“Our most agonising spiritual dilemma is the necessity for food.” Teilhard de Chardin, French theologian and philosopher
With our obsession for fixing our bodies, superfoods and the latest health trends, how can we eat for spiritual clarity and vitality? Eating for spiritual nutrition helps to raise our energy and vibration above the bombardment of negative media health messages.
Eating two to three times per day for many people is a chore and a form of suffering, bringing up our deepest wounding around guilt, shame, lack, perfectionism, and worthiness. What if the necessity to eat becomes a transformative process, a spiritual act where we raise our vibration and nourish ourselves through all the senses? When we not only taste food, see the beauty and aesthetic of a meal and give reverence and gratitude, we can change our relationship with food and nurture ourselves at the deepest level.
Red, orange, yellow
Food colour reflects the spectrum of the rainbow and resonates with our spiritual energy through the seven chakras. Do you notice being drawn to a specific colour and at a specific time of day? If we become aware of our body’s needs we might find that red, orange, yellow foods eaten at breakfast, support the first three chakras grounding our energy for the day. Nuts and seeds, coconut yoghurt, bone broth and eggs are good options.
Green
Green is the colour of the fourth chakra, the heart chakra. Salads, vegetable dishes and avocado eaten at lunch support healing, opening the heart chakra and allowing the free flow of compassion, acceptance and love.
Purple
Purple is a powerful colour to remind us that food is first absorbed visually; it is a feast for the senses. Blue, indigo and purple foods are highly nutritious and harmonise the spiritual energy of the three upper chakras, throat, third eye and crown chakra.
Have you noticed purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple kale and Brussels sprouts coming into season? Eaten in the evening, these purple foods can help us attune to our higher intelligence and the subtle organising energy fields of the universe. The powerful antioxidants in deep red, purple or blue foods are called anthocyanins, the beneficial plant pigments which give fruit and veg their hues. These plant chemicals help to neutralise free radicals protecting the brain, heart, blood vessels and all cells
Beneficial purple, blue and deep red foods include beetroot, berries especially blackberries and wild blueberries, Okinawa and Ceylon spinach, flame leaf, purple sweet potatoes, radicchio and beetroot. Beetroot’s deep purple colour comes from plant chemicals called betalains. Like anthocyanins, betalains have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. You can also find betalains in the stems of chard and rhubarb but it’s the flesh and skin of beetroots which are especially rich in them.
Add more colourful foods to your meals and observe how you are drawn to different colours at different times of the day. Last weekend I prepared an unforgettable meal around the colour purple; mashed purple sweet potato, baked purple Brussels sprouts, with radicchio and Okinawa spinach. Divine!
