]

Cauliflower contains a small amount of Omega 3? I only just found that out.

I didn't know that - :icon_thumleft:

It does have a strange (bitter?) aftertaste and I can understand that some folks wouldn't like it, but I do. Raw spinach is nice too. I'm lucky in that I live in "vegetable land" (Lincolnshire) and in my parent's village, there are one or two local farmers who sell their veg outside their front door. Put your 50p in the box and take a couple of caulis. Lovely and fresh. Especially carrots. Supermarket carrots can be totally tasteless.