Conscious Awareness

Conscious Awareness – The Way to Begin Dietary Change

Did you know that a single McDonald’s Chicken McNugget contains more than 38 ingredients? Now, that’s something to chew on!

To facilitate any change in our lives – dietary or otherwise – the first thing we must do is acknowledge what needs to be changed. And that begins with awareness of a problem, an imbalance, a need. Conscious awareness precedes the path to change.

Without a doubt, what we eat qualifies as one of the most important things we should give our attention to. Whether you eat a McDonald’s Chicken McNugget or a bowl of broccoli, get into the habit of thinking about what you eat. No need for a chemical analysis of each morsel; instead, I urge you to merely give this some thought. Why? So you can avoid eating mindlessly.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but many of us eat with reckless abandon. Eating mindlessly disconnects us from a holistic health perspective, because in a holistic paradigm eating is more than sustenance, satisfying cravings, or enjoying indulgences. In a holistic paradigm, eating creates health and vitality, and it means willfully selecting foods that are supportive of this objective.

Conscious Awareness

Say for instance, you purchase some McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. If you give this some thought, you may wonder what the McNugget consists of. You may conclude that it’s little more than a piece of chicken – seasoned, breaded and fried. Or you might reason, “It’s chicken, certainly a better choice than a ham and cheese sandwich.” You may presume everybody knows what they buy when they buy a Chicken McNugget, and that the ingredients in a McNugget don’t really warrant any thought. Think again. We select food – especially fast food – for many reasons, including familiarity, palatability and cost considerations. Most people are unaware that the ubiquitous Chicken McNugget is lots of things… including chicken.

The mindless consumption of the conventional microwave meal is an example of exerting little effort in determining how and what you will feed your body. The average person will drive to the market, park in the lot, walk in the store, reach in the freezer, grab a microwave meal, go home, pop it in the microwave, and consume it. Done. There aren’t even any dishes to wash. When you do this, you have not given thought to the meal you are about to consume. Rather, you have permitted a multinational conglomerate to do that for you.

For those who regularly consume this meal, have you really thought about all the elements that constitute the meal? Have you read the label on the package? Have you acknowledged that the meal is likely a compilation of chemicals and additives? Have you wondered about any of them and what purpose they serve? There’s plenty to ponder.

Nobody’s going to die because they occasionally ate a laboratory inspired, processed microwave “meal” disguised as food. Not all microwave meals are the same, though. Conventionally produced processed foods and naturally produced processed foods differ. Typically, naturally produced microwave meals contain fewer chemical additives.

Try this… For just one day, record everything you eat and place into your mouth. At day’s end, ask yourself of the day’s meal choices:

Have today’s choices done my body good?

Did they nurture me? (soul, spirit, emotionally)
Did they strengthen me? Weaken me?
Did they aggravate an existing medical condition?
Did they promote healing from an existing medical condition?

Whatever you put in your mouth next, pause for a moment to recognize what it is. Consider if it is even a food, but rather a product; an amalgamation of chemicals; a food injected with growth hormones, stimulants, artificial flavoring, artificial coloring, etc. Begin to think about the food you eat – its origins and if it is creating health for you.

Contemplate if your lifestyle is generating good health. Think about your life and how you live it, and your body and what you give it. This understanding leads to development of a conscious awareness of what we put into our bodies. It is only through awareness of your nutritional habits that you can endeavor to improve your nutritional health. Your body deserves worthwhile consideration of what you feed it.

Today, examine which dietary behaviors no longer serve your health.