By Eve Prang Plews, L.N.C.
(originally published in Natural Awakenings, December 2009)

          Becoming mindful of the place where the external becomes the internal awakens conscious awareness.  When you eat, your food becomes you, literally.  Your breath becomes your energy.  Your thoughts become your future.  If it sounds heavy for a food column, strap in.
         Anything we are aware of at any given moment forms part of our consciousness.  This experience of “paying attention” is at once the most mysterious yet most familiar aspect of our lives.  
        Right now your mind allows thoughts to arise.  Become an observer of your mind and its thoughts.  Ever notice that thoughts arise and entice you to think them.  Ever tried to not think when you’ve tossed and turned in the night, especially the night you HAVE to get to sleep and can’t turn off the thinking machine?  You may have just done something new - you thought about your thoughts!  Who did that?  You watched your mind as if you were separate from it.  Cool. 
        Now the BIG question: who are you, the mind and its thoughts or the one watching the mind?  You have made a great discovery. You are NOT the mind.  You are the one watching it.  It is possible to look at the mind from the outside.  This is a power you can use to awaken even more awareness, awareness that can bring you more health and happiness.  Begin with one area of your life, like eating.
        You can increase your awareness of not only the volume but the quality of what goes into your mouth and eventually becomes you.  Literally, your last meal is on its way to becoming your spine, heart and skin.  Repeatedly the analogy of car and gas are used to talk about people and food.  If you put poor quality gas/food in your car/body, it won’t run right.  That’s really a lousy example because the gas never becomes a carburetor or tire or transmission.  Your dinner becomes your hair, pancreas, blood and more, in fact all of you.  Become aware that if you don’t like how your body behaves, or looks, or even thinks, that perhaps you’ll need to change what you choose as the raw materials for its creation!  You can build your fabulous body with fabulous food or build it poorly with poor quality ingredients. 
       In his book, Mindless Eating, Brian Wansink, Ph.D. exposes numerous factors that influence what we choose to eat and how much of it we consume; all on an unconscious level.  After years of study, he is convinced “we overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat.” For instance, if a portion looks large enough, it is perceived to be satisfying.  A portion served on a large plate is perceived as smaller than the same size portion served on a smaller plate.  Flooded with food messages on a daily basis, we are out of touch with what our bodies need and when they are satisfied.  This is NOT being conscious, it is running on automatic.  When we awaken to the consciousness of health and realize it is our greatest wealth, we often desire more optimal health than we currently enjoy. 
      We can awaken consciousness regarding our health by looking at our food and asking the critical question, “Does this food occur in nature?” These bodies of ours have evolved over literally millions of years.  Even our species, Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man), is a 200,000 year old species.  Both fossil evidence and mitochondrial DNA point to our origins in Africa where we evolved on fruits, nuts, seeds, leaves, roots, eggs, birds, small mammals and sea life.  Not on Diet cola, Twinkies and double bacon cheeseburgers.
      We can awaken consciousness by making the connection that to eat with awareness is to avoid the chemical feast commonly found on today’s table.  From artificial colors and flavors to pesticides and herbicides, from gnarly fats to ground beef treated with ammonia (to kill E. coli), the list goes on.  None of it is what we, as humans, evolved on.  Artificial refers to products that “imitate” nature.  As the butter commercial revealed years ago, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”  In fact you can’t fool the body’s DNA with cleverly crafted chemicals.  The result of food trickery is the poor health we see everywhere.
      A desire to “awaken consciousness” must align with a desire to eat what occurs in nature so as not to short-circuit the very awareness you crave. Foods that deliver non natural “static” to the cells interfere with our cell’s communication with other cells and thus our perception neurologically.  Neural systems that regulate attention can be modified in undesirable ways by non-food chemicals.  In other words, eating junk can junk up your thoughts.  You can’t think clearly or observe correctly if your cellular communication is mucked up. 
      Start today just really looking at your food.  Ask the questions “Is this meal going to help me be more alive and function better, or is this meal going to deliver toxins and poor cell signaling-- in other words, make me more dead?” Tough question, but it deepens our commitment to health when we stay awake and aware at each meal.  Remember, the life you can benefit is your own.

Eve Prang Plews, a Licensed Nutrition Counselor, has been practicing at her Sarasota clinic, Full Spectrum Health, for 21 years. You may contact her at 941 952-1200 or fullspectrumhealth.com.  Her previous articles are available at eveplews.com.  Eve’s radio show, No Nonsense Nutrition, airs Mondays at 9 AM on WSLR 96.5 FM, or stream it live at wslr.org.