The Right Way to Prepare & Eat Food

The Right Way to Prepare & Eat Food

With drastic changes in the lifestyle, maximum people are cooking at home than ever before and in the process, they are also discovering the unique connection between cooking & happiness. That’s also one of the positive aspects of staying at home.

Certainly, when you are happy and peaceful in the kitchen, it strangely makes your food taste delicious. But why does that happen? It happens because everything is energy. The energy you are experiencing at the time of cooking can make a huge difference to the final outcome of a dish.

If you feel ‘calm’ and satisfied within, then you essentially permeate ‘calmness’ into the food. Likewise, if you feel sad and gloomy then you infuse such energy into your food.

So, when you eat the food you not only absorb various nutrients, but also the ‘energy’ instilled into it. The energy with which you prepare food is greatly important and therefore you should always try to infuse spiritual energy into your food.

Here’s how.

Prepare Food with Utmost Sanctity

Mother Nature provides us with food that nourishes the physical body and helps it grow. No one can survive without it. We take food and thus this physical body is known as ‘Annamaya Kosha’- the food sheath, the first layer of the body.  The next sheath is the ‘Pranamaya Kosh’-Life force sheath, and then the ‘Manomaya Kosh’- the mind or thought process layer; then the ‘Vijnanamaya Kosh’-the intuition sheath and finally, the ‘Anandamaya kosha’- the spiritual bliss sheath.

In India, before we start eating, we offer prayers and express our gratitude for the food we eat.  Some people chant the Gayatri mantra while cooking.

So, when you prepare food with sanctity, these spiritual feelings move in the food and then into family members as well who consume it. When you prepare food in a bad mood, it turns out to be tasteless, but when you prepare it happily, it’s delicious. Therefore, prepare food with utmost sanctity while blessing your children, chanting mantras and with a positive frame of mind.

Let the Food Nourish your Body, Mind and Soul

Also, when you are about to eat your food, you must offer prayers and along with that express gratitude towards God for all that you have. Take a bite of food and know that you are offering it to God only because your soul is a part of God.

So, consume food with love, and then the food will convert into life-juice. It will nourish your body, mind, and soul. When you consume Sattvic food, your mind also becomes Sattvic and then you move on the path of selfless deeds.  However, if the food is Rajasic or Tamasic, the mind and deeds also become like that.

The Sattvic Impact of Sattvic Food

You understand God, His blessings, the scriptures, and words of the Guru, and move on the path of devotion naturally when you consume Sattvic food. And therefore in meditation practices, seekers work on their food habits first. Food nourishes both the body and the mind- the subtle form of the body; both are not separate. That’s why when the body is in trouble, it affects the mind and when the mind is disturbed, it affects the body.

Further, almost seventy percent of diseases of the body are the outcome of a disturbed mind and stress. Therefore, in older times, it was a popular belief that one should not consume food at the house of those with whom they don’t have good relations.

So, avoid eating just anywhere. When you have Sattvic food at home, it impacts your thought process in a positive way.

These are just a few of the various ways to prepare and consume food mindfully and in a Sattvic way. Practice them, try to find the spiritual meaning in them, and also experience a culinary delight over the sacred nature of preparing & eating food.

The Power of ‘Thank You’

।। अन्नपूर्णे सदापूर्णे शंकर प्राणवल्लभे,ज्ञान वैराग्य सिध्यर्थं भिक्षां देहि च पार्वति ।।