By Chef K.T. Murphy
Enjoy Healthy Eating:
You can eat to celebrate life or you can eat simply whole foods and no processed foods 
because you must to be healthy and live a long a productive life. Note just for your family, but sole reason we need to eat is to fuel our energy to make it through the workday, to complete our favorite activities, and to empower our bodies and minds. We eat when we are hungry and it’s often a social activity that brings family and friends together. Sometimes we eat because we’re bored and there’s nothing else to do, or because we’re sad or stressed.
Mindful Eating
We spend so much of our lives eating it would be a shame if we missed the opportunity to eat well. That doesn’t mean that you regularly visit expensive restaurants or even your favorite fast food place. You don’t need to be an incredible cook or married to a chef, in fact, you don’t even need to be sitting down at the table with fine china to do so.
The joy of eating well is rooted in mindful eating. It isn’t even just about enjoying what is on your plate, but being entirely aware of the positive energies that you experience while you enjoy your meal.
It isn’t about getting carried away talking while you eat and losing your focus on your meal, nor is it about planning dinner while you’re sitting down to lunch. It’s going beyond the flavors and feeling the smells and textures as they melt in your mouth and appreciating where they came from. Where did it all come from and how far did it travel to arrive on your plate? There’s a good chance that every item on your plate came from somewhere different.
Food doesn’t just appear, it takes effort. Not only did someone have to stack it on the shelves, but also someone fed it, tended to it, harvested it, and took it through the manufacturing process. Many hands toiled to produce this product that you are about to enjoy. Don’t worry, you don’t have to delve into deep philosophical thought as you dine, it’s simply a thought that should occur to you when you approach food.
You can eat mindfully no matter where you are and it’s all about getting rid of distractions and taking your time over your meal. We are often guilty of wolfing food down so that we can get back to what we were doing before, this only results in overeating as your stomach didn’t have the time to tell your brain it was done.
Understanding The Power of Food
Food isn’t just food. Food is fuel, food is energy, and food is powering your body. If you want to be more aware of what you are putting into your body then start eating mindfully. When you seek joy in eating well you start to make healthy choices naturally, you enjoy your food more, and as a result, you will feel better.
When you start to understand that your food choices must be health based before they are weight based you start to change your mentally toward dieting. Realize that it isn’t about dieting, rather about making the smart and healthy lifestyle decisions that will improve your overall health and well-being. Mindful eating is an effective way to overcome stress eating, binge eating, and any other unhealthy relationships that you may have with food.
Delicious food and healthy food are not mutually exclusive and it’s time that you start learning just how tasty the right foods are by letting go of the junk foods that you have used to fuel your happiness. You will find more happiness, and more joy in eating well than you will in indulging your unhealthy habits.
All the best
Chef K.T. Murphy
XoxoX
