Eating mindfully - Friday, May 23

One of my favorite food-related quotes comes from Barbara Kingslover's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.

This quote, I think, sums up this entire challenge for me. Where will I shop for groceries? Do I choose local or organic; can I have both? Do we compost those food scraps? How do we achieve the balance between eating too much and too little. In a very real sense, the answers we give for each of these questions all determines how the world is used. Our choices do, in fact, matter. 

So how were my choices this week? Almost all our food came from local suppliers: fruits, veggies, eggs, milk, cheese, honey, herbs, jams. Things I bought at the grocery were: pectin (to make more jam on Saturday), sugar (again for jam), salt, corn flakes (hubby), cinnamon (for the next time I make bagels), organic peanut butter (fine, I didn't really need it but I wanted it REAL bad...), mushrooms (grocery, but locally produced), and a can of pumpkin (I made homemade pumpkin bread this week - Mmmm. Pumpkin bread!) All our breads/rolls/bagels were from scratch (though mostly using ingredients from the grocery). 

As far as eating mindfully goes...

Meditate every day - Yeah! Perfect score here. 

Sit down while I eat - There were a couple days where I caught myself taking nibbles when I hadn't yet sat down to eat, and I ended up grazing through one afternoon. But that means 6 days that I didn't. At least it's improvement.

Enjoy at least one meal a day in the company of someone else - This is the most exciting change for me so far in the challenge. Dave and I have been eating each and every breakfast at the kitchen table together as well as most dinners. Also, one day this week, I had lunch with a friend who joined me at my desk at work for a "picnic." My meal-times this month have completely transformed. It's not just about meeting my physical dietary needs, it's all about hanging out, smiling, laughing, sharing stories - being together.  I look forward to each meal in anticipation of moments together. I wasn't expecting the change to be so profound, but it has been amazing!

Eat slowly - No problems here. Easy cheesy (no stuffing my face on the way to the dentist this week :)

No multi-tasking - This is starting to feel much more normal, aided by the fact that now we're eating at the table. The table is "the place to eat." Even when I have an afternoon snack, I eat it at the table. It has helped to provide physical definition of space. I eat here, I work there and never the two shall meet. I feel more satisfied when I eat meals this way and it also helps tremendously with the anti-grazing campaign.

So as you can tell, it was an awesome week. The key will be to keep this up long after the challenge is over. I'm definitely building new habits though and that's the point. Have a great weekend, everyone. Happy, and mindful, eating!