While lecturing in the Clearwater, Largo region of Florida last week, I ate out for dinner one evening at an Italian restaurant near my hotel. Lasagna is one of my favorite dishes, and very time consuming to make at home, so I order it while traveling.
When the waiter brought my dish my eyes bugged out because the platter of food was so huge! It was enough noodles, meat and cheese to feed my entire family, and have leftovers to spare.
Huge portion sizes served at restaurants is nothing new. The growing mounds of food placed in front of customers for consumption has been increasing for years, and it doesn’t seem like anyone minds. I suppose customers want it or restaurants wouldn’t keep serving it.
But I don’t like it! Yet, I have to deal with it, because I eat out frequently while on the road.
I’ve found I cannot be passive about the large portions of food served, or I eat too much.
I have a number of ways of exercising discipline over eating more than I need, but one truth that has helped me immensely is, “Just because they serve it, doesn’t mean you have to eat it.”
I was raised in a home where food did not go to waste. Nothing went to waste. We couldn’t afford to waste food or any other resource! The routine of eating what was on our plate was so ingrained into my behavior that it has required conscious mental discipline to say “No, I don’t have to eat all this food,” when served too much at restaurants or a neighbor’s home.
We’re always dealing with thoughts. Material conditions are material beliefs expressed. So, when a huge mound of food is served, there is an underlying suggestion, and often aggressive, that says, “You should eat all this food I’m serving you. It was prepared for you.” And if one is not alert, he or she will listen to that suggestion and eat more than is appropriate.
So, it takes alertness to not take in mental suggestions that distorts one’s normal eating patterns. And one argument I consciously use is, “You don’t have to eat everything you are served. You are a spiritually content child of God. Leave the extra.”
So, I’ve gotten pretty good at staying spiritually alert and not eating too much when traveling, but…and there’s a whole lot more I want to say here…so continued tomorrow…
Mary Baker Eddy wrote “Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutriment of life, and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction, — that food has power to destroy Life, God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a ‘kingdom divided against itself,” which is “brought to desolation.’ If food was prepared by Jesus for his disciples, it cannot destroy life.” Science & Health, page 388
Hi Evan..loved this post. I have been thinking about this alot with regard to the feast of spiritual ideas that we have access to every day. Am I really relishing one great thought. Am I “chewing” on it thoughtfully and carefully making sure that I am fully aware of every bite and the gift that it is.
Am I thankful for each idea, or do I “snack and graze” wandering through the spiritual kitchen. Do I read as if I am eating mindlessly while standing at the sink talking to someone, or do I sit down at a well laid table, say grace, and then experience every bite with a heightened awareness of its value.
These thoughts have been so helpful to me as I show up at the banquet table of Soul each day. Your post was such a sweet reminder to partake thoughtfully, and savor each and every bite!!
with Love, Kate
Hi Kate,
Oh, I like your spiritual view of feasting and eating. That perspective and thoughtfulness gets thought thinking out from a Spirit premise instead of a matter premise. One is no longer struggling with food, but partaking of true food–spiritual food–coming from God, and doing it the right way precludes doing it the “wrong way.”
I discovered a helpful twist to an old saying, the “seefood” method. I just turned it around one day and found it to be very helpful. For example, the “no seefood method” Or better put, see only spiritual nurishment. Now it is easier to put away or handle mentally temptations of every kind dealing with material foods opting for studying or metaphysical consuming more than material eating. G