According to the Upanishads...food is Brahman, the Divine reality. The unity of all life is demonstrated by the process of eating in which we participate in the movement of creation in the material world. The physical body itself is born of and lives by food. Most disease is traceable ultimately to incorrect diet. The cure of such wrong eating is not better drugs, nor necessarily better restaurants, but in reclaiming our oldest right and duty, to cook for ourselves, and those we love. Though right diet may not always be enough to correct diseases few diseases can really be alleviated without it. Moreover, right diet is the essence of disease prevention and the foundation of a healthy and happy life. (III, The Ayurvedic Cookbook, Morningstar and Desai).
Recently, I met with someone for an initial meeting of the Food Therapeutics service I offer at Long Beach Community Acupuncture (LBCA). Immediately upon arrival, they asked: “What’s the secret? I wanna know the secret to weight loss.” Unfortunately, there is no secret. There is no one thing that unlocks weight loss for everyone and we live in a culture that emphasizes how we look over how we actually feel.
There is the assumption in the Western mindset of weight gain being a result of eating more calories than you burn, but it has been shown to be a flawed equation. People can eat the same foods, the same amounts, but have different outcomes when it comes to weight gain and loss, and certainly to digestion.
Rather than focusing on the external benefits of eating, we would do well to focus our attention internally; it can be more helpful and may ultimately affect how we look, how our clothes fit, and how comfortable we can be as we live our lives.
The foods we consume are directly related to our energy levels. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it is the way we nourish our post-natal qi. Too many people suffer from poor digestion which includes any of the following symptoms: gas (burping, flatulence), abdominal distention, bloating, pain, constipation, and diarrhea. Brain fog, fatigue, even runny or stuffy nose after eating are also symptoms. Low or no appetite, and conversely, excessive hunger are also signs that digestion is not optimum.
Digestion is a complex process, a “choreography” that involves multiple organs and secretions—think saliva, bile, and stomach acid (Sterman 80). We tend to make the assumption that all the food we eat in a meal digests in the same environment, at the same rate, and at the same time. We eat a BLT and think it all gets churned up and broken down in the stomach, then goes on down through the small intestine to the large intestine and what’s left over, we eliminate. This mundane sandwich example is actually a complex food combination that includes carbohydrates (bread), vegetables (tomato and lettuce), and protein (bacon). Each of these components requires different secretions for digestion. Breaking down protein, especially animal protein, requires gastric acid, whereas carbs and veggies require more alkaline environments. “[A]ll digestive secretions from saliva to those made in the intestines are alkaline with the exception of gastric acid” (69). What this means is that what we ingest gets broken down and absorbed at different stages all along the alimentary canal. Food combining, then, is an important part of healthy digestion. And the kind of meals you need may be quite different depending on what kind of activity you are planning to do.
When digestion is working well a person should feel energized after eating and satisfied. They will have more focus and timely elimination. So how do we set ourselves up for optimum digestion? Like many things, it begins with intention, deciding mindfully to eat and being clear about what you want from the meal or snack. This is very easy to say and hard to do when so many parts of modern life compete for our attention. With meals most of us have our cell phones nearby or in hand; others fall into habits of reading while eating, listening to podcasts, or watching TV. These are actually distractions from fully focusing your attention on eating well. When we are distracted, it’s easy to eat too much—past digestive capacity – and also to eat too little.
Consider trying to have one meal a day without anything but the food in front of you. You can look at the food and notice its textures, colors, shapes, and smells. You can take a moment to appreciate the processes and people behind this union of you and this meal. Taking that first bite (and then the next, and the next) chew well so that the saliva and the power of your teeth make the contents even easier for you to digest as it continues the journey of the alimentary canal.
Eating past our digestive capacity--even those foods that are “good” for you—will create internal problems. The Chinese say: eat until 2/3 full and save room for the breath. The breath is a bellows which fans the flames of our digestive fire. “In Hindu eating the food taken in is given as an offering to the Divine Fire in the stomach, by whose grace we digest the food” (IV, Morningstar and Desai). Another practice that may help one tune into their digestive capacity is “introducing the pause,” a period of waiting 30 minutes after the last bite of a meal to see if hunger remains (Sterman).
Back to that BLT. When deciding what you will eat, it is important to be clear about what you want the meal to do for you. When we are going to participate in a strenuous activity, our choices will likely be very different than what we eat as an afternoon snack to bridge the time between lunch and dinner. A BLT—most American breakfasts, really—are designed to digest slowly, to stay with you for awhile. Andrew Sterman likes to refer to them as farmer’s breakfasts: combinations that sustain someone doing lots of physical labor. Most of us, however, are not farmers. Still, most of us need to eat breakfast and yet many people skip this meal. Skipping meals sets us up for extreme hunger and makes it all too easy to consume food beyond our digestive capacity once we actually sit down to eat. (Yes, I know, some of us don’t even sit down to eat!)
Eating well does not just happen. It does require planning and effort. Amadea Morningstar and Urmita Desai refer to cooking as “our oldest right and duty” and I agree that it is one of the best ways you can actively take good care of yourself and of those you love. Even if cooking is not your thing, there are lots of hacks to learn to put together useful food combinations, and if your schedule is simply too busy for you to do the work of planning, shopping, and cooking, there are food services that can help you get on track. An LBCA regular turned me on to EveryTable, a food delivery service committed to health, affordability, and social justice.
There is a lot more to be said about creating good synergy for your individual system when combing foods, but it is well beyond this brief blog post. Beginning with clear intention and a mindful approach to eating is the first step in honing your digestion. As far as weight loss is concerned, some of it comes down to what kinds of foods you are eating and some of it comes down to healing our relationship with food, our source of nourishment. Weight gain is complicated and often emotionally fraught. I am not an expert in weight loss, but I can help you with your digestion. I can help you understand what you might change to feel better. If you would like to work together in this way, send me an email (infolongbeachca@gmail.com) and I will send you more details.