Nourishment is more than nutrition
By Kate Short June 6, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Nourishment is feeling full of life. It’s the warmth of love radiating from your partner’s touch, the job that brings you passion and fulfillment, or eating your favorite childhood meal. Nourishment is wrapped up in enjoyment, pleasure, memory, all five senses, love, experience, relaxation, fulfillment and joy, as well as balanced nutrition.

Marc David, author of Nourishing Wisdom, writes that, “the most important aspect of nutrition is not what we eat but how our relationship to food can teach us who we are and how we can sustain ourselves at the deepest level of being.” To be nourished by something—a meal, a sunset, a friendship, a painting—is to feel the spirit calling and the goodness that life provides. To me, it is being open, receptive and keenly aware. It is also my mother’s macaroni and cheese! I asked five of my wise female readers five questions about nourishment and here is what they said.

What is your definition of nourishment? Fuel for your body and mind to feel happy, healthy and free. Nourishment, or what feeds me, implies all things that help me to grow, because life is a never-ending evolution or series of transformations. It is the feeling of satiation, like dry soil being watered. There is the association of comfort and realignment. The word “nourish” is related to “flow.” When I feel nourished, I am in the flow of things.

What nourishes you? Life. Fresh mangos, the company of dear friends, a great art show, music, the love of my dog, the smile of children, my cashmere bathrobe, green grass, fresh air, a hug, growing with others in a class or in a family, or in whatever intentional ways I gather with people for a common purpose.

Growing my vibrational field, moving, even simply sleeping with my body pressed against my husband or children grows my energetic field. And this too nourishes me. Making art—gluing, painting, pondering “what comes next,” and what goes where, in an art project—collecting things for my art projects while walking in nature, listening to prayerful music and chants in the morning, watching children make art, a really juicy yoga practice, a home-cooked meal full of fresh organic vegetables, good intentions and love! Most of all, I suppose gratitude is the most nourishing thing.

What is your relationship with food? Variable, at best. I choose local fresh produce, cook up a lot of veggies and eat with relish, or I cook with love for loved ones. When I eat consciously and with appreciation for Mother Earth, then I am happy with food and my body. But I don't do this all the time. Too frequently I eat whatever is convenient. When I do make the time, I enjoy cooking. It feels so good to know what is going into the food that I put in my body. I love food. I love experimenting with tastes and am in awe at the beauty and magic of fresh fruits and vegetables. I take a ride round the world, or just make up something with what’s around. I pour love into what I make, but I also appreciate the simple buttery taste of a ripe avocado sliced and eaten as is. The thing about food is, we have made it so complicated. We have become experts in “nutrition” in a piecemeal way, but it only reinforces the idea of fragmentation and of fear. Food as food for thought, food for eating, is simply what nourishes 
us and promotes our growth. Food, like air, like love, like health, just is. It is not out to get you; it is offering possibilities to help you grow. I think if we returned to a simple appreciation of food as what helps us live and grow and let go of all the ideas of rightness or wrongness, we would be healthier and happier eaters.

What gets in the way of feeding yourself well (physical food, but also spiritual and emotional “food” as well)? Lack of discipline and lack of time. Working too much.

Nourishing oneself requires a constant discipline of kindness to oneself. A consciousness of knowing that nourishing oneself is also a way to nourish those around you. I think our obsession with food as a concept, as a place of “right” and “wrong,” good for you or bad, is really part of the misconception. Sometimes getting hungry feels like an interruption; if I am busy and I don’t plan my eating well, I get too hungry and then eat in a hurry and not such healthy things. I tend to eat neurotically at night (bedtime). I get too caught up in the needs or requests of others and don’t make enough time for my own creative self, or for enough physical exercise.

What kinds of things make your belly/“gut” smile? For my belly to smile would mean that I am not only eating very well, but I am also stress-free and emotionally clear. Those are rare and precious moments. Mostly it’s my state of thinking; I think happy thoughts make for a happy tummy. Also helpful in having good digestion has been getting a personal analysis—for me, according to Chinese medicine—and based on that, not eating much dairy or wheat and surprisingly, not much raw food. Happy foods for me can be the homemade tortillas from the lady from the campo who brings them to my house each week along with fresh nopales and verdolagas, cooked peaches, drinking lots of water and good chocolate on a regular basis.

As you can see from these responses, there is much more to nourishment than basic nutrition. And even more important than charting caloric intake is the experience of listening to your body—its cravings, emotions and sounds of satisfaction. Go ahead and ask yourself these five simple questions and then start nourishing yourself, one mango, one smile, or one thought at a time.

Kate Short, a graduate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, is a certified holistic health counselor with the Open Door Retreat, a recovery center in San Miguel. She also teaches cooking classes based on the wisdom of eating seasonally and locally. She can be reached at flowtome@yahoo.com.