Understanding The Emotional Aspect Of Food

print this page

Most of us remember the stories told of the honor that American Indians placed on the food they ate. They believed that when they killed and ate a deer, they would take on the essence or some of the qualities of the animal. So they hunted and ate with an attitude of thankfulness and reverence for that which they killed. Even herbs and vegetation were ingested with that attitude because they were familiar with some version of what we now call the Doctrine of Signatures. They somehow understood that there was an essence about all things, including the plant life. By eating a particular plant, they believed that the qualities of that plant would become part of them or be instilled in them. While most of the civilized world views this as nothing more than nonsense, a silly wives’ tale, there is a certain amount of truth in what they believed and actively participated in. Let’s look beyond the superstition and see where the line of truth is.

The Doctrine of Signatures

The Doctrine of Signatures is a systematic viewpoint of nature wherein the structure or function of any living organism can be transformed into its essence by ingesting that organism. For example, there are certain plants that grow out of the small cracks in stones and rocks. The properties of these plants would be to enhance breaks or cracks in hard elements. Thus these kinds of plants would be wonderful to eat if a person had a broken bone. These plants would tend to have a high calcium content with mending properties for hard elements. You can take the action and function of any organism, and you will find some individual action or function that it will enhance in the human body. This is the law of signatures. The shape and color is very often related to the qualities available in that item as well; kidney beans are good for the kidneys, walnuts are good for the brain (the walnut closely represents the brain and cranium) and cayenne peppers are good for the heart and circulation because they are red and stringy like an artery.

One must move outside of the belief that food has no real meaning other than that needed to keep us alive and remove hunger pangs. When viewed in its deepest realms, foods are very important and will reveal a host of information. I think it is important to remember that we as humans are part of nature, not above it. When we can embrace this, we will begin to understand the connection that holds all things in balance. We are often referred to as consumers, but we are life forms that choose, eat, digest, assimilate and absorb the cells of the foods we have eaten. You cannot believe that with all of this you have not in some ways become one with that which you have eaten. You become it, and it becomes you. This includes the qualities of the organism you have eaten, good or bad. Chemicals, preservatives, hormones, toxins, fears, strengths and weaknesses all become part of you if they were part of the plant or animal you ate.

When you go to Mexico and drink contaminated water, the stomach pains and diarrhea that follow are clear signs that we are not above nature but that the parasites now in our intestine have become part of us. It is no different with any other food. The only difference is the pace at which the food will affect us. Most foods have a gradual effect, unlike the parasite in the water. Let’s not be so dense that we ignore the gradual effects because they do not create instant sickness that forces action. Let us instead show ourselves approved and realize the truth and know that our habits have created the illness, degeneration or aging process that is with us now or is on its way if you are not following the GWSW method of health and healing.

Back to top

You are what you eat

And so we can begin to describe what you are by looking at the things that you eat, because you absorb and become one with everything that you eat. While science does not give much attention or credit to the possible connection of diet and psychology, there are dozens of books and research papers proving the diet/health connection. You may not have heard about it because the food monopolies do not hold your health over the priority of sales, but we all know that we are as different as the fingerprint that makes us unique. But there are some very common characteristics that can help us achieve or fail in various areas of life, and when these are observed, you will find that many of the same items are being used as food. In other words, the food you eat is helping to dictate the kind of person you are. It dictates the amount of courage, initiative, perspective and fear or irritability you have. This information is good news and bad news. It is good news because you no longer have to settle for what you think you had: the possibility of change is within your grasp This concept can be bad news because in order to change your negative personalities and characteristics, you will have to change your dietary habits, and food is probably the love of your life. Let me say that again, food is probably the love of your life.

Most of us have not thought about it that way, but just try to avoid all the foods you like and see how you feel after a couple of days. Your attitude will become depressed, violent, angry or whatever emotion you use to demonstrate feelings of great loss and loneliness. The hardest part of what you need to learn is that the foods you are most in love with are most often are feeding the most undesirable qualities in your health and personality. It is almost a catch-22. The person with anger problems loves fried foods, and the more fried food he eats, the deeper the anger problem becomes. Physiologically speaking, anger is an emotion present when the liver is out of balance, and fried foods are direct irritants to the liver. The weaker your liver becomes, the more anger you will experience. And yes, the healthier your liver becomes, the less anger you will feel. This concept applies to each organ and gland of the body with its correlating foods and emotional patterns.

Do you control your food, or does it control you?

