Gut Feeling

Sometimes I just don’t know what to do. Operations are at a standstill. I feel less attached to and still far from my dreams. But a couple of times a day, when I’m hungry, I know exactly what to do. I propose a new faith based on these mealtime moments of clarity. If food can be faith, then eating is like a prayer. Often, it’s a prayer to be transformed: to be healthier, to have clear skin, to let go, to stop thinking about food. However, eating is a balance between getting what you want and getting what you need. This faith will get you both, but you have to pay attention.

The moment hunger arrives: Often, it’s not a physical feeling in the stomach but a favourite sandwich appearing in the imagination, seeing the word “tuna” on a sign in passing, a smell from a family kitchen. It’s quick as a flash of lightning, and you have to be too. Because moments of clarity in this faith can’t be ignored; they put us in tune with our gut. And in this faith I’m proposing, where food can be deity, your gut is a mirror of your soul. It intuits what you want, encourages you to be brave enough to get it and judges if that was right or wrong.

Do you believe in eating well, eating what you want? You do if you are working in communion with gut and soul. For non-believers, it’s been studied: So-crowned “comfort foods” trigger a dopamine release when we eat that can lower stress and improve digestion, blood flow, memory, focus, mood and sleep. And if you overindulge, your gut will push you back in the right direction. To know what’s for lunch is to know oneself.

Can eating be a flight of the soul, toward our hopes and dreams?
Well, a recipe can be a ritual. The steps are as follows: