دار بيبليون
How to eat and the harm of sugar, VisioConference by Lwiis Saliba via Zoom Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Eating quickly and nervously is a terrible mistake
Many people talk about what to eat and what foods are healthy or unhealthy, but few researchers are interested in “how to eat.” I refer here to the book by the French specialist Pierre Pallardy, “Et Si ça vient du ventre.” His remarkable theory is inspired by his long experience in therapy. “When a person reaches the age of sixty, he has already devoted more than five years of his life to eating. The stomach works day and night and is in constant activity” (p. 41). He is more interested in how people eat than in what they eat. He says (p. 42): “Eating nervously, without appetite, quickly and at any time is one of the most terrible mistakes one can make. He cites a very significant French proverb on the subject (p.42): “Man digs his grave with his fork”, and in Lebanese proverbs there is something equivalent “The son of Adam digs his grave with his teeth”. But most people do not understand or do not know, as indicated in the verses of the Holy Quran (Yusuf 12/26, Al-Ma’idah 5/103).
The first advice is to refrain from eating quickly and avoid fast foods, because the fast food culture has led to hospitalizations, as Pallardy says (p.45): “One of the most important consequences of fast food is that it triggers the desire to smoke and makes people crave stimulants such as coffee and tea, which generate various types of disorders”.
Therefore, a person should eat slowly, deliberately and not in a hurry (p. 50): “Eating slowly is an indispensable condition for the health of the second brain (the abdomen). One should never swallow food quickly without chewing it.”
Eating slowly is an ancient Buddhist precept
This is where the author meets the contemporary Buddhist sage and monk Tich Nath Hanh (1926-2022), who called his meditation center “the Clinic of Slowness” and taught his disciples how to eat slowly and mindfully Mindfulness. This slowness should not be limited to eating in our lives, but rather extend to most of our activities in this age of speed.
Eating slowly is a fundamental and ancient commandment of Buddhism, dating back to the blessed Gautama Buddha himself. Among his advice is: “Eat slowly, listening to your body, and let your stomach tell you to stop, rather than your eyes or your tongue.” (Saliba, Lwiis, Thus Taught the Buddha, 2nd ed., 2024, verse 31/1, p. 315). Buddha is perhaps the earliest sage who recommended and emphasized the need to listen to one’s body, which has become familiar, common, and popular advice today. But what is interesting here is that he focuses on listening to the stomach’s signals that it is satisfied and asking to stop eating, rather than to the messages from the tongue or eyes. The goal is probably to avoid gluttony, greed, or gluttony. The tongue always seeks the taste and pleasure of food, not what is sufficient and satisfying for the body, and the eyes seek the pleasure of the sight of food rather than what the body needs and what it is satisfied with. The signal and message of the stomach therefore remain the most correct in this area. However, those who are familiar and accustomed to listening to the messages of the stomach when eating are in fact very few, while the majority of people remain interested in what the tongue and eyes appreciate.
The Buddha has another piece of advice, recommending the practice of mindfulness at the table, he says: “When you eat a tangerine mindfully, you are in real contact with it, and your mind is not agitated by thoughts of the past or the future, but remains in the present moment. (Saliba, Lwiis, Thus Taught, op. cit., verse 31/2, p. 316). This mindfulness while eating was the first thing that Gautama Buddha taught after attaining enlightenment or Nirvana, as related in his biography, preserved and narrated by the Buddhist tradition.
Eating and the Development of Altruism
Another important aspect of diet is that every meal should be an opportunity to develop altruism and to think of others, especially the hungry and the needy. A Sufi story of the type of Zen Tales illustrates this teaching. It tells the story of a Sufi saint who wanted to know and experience the difference between heaven and hell. In a vision, he was allowed to descend into hell and saw groups of people at dining tables, and in front of each of them were es kitchen utensils. (large spoons) that he had to use but could not because of their excessive size, so everyone sat there sad, confused, burning with hunger. When this Sufi saint ascended to heaven, he saw the same scene of tables and large spoons with a simple and expressive difference: each of those sitting at the table, with the large spoon in his hands, feeds the person on the other side, and thus everyone is fed, and everyone eats simply because each one thought of the other and gave him food. The difference between hell and heaven remains selflessness, The difference between hell and heaven remains selflessness and openness to the other and to serve him or not.
I remember here an exercise that we did in our yoga classes in an ashram in India, which required that we all sit at the table, and no one has the right to feed himself, but rather he must feed his neighbor, and this neighbor in turn must feed him. We thought it was a fun exercise that made us laugh, but it was much more than that: it taught attention to others, and love is about attention. See how the two traditions of Islamic mysticism and yoga converge even in the practical details of developing altruism and attention to others.
The Importance of Relaxing While Eating
Another important condition is relaxation at mealtimes, that is, not eating with tense nerves (p. 49): “You should eat at the table in a relaxed atmosphere. If you feel tense, it is good to do breathing exercises just before eating. And remember that relaxing while eating is good for the synchronization of the two brains.”
It is also recommended to close your eyes one or more times while eating for a few seconds to feel and mentally relax the areas of the body that are tense or tense, or to inhale deeply and exhale for a long time, which can help with this relaxation.
As for the choice of foods, the author emphasizes quantity by quoting the famous Swiss physician Paracelsus (10/11/1493-24/9/1541) who said (p.68): “Nothing is poison, everything is poison, but the poison is in the dose”.
This formula is similar to that of the father of medicine, Hippocrates: “Better a little of what is bad, than a lot of what is good”
Sweet taste is a modern scourge
However, the author sharply criticizes the emphasis on sugars and their high consumption, noting (p. 75): “The most popular taste in the Middle Ages was sour, and in Renaissance Europe, sweet taste was almost non-existent. According to specialists, it was not until the 17th century, with the organization of dishes during meals, that it was possible to distinguish salty from sweet.”
Pallardy continues by noting that (p. 75): “The disaster of the promotion and marketing of sugar dates back to the post-World War 1950s.”
It is known according to nutritionists that the amount of sugar consumed by an average person has increased tenfold in about a century (1920-2020). Doesn’t this unexplained and unjustified increase raise fears, especially since the poison is rather in the dose, as we quoted from Paracels?
Reducing sugar and meat relieves depression
The author cites scientific research that confirms the negative impact of rapidly assimilated sugar and meat on the human psyche, which is worth thinking about (p. 151): “An American study conducted on a thousand inmates in several prisons showed that reducing rapidly absorbed sugar, foods that increase acidity, and red meat calmed hostile moods, anxiety and panic.”
Sugar and meat lead to aggression! So what about their physiological effects?! On the carcinogenic effect of meat, Pallardy quotes the French professor Henri Joyeux, a recognized specialist in cancer treatment (p. 159): “Avoid foods rich in free radicals that oxidize the body: Charcoal-grilled meats and sausages, which we eat until the ends are burnt; charcoal-grilled meat has the carcinogenic effect of a thousand cigarettes. Also avoid oils used more than once and foods made with white flour: Soft toast, pizza, processed desserts and excess milk and dairy products.” These precious commandments deserve to be meditated on and put into practice. If the incidence of cancer has increased considerably these days, this is mainly due to our new, bad, even deadly eating habits, of which we are still unaware.