I am very good at eating while doing something else. I am either eating and reading; or eating and talking to another person; or eating and watching television; or eating furtively while thinking about the fact that I should not be eating. The point is, for most of my forty years, I have managed to consume millions of calories without paying much attention to said calories. Then last month, I read How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh, and now I want to do a better job of staying mindful while I eat. 

How to Eat is a very short book, but it was filled with a lot of ideas that I am still processing. But one idea that I love is that before eating, we should consider all the things that made our meal possible.

For example, today I enjoyed a shrimp quesadilla for lunch. Before my first bite, I considered the quesadilla. I was about to eat shrimp – shrimp! – that not long ago, were swimming in the ocean. I imagined the fisherman who caught the shrimp.

Then, I took my first bite (#hungry) but I kept considering my food.

The shrimp was processed, packaged, transported and eventually sold to the restaurant where I am currently writing. So many people had to work in order for those half dozen shrimp to reach my plate! Then, I told the waiter I wanted the shrimp quesadilla; the waiter relayed my request to the chef; and the chef seasoned and cooked the shrimp.

And we are still just talking about the shrimp. I have not even considered the quesadilla!

It was a spinach quesadilla, so someone planted the seeds for the spinach. It being 2019, the farmer probably used a tractor. Someone built that tractor. Someone else sold it. And consider the spinach: it was not enough to plant the seed in the ground. It had to be planted in soil that was rich enough for the spinach to grow; there needed to be sunshine and water; so there must have been rain and irrigation…

And that’s just one ingredient for the tortilla! Never mind the salt and flour… or the cheese that was sprinkled inside. The olive oil that was used to marinate the shrimp. The moonbeams that touched the olives, the history of people crushing olives to make olive oil. Who was the first person that realized the oil of olives could be used for cooking?

There are so many stories wrapped in every single ingredient that were used to make my lunch. It’s so incredible to ponder how those stories intersect in a single plate. And I could have just mindlessly devoured my lunch, not really tasting the shrimp, or appreciating the gooey texture of cheese…

The whole world – rain, sunshine, ocean, soil – worked to give me this one meal.

I know I am busy raising children. I know there is not enough time for all the things I want/need to do. But today, this is my prayer for myself: that I find the time to sit and truly appreciate the food I consume and let eating become a mindfulness practice for my heart, body, mind and soul.