At this point, possibilities of what we might become enter our mind, so now we must think of the place that we hold in the great food chain. Everything tends to migrate to a similar level. If you are a child, you will migrate to where other children are. If you are one who likes to talk about sports, you will find those who have similar interests. The same will occur with foods. Look at the people and the places with which you associate and see if it is where you want to be. You may find that you are in a place that is less than you desire. If this is the case, you need to become inspired so that you will be strong enough to change and be different. It is time to realize that in all areas of life, you are either a follower or a leader. You will either become the properties in the essence of the foods you eat (follower), or you will decide what you need to be and eat foods that feed those particular qualities you seek (leader). It would be nice to think that we entrain the items that we eat, so they become us, but the digestion, assimilation and metabolic process make us vulnerable to the elements going into our body. It is much more likely that we become what we eat than it is that it becomes us. So will you be a follower or a leader? Will you control or be controlled? I am not talking about a leader of people, but a leader in the personal choices you have to make so that you will become what you wish to manifest. You may be a follower by nature, but you are the only one that holds responsibility for your health. If you don’t become a leader for your own health, you will certainly follow disease to a painful death, and only you can answer for that.

Back to top

Everything finds its own level

For those who understand that food is not of any benefit to the body unless it is digested, it needs to be made clear that lack of digestion has an entirely unique effect on the body as well. A very negative effect, if I might add. And so it is not only a discussion of making foods work for you as much as it is a life choice so that you do not become entrained to a level that is not acceptable. Just as a rock will fall from the air seeking its own level, so does every element. Man has mined uranium and plutonium from the depths of the earth and these elements are out of place, so they create catastrophe (bombs). If these elements were dumped in the soil, they would gradually find their level and make their way to the depths of the earth where they belong. These elements do not create catastrophe on their own level, only a level that is not their own. And so you can eat a carrot and although there is no soil for that carrot to fall to in your body, it will plant itself in your body and affect it in some way. All elements that should not be in your body have an effect and that effect will be anywhere from negative to devastating depending on how out of place it is. All fruits and vegetables and items that are grown in the soil and have not been genetically engineered are good and positive and entrain good qualities, while items such as chemicals, preservatives, colorings and other man-made substances are acting in your body much the same way the uranium and plutonium do on the surface of the earth – catastrophically, creating death for innocent people who either did not know better or didn’t choose more wisely.

Is what you eat more important than what you think, or vice versa?

Food and thought are both sides of the coin, and yet both influence the other very deeply. What you know and think will help you decide what you eat, but what you eat will create what you think. Steve Gagne says it best in The Energetics of Food when he states, “Look into the mirror of what you eat, and you will learn to see yourself. Look into the mirror of yourself, and you will find a reflection of what you are eating.”

SUMMARY IN THE ENERGETICS OF FOOD

I can tell you how good one food is and how bad another is, but if I don’t make it personal, you may never feel the conviction needed to alter a path leading to disease and death. You no doubt understand from the previous chapters that you don’t often get a chance in really choosing the foods you like because the brainwashing in advertising combined with the inherited dietary protocols and additives that appeal to senses beyond your control do much of the choosing for you. Once you have advanced to the point that you are no longer a puppet of the commercial market and you begin to really eat and experience food as you want to, not as they would have you to, what will food mean to you? Before moving into this chapter, I thought it would be wise if you knew yourself and were able to pass this on to your clients, friends and family.

We know that we are each unique. Some of us have small hands and feet, some large. We are different in length and weight, and each of our noses and mouths and ears are very different. Food is just as different. We are all from the human race, but we are all very different with varying characters and personalities. If 50 humans were placed in an office, each would have a different task and ability. So it is with food. You can place vegetables in a class of their own as you did the humans, but what is the different task and function of each individual vegetable? This is what should be considered, in part, as you begin to think of the diet that is best for you.

There are many factors that can be taken into consideration with a particular food. Color is one of these. Red is associated with strength, sensuousness, defensiveness, intensity and heat. Green often has associations of coolness, openness, independence and spontaneity. Brown tends to denote earthiness, security, comfort, boredom and blandness. Black foods have associations of distress and melancholia and at the same time dignity, strength and power. Now you wonder, is the color of a food really going to influence these properties in the person eating them? Absolutely. The changes will be subtle, but assuming the color is natural instead of chemically placed and the food is of high quality, you will surely begin to notice changes in your life. Food is powerful. Think about it, though. Humans are the most intelligent life forms on earth, created in the image of God, a being so awesome He is not fully comprehendible. All of life was created by the same God, and unless you are willing to dispute yourself as wondrously made, you must assume that creation is pretty incredible. Creation includes all of the things that were intended to support life, chiefly man. Is it so hard to imagine that all things have an influence, and the more subjected you are to each, the more influential it will become to you?

