As animals, we can’t photosynthesise so we consume other eukaryotic matter to obtain our nutrients. Every animal, even fungus, does it. Some animals eat grass and vegetation, some eat other animals, some eat both animals and vegetation and anything else they can extract nutrients from. We are, however, perhaps the only species that has self-determination regarding the foods we eat. A person may choose to eat only plant matter to the exclusion of everything else, for example, or plant and animal matter, or even only animal matter, or any other variation in between. As a species we are regarded as omnivores but as individuals we may choose to have diets that are vegan, vegetarian, pescerian, etc. And what further sets us apart as a species is how we can then interrelate our choice of foods and the act of eating with spirituality.
Not everyone, but a large number of people, have formed a relationship between food and spirituality, ethics, morality, and all these words that are of relevance only to humans. Personally, as part of my religious belief-system, I have few limitations on what I can or should eat. Those I don’t eat are those that if I ate would kill me, those that I find unappetising, and those my religious-belief system prohibits. My particular belief system does not prohibit me from eating animals and has only basic clauses on to how an animal has to be prepared for human consumption. In addition to that, I do also have personal beliefs on the ‘humane’ treatment of animals for science, food, and other industries. They are personal views and unrelated to my religious beliefs.
From an early age I was taught to say a prayer before meals. As a kid I dismissed this together with a lot of “social norms” that served no real purpose but looked ‘nice’ to others. I later found out that some religious belief systems have gone further and have made food preparation and consumption a religious rite in itself. I found this fascinating! Eating was not considered just meeting a basic human need like breathing or obtaining nutrients, but instead an act of religious worship. Some religions, for example, will deem a product only suitable for consumption without violating religious law if it has been prepared a certain way (think, for example, halal and kosher foods). Later when I decided to embrace a religious system of thought and incorporated prayer into my life, I understood the desire to turn every human act a direct act of worship to God.
I found the idea of making food preparation an act of worship very fascinating, but ironically I also found it a little distancing from its purpose. The thing is often adherents to religions that follow religious customs on food preparation also aren’t the same ones that say prayer prior to their meals. What does that matter, right? Well, if you don’t believe in practicing this it makes no difference who (if anyone) says the prayer or who enacts the act of worship; it can be whomever, or it can be no-one. It mattered to me because I, like many other people, who had come to interrelate food with spirituality felt it was in fact delegating my personal worship to God to someone else. I finally understood what my mum was getting at: the prayer was meant to acknowledge my gratitude to God for providing (or not denying me) that which so many other human beings lack. It was a way also to acknowledge that another living creature was being sacrificed for my benefit and its life did not leave in vain or unappreciated. That I do consider my personal duty: that if I care about something, then I must personally support it.
There are two stories Paulo Coelho tells that I find very thought-provoking. The first is about a monk or some other spiritual leader talking to his pupil. The pupil wants to know what food he can eat so as to bring him closer to God, as he is already doing everything else that in his religious system is required to gain God’s approval. His teacher tells him to eat of some grass. The student goes enthusiastically to pick it – then he realises it is a poisonous grass! He is shocked that the teacher has indicated this deadly shrub to him and asks if he realises that if he eats it he will die. The teacher says to him ‘I know of no other way through which eating something will bring you closer to God’. The second story is about a similar man who accuses someone else of being lacking spiritually because he eats a certain food. The man considers that this food is unholy, that it tarnishes the soul, that it is an offense to God to eat it. The teacher then reprimands the student for blaspheming God, for calling one of God’s creations unholy, for assuming that God is so petty as to be offended by what a person eats or doesn’t eat. He reminds him that it is not unholy what enters the mouth, but what from it emerges.
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