Mindfulness of Eating, 9/22/07

I choose to do a mindfulness of eating practice today because in working with what I have identified as my main habitual pattern, avoidance, I realize that as the pattern loosens, energy is released. And, if that energy is not focused into attention at a higher lever, there is a tendency for it to fall again into a reactive pattern, either the original pattern or another pattern. I have identified emotional eating as another one of my patterns. I am hoping that mindfulness of eating practice will defuse the tendency for the energy released to be absorbed by the reactive pattern of emotional eating.

I am at Barnes and Noble, and I just finished eating a slice of spinach-artichoke stratta, and I'm still sipping on a soy chai latte. What I noticed most about the food was the texture. Stratta is made with eggs, bread, milk, and cheese, and so the flavor is rather bland, sort of like quiche. There is a salty, buttery flavor. The vegetables in the mix also are not strongly flavored. So, the sensation of texture comes to the fore. The texture of the body of the stratta is smooth and like a custard. It is warm and melts in my mouth, releasing its own juices. The vegetables are tender and chewy; the cheese rich and chewy. The crust is tender and flaky. The soy latte is warm and has the characteristic bland soy flavor. My grandchildren have called soy milk "marshmallow" milk. They've been raised on cows' milk and don't like soy milk. Since I have been drinking soy milk for a number of years, cows' milk has, for me, an animal taste that I find distasteful. The spices in the chai are energizing, activating: the bite of cinnamon, a hint of pepper, nutmeg, clove, vanilla. It all seems to have a wholesome, nourishing quality. It was just the right amount of food to sustain me without filling my stomach to an uncomfortable level. And, I took my time eating it and enjoyed it. I am now enjoying the foam from the latte that sticks to the sides of the cup.