Chakra Foods for Optimum Health. Deanna M. Minich
for the body to process, and they do not leave behind harmful toxins. These foods are described as “savory, smooth, firm, and pleasant to the stomach” and are in contrast to foods that are rajasic or “excessively pungent, sour, salty, hot, harsh, astringent, and burnt” and lead to sickness. Examples of sattvic foods include those that are mild, cooling, and refreshing, such as fruits, vegetables, raw milk, clarified butter (known as ghee), and honey. Meats are perceived as rajasic, as the flesh is thought to harbor the fear and anger of the animal being killed, transferring it to the eater.
In modern society, there are foods considered to be toxic to our life energy. These foods have been damaged through processing, such as overcooking, burning, mechanical overprocessing, and oxidizing. Recent scientific studies have shown that foods that have been browned through cooking—such as the crust of bread or the brown color of baked products like waffles—age and inflame our cells. (When a protein and a carbohydrate are in the presence of heat, they form a compound that results in a brown color, known as a “Maillard reaction.”) Acrylamide and rancid fats are examples of toxic compounds that form in products like potato chips when the potato slices are heated in oil. Therefore, the manner in which food is prepared determines its vibration and its contribution to our energy. Meals made up of leftovers may seem convenient; however, many times they are devoid of any life-giving energy. Rather than give energy, they deplete energy.
The vibration of food interacts with our inherent vibration, and an exchange of energy occurs.
Food imparts its own healing vibrational energy, and it is responsive to external attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions, regardless of whether from plant or animal, or quick or slow vibration. In other words, we add to the vibration of foods through our thoughts, intentionally bumping up or eroding the healing transformation potential that is part of the food. By putting energy into food, we interact much more deeply with it during eating. If we put positive energy into it and have good thoughts while eating, the food transmits an exponential increase of positive energy in the eating process. On the other hand, if we are hurried, angry, or upset, these feelings transmit through foods into the body, down to the cellular level. Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto, Ph.D., demonstrated this idea best in his book, The True Power of Water. Although he is most recognized for his work on the responsiveness of water crystals to words, he did a series of experiments with cooked white rice. He put the cooked rice into two separate jars, one with a taped-on label with the Japanese characters for “You fool” and the other with a label of “Thank you.” Over time, the rice inside the jar labeled “You fool” turned black with decay while the rice labeled “Thank you” became yellow because of a lesser degree of degradation. Simply put, words carry energy and affect the vibration of food, causing it to take on that energy. Hence, even written words influence the energy of foods.
EATING WITH CONSCIOUSNESS
The way to getting the most out of our food is to be fully present when we are in its presence. In fact, this point could be even more essential than the food itself. Our thoughts and beliefs are readily infused into foods and beverages. Although the energy the food brings is important, more important is the energy we bring into the process of eating it and experience from it in our interchange. Our consciousness with food begins with the moment we are choosing it, whether it is at the grocery store, farmer's market, or restaurant. It involves appreciating and giving gratitude to every step involved in that product and thereby honoring its sacredness. The act of eating food is sacred because it can draw us into the cosmic unification we have with all of nature. The gratitude we express for a plant or animal giving up their energy for the sake of our energy is interwoven with our evolution as conscious beings. When we chew our food, it is imperative that we are present in that experience, knowing that we are participating in the process of transformation of energy. Each bite captures the entire energy of the food, from a physiological breakdown to raw energy for use by the cells. All the way back to the energies of the people involved in growing it, manufacturing or harvesting it, choosing and preparing it, every morsel contains an energetic lineage that we can tap into if we are fully present in the moment during our interaction and exchange with food.
With the idea of conscious eating comes the inevitable question of whether we can appreciate processed food like shelf-stable, premade products the same way we can unprocessed, whole foods, and my short answer is Yes. With the processed food in mind, we would simply give thanks and recognition to all the individuals involved in its manufacturing. For something like a processed readyto- eat cereal, we might think about the fields of grain it came from, the people working in the fields selecting and harvesting the grain, the individuals who took care in transporting the grain, the product developers who created the product, and the people wielding the creative genius to put all the ingredients together for a final product. Each step along the way can be filled with gratitude and love for those involved, including the plant or animal food in its whole form. Of course, I am not justifying the consumption of nutrient-poor, highly refined products, but I recognize that the physical and spiritual properties of foods can be transformed through our thoughts and feelings about them.
CHAPTER 2
OUR DANCING CHAKRAS
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
—MAYA ANGELOU
WE ARE MORE THAN OUR PHYSICAL BODIES
The twenty-first century is a time like no other, because science and technology are at an all-time peak. As a society, we have become smitten with all the gadgets, electronics, and high-speed communication potential available, and if we are not conscious of technology's impact, we risk becoming slaves to its appeal.
Your daily events might resemble something similar to the following: waking up to the beeping of an alarm clock, exercising on an automated treadmill while watching the news on the latest flat-screen television, followed by driving to work in your hybrid vehicle while talking on the cell phone, and spending most of the day at work glued to the computer answering emails and plugging in appointments on your Palm Pilot. When it comes to health care, technology may expand its reach by having your medical care be determined by your unique genetic code. Imagine the scenario of going to your doctor with a CDROM that contains the contents of your DNA so that your body's code can be read and analyzed instead of talking with a practitioner who observes your symptoms. There is no doubt about it: we are enrobed by technology and tickled by the possibilities it may bring forth.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we are also becoming more open to the possibility that life provides us more than cold, sleek machines and numbers. Inherently, you may feel and even be reminded through your life experiences that we are more than our physical bodies, and that the human being machine is the best design available. Even though technology gives us the option to connect faster and better, there is truly no replacement for the in-flesh human interaction. The New Age movement, which roughly began in parallel with the proliferation of scientific developments, recognized these ideas and brought them forth as new concepts founded, in part, on ancient, traditional knowledge. If you have experienced Reiki, hands-on healing, prayer, flower essences, homeopathic remedies, herbs, acupuncture, cranial sacral therapy, to name a few, then you have already taken part in the search to heal yourself from a different entry point than modern medicine offers. Not everyone responds in the same way to the same modality, which is why it is so valuable to have a smorgasbord of options available. The current trend is to work with a “healing team” of individuals so that they can use many different approaches to heal.
The nature of science is to understand the body through slicing, dicing, and teasing apart the complexities and intricacies of the human body. Of course, this is valuable to a certain extent, as it allows you to dive down as deep as the gene level to see what you have been programmed with. On the other hand, philosophical, religious, and spiritual teachings promote the wholeness of the person (including the soul) rather than piecing apart our contents into their minutia. As a result, these two paradigms have unique positions that allow them to come together to unlock the mystery of our being. The richness of