What Is Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating takes the principle of awareness found in mindfulness and applies it to our relationship with food to help bring awareness, nonjudgment, and appreciation to the mind, body, and environment.

Mindful eating is a wonderful way to incorporate mindfulness practice into daily life. In order to continue living, human beings need the nourishment food provides. This makes eating a life-affirming and life-honoring practice. When we bring our attention to what and how we eat, we connect with ourselves, our loved ones, and the world around us. In truly enjoying the crunch of an apple in autumn or the sweet chill of ice cream on a summer day, we savor the present moment. When we bring intentional awareness to the food before us, even the ordinary can become extraordinary.

Jan Chozen Bays, co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery and author of Mindful Eating, says, “With mindful eating, we deliberately direct our full awareness to the bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions that arise and disappear as we eat. Most importantly, we do this without criticism or judgment.”

What Are the Benefits of Mindful Eating?

Too often, we eat mindlessly: between tasks, in front of the television, or while immersed in our smartphones. Such distraction keeps us from fully appreciating the food we’re ingesting and our body’s reaction to that food. For example, if we eat too quickly, our brain won’t have time to send signals of “fullness,” and we may eat far more than we need. Through mindful eating, we can slow down this process and alleviate unhealthy eating patterns.

Since mindful eating encourages us to be aware of our food, where it’s sourced from, and its health benefits, we can make better decisions about what we put inside our bodies. It can also help us foster gratitude and appreciation for the food we have access to while making us aware of how our choices affect our local and global environment.

How to Practice Mindful Eating

You can practice mindfulness any time you eat or drink throughout the day, whether for just a few bites or an entire meal.

Try the practice below with any food or drink you choose. It might be a cup of tea, an orange, cheese and crackers, or lunch at work.

1. Sit in a peaceful, quiet place with your chosen food — Begin your mindful eating practice by taking three conscious breaths and becoming aware of how your body feels. Notice any areas of tightness or tension in the body, and breathe into these sensations. Take notice of your surroundings — the room’s temperature and any sounds or smells in your field of awareness.
2. Look at your food — How many living beings were involved in bringing it to your plate? Consider the insects, bees, farmers, truck drivers, and grocery workers contributing to bringing this sustenance to your table. Acknowledge the sun, wind, water, and rain that allowed this food to grow into being, offering your gratitude for their service.
3. Check in with your hunger — Are you hungry? How much would you like to eat? Consider the feeling in your stomach, and try gauging how much it would take to satisfy your hunger.
4. Look again at the food before you — Notice its shape, color, and size. Pick up food and notice its texture. Is it heavy or light? Hard or squishy? Rough or smooth? Take note of how it feels in your hand.
5. Take a bite of your food and begin to chew — Notice the taste of the food in your mouth. Take note of its texture and temperature. Acknowledge whether the food is crunchy, chewy, warm, cold, gritty, or sticky. Do you enjoy the food? Is it better or worse than you expected it to be? There’s no need to judge what you notice — perhaps you chose a piece of chocolate expecting to love it but now realize it’s too sweet for your liking. Take note of this without attachment to the experience.
6. Take more mindful bites — Go slowly, noting how the experience changes over time. Do you enjoy the food as much on the fourth bite as you did on the first? Is the texture or temperature or flavor changing?
7. Honor your hunger and fullness — Throughout your eating experience, check in with your hunger, noticing to what degree your chosen food satisfies you. Feel free to stop eating, or continue eating, until you are satisfied.
8. Give thanks — Just as we thanked those who brought food to your table at the beginning of eating mindfully, thank yourself, too. Your body houses a complex digestive system designed to break down your food and absorb the nutrients you need to live. Thank your body for its service in this important, life-giving process.