The Energy of Food

So we talk a lot about the chemical and nutritional make up of foods.  What compounds are in the food that make them healthy?  What nutritional aspects of a specific food helpsheart disease or diabetes?  Which supplement should I take for bone density or chronic fatigue?  Is it organic?  What is the pesticide level on or in the fruit or vegetable?  Questions and more questions about what is in the food or on the food that we consume.  And these are all valid questions and worth looking into.  We are eating such a limited diet and the majority of the grocery store is devoted to corn or soy based products.  Our food is being grown on huge farms where the pesticide and herbicide applications are excessive at best, and our soil quality is decreasing every year.  So what if we put all of that aside and look at the energetic side of farming.  It makes sense that small farms, especially organic farms produce a higher quality of food.  But just maybe the food from small farms has an even higher value.   Food that contains the energy of the place it is grown and the people who grew it.

The energy of the area we live in and the people who we surround ourselves with is apparent in all aspects of our lives.  We say things like “if all of your friends jumped off the bridge would you jump too?”  or “he lives on the wrong side of the tracts”.  There is more evidence now then ever before that who we are with affects our behavior.  Our brain is built to mimic our surroundings.  This is so we can more easily adapt to new environments and live more efficiently.  We consciously and unconsciously copy our neighbors, friends, and co-workers on both the surface and  on deeper levels.  I once lived in a neighborhood where within six months in the five houses that surrounded mine there were 3 divorces, 2 plastic surgeries, and 1 affair.  To this we respond with sayings like “there must be something in the water”.  I responded by moving.  So if where we live and who we surround our selves with matters what about who grows our food and where it is grown.  It is this idea that leads many to bless the food they eat before consuming it.  It is both an expression of gratitude to our higher being, and those who worked hard to produce it, as well as a cleansing of the energy that it contains, and an intention of what we hope to receive from it.  This concept is replicated in most cultures.  I do this when I process and package the tea.  I also have begun to wild harvest some products from Canada like Chaga, raspberry leaf,  and St. John’s Wort.  I find that incorporating wild elements into our food brings another dimension to our diet.  We are so completely immersed in our human designed world and our human designed food that our world is becoming smaller and smaller.  Nature is still out there vast and beautiful, known and unknown.  Consuming wild food brings the element of the bigger picture into our life and we can appreciate gratitude for it’s creation.

So think about where the food you are eating not only came from but who grew it, processed it, cooked it?  How is that affecting you?  It’s an idea worth considering.