The Art of Mindful Eating

Across time, still-life paintings have depicted items like bread, fruits, and vegetables in everyday settings. During the Renaissance, food was painted with meticulous detail. Dutch realists painted kitchen and market paintings showcasing displays of food on counters and tables. One example is Mound of Butter, created between 1875 and 1885 by the French realist painter Antoine Vollon. Similarly, Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted Vortumnus, with the intention of associating the Roman Emperor Rudolf IIemperor with Vertumno, the Roman deity of seasons and plant growth. These paintings often went deeper than what you initially see. Arcimboldoʼs Reversible Head with a Fruit Basket is a still life that, when turned upside-down, reveals an anthropomorphic head.

Food Still Lifes in History
Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Fruit Basket is a stylized representation of food in art. Famous paintings by Vincent van Gogh that captured food include Still Life with Apples and Still Life with Carafe and Lemons. Pop artist Andy Warhol emphasizes social issues by painting ordinary soup cans, while American painter and printmaker Wayne Thiebaud is well-known for paintings of cakes and pies.

Today, we see artists like Jae Yong Kim, who creates unique doughnuts, while Candice CMC uses doughnuts as a medium to create portraits. Food is very much a creative inspiration while remaining a necessity for life.

Introducing Mindful Eating
Having students connect with the food they eat through drawing or painting can cultivate mindful awareness. Adding in an exercise of mindful eating can focus students’ senses and their awareness and experience with food more intimately. To begin, guide students in choosing a piece of food, perhaps a slice of orange, a raisin, or a vegetable. This could be a snack they bring in the day before, and should be a familiar food of their choice. Ask students to consider a food that has a bounty of flavor and texture. Make sure it is a piece of food that students will be able to taste fully and chew slowly. During the exercise, encourage students to pause to notice the flavor, texture of the food, and the sensations they feel while eating. This practice can encourage students to eat more slowly, chew their food thoroughly, and notice when they are full. The flavors of the food become richer. Senses are engaged that include colors, smells, textures, flavors, and even sounds.

Eating mindfully can also evoke a sense of gratitude for food. It may even help students to make wiser food choices in the future. Once students have experienced mindful eating, they will draw the food item they just sampled. Having multiple items like slices of oranges or raisins is helpful so students can taste and then draw the food they sampled.

Procedures

Begin in a comfortable seated position. Connect with your breath to center your attention in the present moment.
Ask students to take in the food visually. Invite them to notice the food in front of them—shape, size, color, texture, and smell.
Consider and appreciate all the energy that went into the food production—nature, nutrients, sunshine, rainwater, and people who grew or packaged the food or delivered it to a store. With gratitude, bring into your mind all that made it possible for this food to be in front of you now.
Next, investigate the smell of the food and the texture. Bring all your senses to the food.
Slowly and with awareness, put the food in your mouth and chew thoroughly so you can taste the essence of the food. Eat slowly.
When you are finished with your mindful experience, spend time drawing mindfully the food you used during your mindful activity.
Place the food item in front of you, and draw with mindful attention to detail, recalling the sensations of eating. Use all your senses to draw the same way you did when eating the food.
Once you have drawn an outline of the food item, add color and detail.
As a final reflection, add words to describe the texture or sensations of eating.