Eating with Intention

How to Let the Energy of Your Food Fuel You.

Grabbing something to eat, running through the drive-thru and throwing something together. All phrases that certainly reflect our lifestyles and all too often, our approach to food. While doing any of these every now and then is fine and can even be done in a healthy way, letting these phrases describe our overall attitude toward food means that we could be missing out on some of the huge benefits of what the food we eat can really do for us.

Transformational and Energy Medicine Specialist Jean Atman works with people on aligning their energy in every facet of their lives, including through the food they eat. In this Q&A, she explains how eating with intention can change your entire relationship with food and how its energy can fuel you.

Peppermint Tea & Me: What does eating with intention mean?

Jean Atman:I think it’s a mindfulness practice, you know. To really think about what foods you’re putting in your body and how they affect you as you’re consuming them. Basically, we get kind of caught up in the busyness of things, and so we don’t take time to even think about what we eat. We just sort of go to our defaults. I think eating with intention is increasing the mindfulness practice of thinking about “What do I feel like I want, what do I feel like I need, and then how do I feel after eating this?”

PTM: Why is it important that we eat with intention?

JA: We’re all made of energy. So, what we’re eating is either going to increase or decrease how we feel, how our body functions, and how our life works. If we’re congesting our energy field with a lot of processed foods, we’re going to feel more stagnant in our lives, and we’re going to be less able to proceed forward in achieving our goals and desires and dreams. We don’t have that free flow of movement and momentum that we can build as easily. So, it’s really vital to consider what we’re putting in our bodies and how we’re feeling based on it. If we’re eating something that makes us feel bad, we’re not going to be as inspired to do anything else in our lives. It really does start with what we’re putting in our bodies.

PTM: What is the role of energy overall in our bodies and in our lives?

JA: We’re all just millions of particles of energy that put together creates this form. We feel solid, we look solid, but in reality, we’re really not, we’re just a lot of moving parts. That’s why it’s really vital to focus on what we’re creating within our energy. If we’re eating something processed without a lot of life force energy, we’re putting that in our bodies and that becomes part of us. So, it’s not a real efficient product that we’re creating.

It’s everything that we put into our body, all the experiences that we have, how we respond to those experiences, and then we kind of have a set vibration based on all those moving parts. Whatever vibration we’re at, we’re going to automatically attract other things of that vibration. If our vibration is of a lower scale, you know we’re going to attract experiences that reflect that. Lower vibrational experiences mean more struggle, more hardships and more hard work to accomplish anything. Kind of trudging through mud knee deep to get to where you’re going, as opposed to skirting on top of it.

PTM: What do you mean when you talk about our vibrational scale?

JA: To test people’s energy, we use the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness. Based on that, anything under 500, you’re dealing with jealousy, hate, envy and other lower vibrations. So, if you’re eating foods of a lower vibrational scale, they’re vibrating within that same frequency.

PTM: Where does processed food fall on the scale, and how does that make us feel?

JA: Foods that have a life force of their own, like fruits and vegetables, grow from the earth, they’re nursed from the earth, and they’re nourished from the sun and water that’s created within the earth. It’s all this beautiful synergistic creation which is grown from life force, and that gives us life force. Lower vibrational foods, like processed foods, are stripped. Anything that’s put in these processed foods is stripped down so far that it has no life force of its own.

While these foods might fill us, you know, physically, they’re not nourishing our energy, our bodies, our spirits, our minds. We’re not gaining any energy to uplift our vibration from eating those foods. They really can cause depression. When people are depressed, it is actually just energy that is depressing the field, so they carry a lot of heaviness within their energy which makes them feel heavy mentally, physically and emotionally. When you start to recognize that “When I’m eating this food, I feel a little bit lighter and a little bit better,” you actually clear through some of that depression energy by eating something that’s more nourishing, that’s more life giving, that increases the feeling of being lighter.

So those things are really, really important to choose wisely, especially if you suffer from something that just feels chronic that you can’t seem to break free from, and you’re wanting some relief. A lot of times when people are sad or depressed, they’ll reach for the comfort foods: the donuts, the ice creams, the cakes and the cookies. But again, with the law of attraction, like attracts like. If you’re already feeling that way, you’re going to be more drawn to those types of things, because they vibrate there. But if you know that, and you can make a conscious decision and say, “I’m feeling kind of low today. I want to uplift my energy and I’m having a little bit of a struggle doing it emotionally right now, so I’m going to reach for something that’ll help support that movement. I’m going to eat a salad. I’m going to eat an apple.” Things like that. It can help.

PTM: Which foods give us the most energy?

JA: Anything that’s made from the earth, that’s nourished from the earth’s elements will give us a lot more energy. Even if you’re going to eat an orange versus orange juice, even things like that. Foods in their most complete form are made specifically to nourish us in the best possible ways. So even by keeping an orange fully intact and eating it that way can offer more energy than an orange juice could. That’s not to say that you can’t eat cooked whole foods. You can because your body knows what to do with that and how to break it down.

PTM: How do we gauge what types of foods we need or energy we need from our food?

JA: They say that if you’re craving something sweet, that you’re actually craving more sweetness in your life. And if you’re craving something salty, you’re searching for something more grounded. You’re wanting to be more grounded within your life. So, our cravings will give us a lot of information about what we’re actually needing energetically and emotionally. It’s learning to translate what the body is saying into giving us a direction of where we can go with it.

 PTM: If someone is just starting to connect with the energy of their food, what are some ways that they can do that?

JA: What works for one person is not going to work for the next person. It really is coming back to the mindfulness practice of how foods make you feel. There are a couple of ways that you can do that including approaching it from a beginner’s mind and taking a week to eat clean and cut out dairy, gluten and processed foods and see how you feel. Then add things back one at a time and make a note of how you feel then. You can also journal each day, or if you really want to learn about yourself, journal each meal. Think about “What did I eat? How did I feel after this? How was my energy after that meal?” Really tune in to how you feel. Also, if you’re trying to lose weight, ask yourself before you reach for anything, “Is this really serving my highest good?” Think about the kind of energy that you want to have and whether that particular food would serve as fuel for that energy.

Additional Resource

Jean is happy to offer you a copy of her free e-book called How to Energize Your Life. Through it, she shares information, insights, and “Mindfulness Practices” to better assist you in creating not only what you want in life, but to release what that you don’t.