FSB Author Article
Intentionality and Food
By Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D.,
Author of The Whole-Food Guide to
Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach
"Made
with love" is an ingredient I have often seen on home-made packaged
cookies and other home-made foods in health food stores. It always
seems like a sweet and nice thing to say, but without real meaning, a
friendly, new-agey kind of sentiment. Turns out it's quite real, and
measurable.
Let me set the context for this column for you. At
this time, I am the president of a small non-profit organization called
Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (FIONS). The organization
it sprang from, IONS, was started by
astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Ph.D.,
after he had an epiphany on his return from the moon that everything is
connected. We
offer a variety of programs, events, and dialogue groups in the NYC
area, with a focus
on consciousness and multiple ways of knowing.
One
program we offered a few years back was a presentation by Dean Radin,
author of The Conscious Universe (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997)
and Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum
Reality. (New
York: Simon & Schuster -- Paraview Pocket Books, 2006). Dr. Radin
has been Senior Scientist at IONS since 2001, and has been studying the
effects of mind on matter for quite some time. He even worked on a
classified program investigating psychic phenomena for the US
government. During our event, he talked about his experiments with
random number generators, which generate strings of 2 numbers at
random. When an operator or study subject tries to influence the
numbers with their intention, these machines seem to show some
responsiveness -- they skew towards what the subject intended in a
statistically significant way.
As he was talking, I realized
that his straight data supports the idea that mind interacts with
matter. Then I thought of the very common idea of "cooking with love"
--
which suddenly seemed entirely plausible. At dinner later with Dr.
Radin
I mentioned to him that perhaps there should be some research on the
effects of the mind on food and cooking.
Well, Dr. Radin is a man
of action. He set about to do just that, and published a paper in the
fall of 2007 where he shows, in a placebo-controlled trial, that the
focused intention of shamanic healers enhances the beneficial effects
of chocolate. See his video on this at www.oneminuteshift.com.
(Radin DI, Hayssen G, Walsh J. 2007). Effects of Intentionally
Enhanced Chocolate on Mood, Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing,
Volume 3, pp. 485-492) He was kind enough to credit me with sparking
the idea.
You
realize what this means: that the mood of the cook can affect the mood
of the people eating the food. As mentioned, this is not a new idea. If
cooking with love enhances the flavor and energizing effects of your
dinner, what happens when you cook with anger? Years ago my
then-husband and I found ourselves in a nasty fight after leaving a
restaurant, and the fight was over nothing at all. It was just the
mood. We finally figured that the chef must have been really cranky.
How
about cooking with sorrow? You may remember a well-known movie called
"Like Water for Chocolate", where the tears of the cook ended up
saddening everyone at a wedding. Apparently, that notion is no longer
so far-fetched.
So what to do with this information? You cannot always control how you
feel. But what you can do
is be aware of it. When you get ready to cook your family's meal, take
a moment to focus and center yourself, acknowledge any disturbing
feelings, and try to let them go. Put on your favorite feel-good music.
Sing along. Think of pleasant places, people you love. Corny, isn't it?
But it works. If it doesn't work, leave the kitchen, and either get
someone else to cook, or order in from your favorite local restaurant.
You will all be much happier, even if the food is not as good as your
own.
Same idea if you are cooking for yourself. If cooking is an
activity you really enjoy, if it helps you get out of your daily grind
and move into a more pleasant mind-space, then cooking for yourself is
an excellent idea. But if you've been out at work all day, come home
tired, and try to throw some dinner together, the meal may not feel
nourishing at all. If you cook for yourself out of obligation and you
resent it, careful -- you could make yourself sick from your own
crankiness. Better delegate the cooking to a professional, which is a
much better idea than trying to subsist on dinners of protein bars and
dry cereal. Nourish yourself by delegating the work, and spending a
little money on decent food that someone cooks for you. Great if it's
organic, but even if it's not, it's still worth it.
When I was writing my book Food and Healing,
I couldn't cook for myself. I could cook for my children and for my
classes, but for myself, I couldn't because I had no energy left. So I
ate lunch out at the coffee shop most days that I was writing -- isn't
that ironic? And the book came out good enough that it's still selling
after 20+ years.
There is another aspect to intentionality in
regards to food, and that has to do with the mood of the eater, not the
cook. I know plenty of people who are so worried about eating right,
that they think everything they eat is not good enough. They think,
"this is not organic, it is full of pesticides," "the chemicals are
going to kill me," "for sure this will put weight on me," and so on and
so forth. Such a negative mindset is guaranteed poison in the
energetics of your meal. Think of the alternative -- you are lucky
enough to live in a time and place where you have enough food to choose your
meal ingredients. Your main problem is what you will
eat, not if you will eat. Be grateful that you have
such abundance, and that your body knows what to do with it.
To
show your gratitude, bless the meal. Saying grace, "gracias", is an
ancient ritual that still lives today, and it helps elevate the mood.
While Dr. Radin asked trained shamans to enhance the chocolate, all of
us human beings have the ability to affect matter with our minds. Even
if it's not statistically measurable, it will be measurable by feeling.
You may want to run a little test: eat the same meal, if you can, with
two different attitudes: one, where you're cranky and you don't like
anything, the other where you are full of love and gratitude. Then
notice the feelings -- and don't discount them. They are ingredients in
your food just as much as the onions and the flour.
Here is a simple recipe to try this with.
CURRIED RED LENTIL SOUP
2 tablespoons organic butter or olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 small carrots, sliced
1 rib celery, sliced
1 quart water or stock
½ cup red lentils
½ teaspoon salt or to taste
Abundant loving intentions
1.
In a 4-quart soup pot, heat the butter or olive oil and add the onions.
Sauté for about 2 minutes, then add the curry powder,
sauté another
minute. Add the carrots and celery and stir around another minute. Add
the stock, then the lentils. Bring to a boil, stir well, lower the
heat, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes. Add salt and cook another 5
minutes; adjust taste if needed. Loving intentions should be added
throughout the stirring. Serve hot.
Makes 4 servings.
©2009 Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., author of The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach
Author Bio
Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., author of The Whole-Food Guide to
Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach, is a health educator and
award-winning writer, consultant, and lecturer. She is the founder and
CEO of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in
New York City. She is author of several books including Food and
Healing and writes a column, "Food and Your Health," for New
York Spirit magazine.
For more information please visit www.FoodAndHealing.com.