A Revolutionary Act

The mindful mono-meal

By the term ‘mono-meal,’ I am simply referring to making a meal of only one singular type of food. It’s melon harvest time now, and the melons are wonderfully sweet! This month, my favorite daily mono-meals have been various types of melons. I also had an exquisite mono-meal of fresh organic figs, simply blended (by themselves) into a fig pudding. And there are still some good mangoes to be found. A ‘mindful mono-meal’ is one in which you intentionally slow down, stop doing other things, and take in the fullness of the meal experience with all of your senses.

My favorite mindful mono-meal is eaten outdoors in pleasant weather, sitting on the earth, or at least my bare feet in contact with the earth. No talking, reading, videos, phone, or other distractions. Just me and my fruit-meal, in highly conscious relationship. I drink in the color, the smell, the shapes, the texture, the natural environment…and, of course, the taste - with all its nuances, and the changes from one bite to the next. As I take each bite, I feel the sensations in my mouth, my throat, my stomach, and any other parts of my body.

This is direct experience, with full conscious awareness, and it is powerful! It feels like a revolutionary act nowadays, in a world so inundated with distractions and multi-tasking that something as simple, direct, and transformative as a mindful mono-meal is nearly unheard of.

Fruit makes an especially beautiful mono-meal, because it is so juicy and sweet right from nature. You could start with an organic apple. Take your apple to a place where you can be undisturbed for 15 minutes, and stay in direct experience with this apple for the whole 15 minutes. Open all of your senses, and let your curiosity emerge. Notice everything about this apple, how it fits in your hand, and your entire felt experience with it. When you finally take a bite, chew it slowly, and savor the whole experience.

Eating is one of the most important and significant things we do, and yet we usually rush through our meals rather unconsciously, gulping them down so we can hurry back to “life.” Even if we are in the habit of slowing down for a prepared meal, it is usually a complex mish-mash of many different ingredients, and we are usually doing something else while we eat it, such as talking, reading, listening. Fruit requires little to no preparation or cleanup time, so consider spending the time you have allotted for the entire meal prep-eat-cleanup, in direct communion with a quantity of a selected fruit, and with the experience of mindfully eating it.

I find that a fruit mono-meal, especially when taken in a natural outdoor setting, rivets me into the present moment and shows me what is real. This incredible creation of nature, its sweet delicious nectar entering my sacred body-temple….my senses come alive, and the ruminations of my thinking mind are quiet for a few blissful moments. Time seems to expand, and space opens up for an intimate and reverent honoring of the act of physically nourishing myself with nature’s bounty.

Everything about my organic fruit is good for me, and it’s safe and healthy to consume as much of it as I care for. There is no compromise of integrity, no mental work-around, just exquisitely real, meant-for-me nutrition and fuel. I love the fruit, and the fruit loves me back by giving me nourishment without detriment, along with easy and efficient digestion.

Something as beautifully simple as a fruit mono-meal is a revolutionary act in a world which has become so complex and contradictory, that even our understanding about something as basic and essential as the quality of our everyday meals has been hijacked and twisted around. Think about it - what would become possible if our government turned its attention toward actually helping all of us return to real food?! Health and healing “miracles” would become the new normal, and chronic disease would disappear.

It’s a revolutionary act to turn away from all of the processed food-stuffs and pharmaceuticals we are inundated with today. It’s a revolutionary act to eat a truly healthy meal in mindful silence. It’s a revolutionary act to treat a meal as a sacred act of real nourishment, rather than a hyper-palatable, spiced-up rollercoaster of gustatory entertainment, emotional numbing, and social ease. It’s a revolutionary act to conscientiously take some of your meals alone, in a grateful and celebratory way. And it’s a revolutionary act to make the choice that does not support the toxic, money-driven fake-food and pharmaceutical industries.

We’ve been indoctrinated to believe that to be healthy, our meals must each include a variety of different foods. Where did this idea come from? If we do a little of our own critical thinking, it’s easy to see that every species of animal, in its natural habitat, eats one food at a time, one food at a meal. We are the only ones who feel the need to create complex recipes with many different foods at once. Could it be that this is an emotional/psychological need, rather than a biological requirement for health? What might change if we were to honestly recognize that this is what is really going on? That when we mix together many foods, and many condiments, to achieve super-normal taste and texture results, we are really attempting to satiate an emotionally-starved place in ourselves.

The fact that sharing food and fun recipes together is such an intrinsic part of the social fabric in our society, means that it requires courage to bring new awareness to the table. What would happen if you were to bring a fruit mono-meal to a typical Thanksgiving table? You and your off-beat choice would likely become the center of attention, at least for a moment or two. You would have to be psychologically strong enough to handle that, with grace. You would be a revolutionary!

I think my navigation of a fruit-based diet over the last couple of decades, in a society that doesn’t get it, has been pretty typical of just about any revolutionary journey: at first, I wanted to openly challenge the unhealthy norms, wherever I went; then, I tired of all the attention on me for my different choices, and I would try to deflect it, or I would altogether avoid social situations involving a meal. Now, I have full confidence in my choice, I only try to help those who actually want the help, and I am able to join any social situation and gracefully answer a couple of genuine questions about my food (and deflect disingenuous questions), and then move the conversation along to other interesting things. If someone wants to learn more, I offer to talk with them privately, later.

I still want to be invited to dinner. I have made peace with my uncommon commitment to a fruit-based diet, and with taking 100% responsibility for my choice. I don’t expect anyone to cater to my needs, and I will usually bring my own food to the community meal, with some extra to share. I am clear that I am joining for the connection with people, rather than for the food they have prepared. I actually prefer to eat most of my meals alone (less distraction = better digestion and more mindfulness), but so often social get-togethers revolve around food, and I am a social person :). I also think it’s valuable to share our differences openly, so that we all can learn from each other.

I invite you to consider a mindfully experienced fruit mono-meal as a positively needed revolutionary act! It will bring healing to you, and to the world.