Back to top

Factors that should be noted in the energetics of food

1. How does a food grow? Does it sprout from a seed, or does it hatch from an egg? Is it germinated? Does it require a lot of maintenance or nurturing? The qualities of each food will feed those same qualities in you. If you feel that you have not been nurtured enough, those foods that require more nurturing would feed those qualities in you. These would be good foods for you.

2. How fast does the food grow? Some plants can manifest growth in hours while others take weeks and months. It may be wise to eat foods that grow at a rate similar to your growth pattern. Are you a slow, methodical person or a fast, high-strung person? Or, perhaps you are out of balance in the way that you are, so you need to eat foods that would supply the opposite qualities that you are currently manifesting. Maybe you are fast and high-strung but you need to slow down, or maybe you are too introverted and need to come out and live a little. Which qualities do you wish to feed? When you decide, you need to pick the appropriate foods.

3. What direction does the food grow in? Does it grow down into the earth or out above the ground? Does it wind up a pole or into the ground or does it grow straight? Each food has its own level. A pear begins high in a tree and ends by falling to the ground while a potato begins in the ground and ends there as well. Those foods that grow low to the ground support the lower parts of the body while foods that grow up high or in an upward direction help to stimulate the upper parts of the body. Do you need help keeping your head out of the clouds? Perhaps you should eat more foods that grow in the ground and stay in the ground through the growing process. These would be grounding foods. Maybe you need to have your sights raised because you just can’t see past the circumstances in front of you. Maybe you should eat the foods that grow high in the trees.

4. What is the rhythm, or behavior, of a food? There are four classifications of rhythm: fast, regulated; slow, regulated; fast, unregulated; and slow, unregulated. The rhythm of a food can have dynamic effects on your biological and psychological behavior. Alcohol has a slow, irregular rhythm that produces an unwinding effect. The more you drink, the more you unwind. For some people, unwinding is becoming less serious, which makes them laugh. Some get violent because their nature is violent and when they’re unwound they do not have to control it anymore. Coffee has a fast, irregular rhythm with an effect that can be noticed as soon as it is ingested. So the person who has a slower nature feels the increase in rhythm produced by the coffee while a person who is already at that pace feels nothing. Spices have fast, regular rhythms, eggs have slow, regular rhythms, etc. It is time for you to decide what kind of rhythm you want. You may need to ask a couple of friends, as many of us get caught up in our own rhythms and are not always as aware of our own nature as those who are dealing with us. So get a second opinion about some of these things. If you eat foods with fast, regular rhythms, you can easily get ahead of yourself. You will accomplish a great number of things, more than the average person, but you have a very hard time if anyone gets in your way. If you are already of this nature, you may want to avoid these food. If you eat a lot of foods with fast, irregular rhythms, you will be able to do many things, but they may be random and haphazardly. You may get in your own way with too many of these foods. Foods with slow, regular rhythms help you to become more stable and less erratic. You won’t necessarily be the most exciting or dynamic person, but you will be reliable. Foods with slow, irregular rhythms will help you relax and take it easy, yet you may get frustrated and notice a desire for more stimulating things to do. Remember, too much of one rhythm will create an imbalance, so you will need to vary and rotate so that you are balanced in the foods you eat. As the author of Energetic Foods says, “We are beyond nutrition, this is internal music appreciation.” Wow, I think that is good stuff!

5. Another main characteristic to gauge food by is the temperament. Hot, warm, cool and cold can be combined with dry and damp to make eight major variations. Hot and dry, hot and damp, warm and dry, warm and damp, etc. Chicken has a warm, dry temperament relative to duck, which lives partially in a water environment, is higher in fat and has a hot and damp temperament. The meat of a chicken is more dry relative to duck meat, which is more greasy. Both chicken and duck are animal foods, which gives them both a warm-to-hot temperament. Beef and eggs both have a hot and damp temperament, yet they are different in activity and texture. Venison is much more nimble than beef, so they are hot and dry.

You can see that a diet lacking in diversity cannot support all the complex elements of the human body. At this point, you should pick up a copy of The Energetics of Food by Steve Gagne. In it he explains most of what I have discussed above, but he lists all types and categories of food and their qualities on an energetic level.

Along with the information supplied in The Energetics of Food, you may want to read the following:
1. Foods that Heal by Bernard Jensen
2. Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Nuts, Berries and Seeds by John Heinerman.
3. New Encyclopedia of Fruits and Vegetables by John Heinerman.

Back to top