Mindful Eating Practice

Step 1 - What’s cookin’?

Decide in advance which meal or snack time you will use for Mindful Eating Practice. You can even begin your practice by paying mindful attention to how you choose the menu, shop, prepare and cook the meal or snack. .

Step 2 - Explore with 5 Senses

As you sit before your prepared food, first bring your attention, slowly and with intention, to each of the 5 senses to see what you can notice. What can you…

  • See

  • Feel

  • Hear

  • Smell

  • Taste (you’re not tasting yet but the mind can imagine!)

Explore each sense individually at a time and with as much attention to detail as possible. If you’re sharing the meal or snack, invite everyone to share what they notice.

Step 3 - Eat & Enjoy!

Touch the first bite to your lips. What do you notice? What is the mouth doing? What urges do you notice? What is it like to resist an urge?

Place the bite in your mouth but do not chew yet. You can roll it around with your tongue for full contact. What is this experience like? What is the texture? Taste?

Now bite down on the food. What new experiences and sensations arise? Chew slowly until the food is completely gone. Notice any sensations in the body as the morsel travels to the stomach.

Step 4 - Check in

Now turn your attention to your emotions and thoughts. What emotions are present? Excitement to finally eat! Irritation at having to delay the first bite. The thought that you might like to eat every meal in this delightful way or the fear others will eat your food if you are slow. Just notice the full range of experience that comes from eating this way.

Step 5 - Get Curious

Consider the Curious Reflection Questions on this page. If you’re with others, it can be fun to discuss them together to bring the shared experience to life even more.

WELL DONE!

There is absolutely no way to do this wrong. Even the willingness to begin to turn your attention, on purpose, to the present moment, non-judgmentally IS the practice...

 

Curiosity & Reflections

Broaden awareness to consider where the products, ingredients you are eating or materials you used to shop and cook with came from.

  • Where did all the ingredients come from? What parts of the world or what sources (farms, mills, factories, your garden)?

  • Where were were the materials you used made? How were they made? Who made them? What is the full supply chain that got them to you?

  • Who are all the people who had a part in getting the foods you are eating to you?

  • What are some ways mindful eating can shift our experience of a meal or snack? How does mindful (planning, cooking) eating enhance mealtimes with other?