As I noted in my tip this week, the Summer Solstice (occurring on June 21st at the end of the week) is often a time to celebrate the abundance of Mother Nature.  A great way to celebrate this abundance is to take a moment to be grateful and thankful for the food we eat.

In much of Western culture, we’ve been taught to be critical of food.  We’re taught to assess and evaluate its contents, whether it has the right vitamins, the right amount of calories, carbohydrates and fats, where it comes from, who makes it, whether it’s “junky” or “healthy” or “bad” or “good.”  We toss so much opprobrium on our food that it might as well be a condiment! 

As someone with a degree in integrative nutrition, of course, I am an advocate for having fresh, organic, well-made food available to everyone.  I believe that the more people have access to whole, non-chemicalized foods, the less prevalent certain diseases will become.

That being said, the way most of us talk about our food may be more unhealthy than most of the food we eat.  When we talk about how “bad” or “junky” or “crappy” or “unhealthy” our food is, we create a variety of problems.  Below is a list of just a few!

1) Stress Response – When you eat and think that you’re eating something bad for you, this creates a stress response in the body.  Your body is getting two signals:  digest this food but it’s bad and you should stop eating!  This conflict between what you’re actually doing and what your brain thinks you should be doing creates a stress response, also known as a “fight or flight” response.  When you’re in fight or flight mode, the blood rushes away from the core of your body (where digestion takes place) to your limbs (where fighting and fleeing take place!).  As a result of stressing yourself out about what you’re eating while you’re eating, you become unable to fully digest your food. Read Catherine’s post this week to learn about eating to relieve stress.

2) Negative Messages – By telling yourself that what you eat is bad or wrong or unhealthy, you’re also telling yourself that you are only worthy of such food; i.e., that you’re bad or wrong or unhealthy.

3) Oh, The Guilt! – With all of these negative messages, you also set up a guilt response.  As a result, you start to feel guilty about what you eat and then seek out (often unconsciously) more sweet, salty or carbohydrate-packed foods - foods that provide a chemically soothing response - as penance for your guilt.

Luckily, shifting negative thoughts about food is actually quite simple, and I’d like to share one my favorite methods with you right now!

Take a moment, every time you eat, to bless your food.  Take a moment to thank Mother Nature, another deity, the food itself, or yourself for feeding your body and nourishing yourself so well.  Make this blessing truly your own and have fun with it.  Your blessing can be as easy as a quick gratitude list for your food.  You can think it to yourself or say it aloud.  Getting your friends in on it will make it even more pleasurable.  And if you’re accustomed to already blessing your meals as part of a religious practice, pay even more attention to the words you use.  Feel the gratitude for the food in your body.

Comment below and let us know if you notice any changes in your relationship to food this week or tell us if you come up with any particularly great prayers! 

And don’t forget to check out other great More of Me to Love blogs.

Also, please stop by Golda’s Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness. She counsels women and men throughout the country on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's counseling and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline and Time Out New York. For more support with healing your relationship with food and your body, sign up for the Body Love Wellness Newsletter and receive your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining.