RECENTLY I received an email written by an eminent thinker and author that loosely said, “Food was never intended to be used as enjoyment. Food was intended to be used as nourishment. When we use food as fun, our body has no fun at all. It works harder, and it ultimately can’t fight off the effects of mistreatment.

We put on more weight, which puts more strain on our heart. Our body’s arteries get clogged, which does the same thing. We could, of course, define enjoyment another way. We could decide that ‘enjoyment’ is being healthy and happy. But we might have to change our whole idea about food.” 

He is quite right of course as well we all know, most of us have a constant battle to keep our weight in check, which means not eating the food we enjoy eating. In fact, if we take a moment to look at food in general, almost any food that is bad for our bodies is the tastiest, yummiest, most delicious and most sought after food of all, salty, sugary, fatty, creamy, there is no need to write a list, we all know what they are.

Healthy food that will not add extra girth to our waistline and will assist our heart is what is commonly called ‘rabbit food’- which also needs no listing. If we consume tasty food that we enjoy, we have to eat sparingly or we might damage our body. Why is this so? Why is it necessary to eat less tasty food we like or tasteless, bland food if we want to be hale and hearty? Is everything that tastes good, bad for us?

Once more, the suspect in this hoodwinking of our senses is the ego. The ego can never get enough of anything, including food. There is an empty hollowness within that can never be filled no matter how hard we try. I think we all feel that inside of us sometimes. We mistakenly call it hunger, but this type of hunger that puts on weight and does our body harm can never be satiated.

The tastier the food is the better because the sensation of taste accentuates the feeling of filling up. Once we have had our fill, it’s not too long before we want to do it all again, in a never ending cycle. This want to eat has nothing to do with refuelling the body, it all has to do with the feeling of emptiness inside of us and our unconscious need to try and fill it with something.

Some of us are more prone to this dis-ease than others, but we all feel it to some degree. Most times we eat not to enjoy the food so much as to try and appease that empty feeling in the pit of our stomach. Is it our lot to eat tasteless gruel like some people do in eastern religions, or spend our days eating food we dislike if we want have a long life? Who of us would want to live a long life without enjoyment? Not many of us.

Naturally, we need to look after our bodies for they are the vehicle that we are using to travel through our lifetime. The true feeling of an empty stomach and the need for the body to refuel and restore energy would be satisfied by eating any nutritious food. Whether it is tasty or bland is beside the point. That is the mark of a requirement for, not enjoyment of food.

The ego is the problem – it can never get enough of anything for it is always trying to become something. This emptiness inside is really unfulfillment. The ego craves eternal being, foreverness. It can never reach that goal because it is really no-thing, it does not exist – it is only an illusion of our habitual mind. But it keeps trying.

While ever we believe we are the ego, we will suffer that emptiness within. If food is not a worry to us, then it will be excitement of some sort that we will use to try and fill that void. Sport, entertainment, music, company, risky endeavours, sexual intercourse, deviate acts, anything in an attempt to fill that emptiness within and stop that other dreaded dis-ease called boredom….

Dan’s Quote: “You cannot enjoy something that you also want.”- Daniel J Brand

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