Spiritual eating is adopting a lighter, high vibration diet and eating more mindfully. It involves being more aware of what and how you eat. People choose to practice spiritual eating for a variety of reasons, namely to raise their personal energy vibration, improve physical health and mental wellbeing and to practice what Buddhists call non-harmfulness.
Raising
your Energy Vibration
Food
in its natural state - termed raw, living plant based food - has the highest
vibration of all. It includes fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains that
have not been cooked above 48 degrees C. Vegan food (no animal or fish
products) is high vibration, as is food that is without pesticides, additives,
GM etc. At the opposite end of the spectrum, manufactured processed food
including junk food and food high in additives or grown with pesticides has a
very low vibration. Anything you consume that is actually dead (ie. meat or
fish) has no vibration at all.
When
you consume food that is fresh and natural, you are absorbing that high
vibration into your body. High vibration foods are fruit and veg (even more so
when fresh from the plant), salad foods, nuts, seeds and wholegrains. Fresh
food has the highest vibration when eaten raw/cold. When food is cooked at high temperature
through boiling, frying, grilling, barbecuing etc, much of the nutritional
benefit and high energy vibration is lost as enzymes in the food are destroyed.
Steaming and low temperature simmering are the best options for cooked food.
The
main reason for wanting to raise your personal vibration is to improve your
connection to Spirit and spiritual energies. If you are a Reiki or spiritual
healer, a high energy vibration enables you to be a clearer channel for higher
frequency healing energies. If you wish to develop your psychic and/or
mediumship abilities, again the lighter and clearer a channel you are the
better. A dense heavy body just weighs you down literally and metaphorically
and you have to work extra hard to reach and communicate with your guides and
angels. If you eat ‘lighter’, not only will you feel better physically and be
more balanced emotionally, your head will be clearer so that you can more
easily receive impressions and intuitions from spirit. Interestingly Doreen
Virtue recommends eating pineapple to strengthen the pineal gland (relating to
the crown and third eye chakras) to stimulate clairvoyance.
Many
people like to incorporate a Rainbow Diet – a kind of full spectrum colour
eating to energise the chakras. In other words, you need a balance of foods of
all the different chakra colours to enable your energy body to be as balanced
as possible. For example, red foods energise the root chakra; violet foods
energise the third eye chakra.
You
should also drink plenty of water, ideally 6-8 glasses a day. Water is a good
conductor for psychic energy – which is why many of us receive insight and
inspiration when lying in the bath!
Eating
Mindfully
Being
mindful of what you eat, when and how, is often included as part of a course in
Mindfulness Meditation. Doing anything mindfully increases your self-awareness
and makes you more present in all areas of your life, enabling you to be more
grounded and effective in day-to-day life. When you eat mindfully, you are
advised to chew your food very thoroughly in the mouth before swallowing. Chew
each mouthful up to 40 times. This will help with the digestion process as food
is then partially digested in the mouth before it hits the stomach. The body
therefore needs to use less energy to digest the meal in the gut. Chewing food
mindfully also makes you notice when you are actually full and need no more. It
also heightens the sensory experience of taste and texture.
Most
of the time people eat distractedly – watching television, talking to
family/friends, thinking about problems or things they need to do, or just
eating in a hurry because they need to do something else. Food is just
shovelled down as quickly as possible with no thought to digesting it properly
or savouring the taste. It is easy to eat more than you really need when you’re
distracted. Eating mindfully both increases your self-awareness and improves
your digestion.
Practising
Non-Harmfulness
This
Buddhist tenet is one that some people on a spiritual path choose to adhere to.
Non-harmful eating includes products from animals that may have been killed or
harmed in the process of providing that food. This would definitely rule out
meat and fish and for some it would include dairy too.
Benefits
of Spiritual Eating
This
way of eating can be like a physical or spiritual detox. Eating higher
vibration, raw, natural foods in particular can have a cleansing effect on the
body. Digestion improves, allergies and intolerances are reduced, the immune
system is boosted, energy levels improve and aches and pains including headaches
are reduced. Physical health improves when you reduce or eliminate the
unhealthy processed foods that cause inflammation and poor digestive health.
Some people experience greater emotional balance and wellbeing – they are more
tolerant, have greater ‘acceptance’ and less anger. A lot of negative emotions
are caught up in what we eat and within our actual eating patterns which can
gradually be released as we adopt a more healthy way of eating. Some people may
find they have more intense dreams which can be a sign of a releasing of
emotions on a subconscious level. Spiritual eating can also boost the depth and
quality of your meditation practice.
Spiritual
eating makes you more aware of what you are consuming. You start to see food as
the fuel you give your body and sometimes you realise that the body isn’t
running as well as it should. If you feel lethargic, low in energy, foggy
headed or have digestive issues, eating more raw natural foods can make a huge
improvement.
I
have been on my own healthy plant based diet for 3 months now. In addition to
losing a stone and a half in weight (which was much needed!), I have found a
huge improvement in my digestive healthy and immune system. I feel ‘lighter’,
more energised and more clear-headed. I also know I am being guided and
motivated by Spirit and there seems to be a real improvement in the power of my
Reiki treatments.
Notes:-
If
you are cutting out meat altogether you will need to take a Vitamin B12
supplement as this vitamin is only found in meat. (I have however recently
discovered that apricots help the body create its own bioactive B12.) Vitamin
B12 is available from health stores and I recommend Little London Herbal Stores
on Trinity Walk, Nottingham.
Starting
with the April Newsletter I will be looking at the Rainbow Diet, starting with
the Root Chakra in April. I will be introducing a series of Chakra Shakes – a
smoothie recipe to energise each chakra – as well as including suggested foods
you can eat to energise each one. April starts with a delicious Cherry Berry
Smoothie to energise the root chakra.
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