In Love with Food: Selecting, Preparing and Eating with Purpose

As self-professed organic foodies, it’s time to rekindle the romance. Fall in love with food once more. Reconnect. Make every eating experience a conscious, delicious, loving one.

Lost connections

At this time of year many of us will be experimenting with a ‘healthy’ regime – no alcohol, sugar-free, exercising and perhaps dieting for weight loss. Others might be finding the return to the grind overwhelming and turning to those very things to comfort and distract. Regardless of where you are with this, there’s always room for more love in your relationship with food.

Eat with love

Some say the relationship to how we eat is the relationship to the self. Lovingly fuelling your body is a form of looking after yourself and, no matter what you eat, whatever your budget or preferences, you can do it with love.

Be Mindful

In this 24-hour culture we can consume mindlessly – at a desk, on the go, in the car, as we scroll – and it’s possible you’re forgetting to taste your food.

Today, take your time as you eat. Use all 5 senses to examine, feel and experience your food. Pay attention to your body’s signals of satiety and satisfaction – perhaps you feel full earlier than you expected to – or hungry for more?

Search ‘raisin meditation for mindfulness’ online, it’s a step-by-step practice for mindful eating that many practitioners use to demonstrate the founding principles of mindfulness. Give it a go, you’ll never taste a raisin like it!

Organic affection

Reinforcing the food connection is also about respecting its provenance and origins. As friends of Biona Organic, you already know that organic methods are beneficial, both to people and our planet. Choosing your food carefully and consciously strengthens that bond between you and the earth that serves you when you eat.

Seasonal sentiments

Eating with the seasons is another way to be conscious when you consume. Choosing produce that hasn’t travelled is easier on the carbon footprint (and often cheaper), is tastier because it has ripened at the right time and connects you to your food community:

• Support local economy. Look for farms or growers in your area offering veg boxes or veg schemes.
• Farmer’s markets. Taking the time to meet the people producing your food further connects you to the food on your plate.
• Grow your own. Start with potatoes in a bucket, or windowsill herbs – a simple way to introduce the food chain into your home.

“If you don’t love it, don’t eat it, and if you love it, savor it.”

Evelyn Tribole, Intuitive Eating

Cherish food

Relishing food brings a deeper appreciation of it. Take your time in an environment that is calm and inviting. Mindful and intuitive eating tells us to honour our hunger and honour our health. Listen to your body – what are you hungry for? What foods will nourish you? Why not have a look around our website for inspiration.

Preparation Appreciation

If you’ve fallen out of love with cooking (easily done with a culture of always being busy), think about allocating specific time to invest in the enjoyment of food preparation. Ideas for saving time could be:

• Batch cooking for the freezer
• Meal planning
• Online shopping
• Food prep Sunday

Make cooking an enjoyable task with your partner or family getting involved, or use the time as a form of self-care and shut yourself away in the kitchen with a favourite podcast or playlist, following a trusted recipe or experimenting with new ingredients.