Food is one of the closest ways that we can be in tune with God. Now, I don't know your personal belief system. If you believe in God, Allah, Mother Nature... it doesn't matter. Whatever your higher power is, food can bring you closer to your God. When you stop looking at counting calories and view food as it was intended to be viewed, then there is almost something spiritual that happens when you prepare and eat your foods close with nature. A Twinkie will not bring you spiritual enlightenment.
This idea really did not dawn on me until I was finishing up the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. The book actually began because Pollan was determined to eat the perfect meal, by this meaning foods from the 3 kingdoms (plant, fungi, and animal) and to grow, gather, and hunt all this himself. By the end of the book, you feel that there has been such a wealth of information given to you, you forget about his original quest until you reach the last chapter.
Pollan recognizes that by eating the foods he, and his friends, had been so involved in (including hunting his own wild boar), by each step of growing, gathering, or hunting, and then the cleaning and preparing, and finally eating the food there is a sort of homage given to the foods used to nourish not only body, but soul.
Expanding on this thought of Pollan's, I cannot help myself but think about the Native American Indians that once inhabited much of the land we know occupy. In third grade class, we learned about these people who actually used all of the animal they killed for meat, tools, clothing, and yes, even toys. This almost seemed like a foreign notion to me at the time. Now, we have found a way to utilize every part of the animal, but unfortunately it is in the form of feed for the animals being raised for our consumption in a few weeks. Whatever doesn't make it into the feed might make it into your next hot dog (ewww...)...
I'm not trying to turn your stomach to the thought of eating meat. On the contrary, I want you to be encouraged to add meat to your eating as a condiment to your other plant foods. However, open your eyes to the meat you are buying, and encourage you to be aware of everything you eat. Pay homage to the bovine who gave his happy, pastured life to your hamburger. Think about the gatherers out collecting the wild fungi so you may eat a mushroom. Give a silent moment for the trek of germination of seed to tomato. As you prepare and eat the foods given to us by the earth, let it bring you to a higher level of enlightennment.
