Eating with Appreciation

Last night, I saw a character on a tv show try to eat something he didn't want to eat.  It was a lamb kebab.  I wouldn't want to eat it either.  There are many meats I wouldn't eat and I would prefer to eat none at all.  Lamb is on my I-don't-eat list.  I wondered, as I watched the scene on tv, how hungry I'd have to be to eat the lamb kebab.  That got me thinking.

Whatever my reasons for not eating various foods, the foods provide valuable nutrition.  A starving person would appreciate them.  We need food.  And we can pick and choose what we like to eat.  We have that luxury.

Perhaps we should maybe take more time to appreciate food and on this day, Thanksgiving in the United States, it seems fitting.  We can appreciate food that tastes good and even food that tastes bad.  If we think about why we are eating and how lucky we are to have food, maybe we will be more inclined to eat good food, less inclined to waste food and better able to teach children to have a rational approach to food.

I still don't want to eat a lamb kebab.  But maybe once in a while I should eat something I don't like.  I should let myself get hungry and see how that feels.  I can learn what food really means to us and how profoundly lucky we are to have it.  I can eat for the right reason; we need to eat to fuel our lives.

I wish everyone in the USA a nice Thanksgiving Day.

JAHD