Gratitude for Food

It was 2018 when I first heard the words “Thank you to the hands that grew this food.” I was a 20 something explorer recently relocated from Kansas to Berkeley, CA. There I lived in a modest and bustling home, affectionately known as “Rose House”, whose serendipitous occupants varied from as many as 8-10 people at any one time.

As we sat around the table for our weekly Sunday dinners, these words became tradition.

In hearing them, it was the first time I had contemplated the journey each ingredient had gone through to meet me there in that moment.

The gratitude I felt upon this realization was immense. How remarkable that a grain of rice or a pinch of spice from any part of the world could find its way there, on the table before me.

With every repetition of these words, I imagined the beginnings of each ingredient. From the earth, the seed, the sun, the rain, the wind, the hard earned callouses on the hands which harvested the fruit. The machines and the humans who made them, operated them. The transportation workers and grocery clerks who stocked the shelves, our house “food shepherds” (our fancy word for grocery shoppers) selecting each item, and finally a housemate's hands toiling away in the kitchen.

Expanding our connection to the world around us, often the words that would follow in our declarations of gratitude were “May this food nourish our bodies, our minds, and our spirits”.

This precious vessel requires nourishment to sustain life. Food is our source of energy, a necessity to keep our hearts beating, and an essential provided to us by our sun and the soil of the earth.

This practice of gratitude opened my eyes to the mindful practice of being present with where I am, and what’s on my plate. This appreciation extends our awareness beyond the quick and easy pattern of eating we may have grown accustomed to, allowing us to have an enriching experience we may have missed out on as a result of mindless consumption.

In his book Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, Thich Nhat Hanh asks us to “Look at the apple in your palm and ask yourself: When I eat an apple, am I really enjoying eating it, or am I so preoccupied with the other thoughts that I miss the delights that the apple offers me?”

The next time you sit down to eat, I invite you to take a moment to pause and appreciate all of the energy that went into producing and providing the food you’ve received. There is a space between when you receive your food and when you take that first bite. There, you may find an opportunity to acknowledge the interdependence of all that transpired in order for you to receive the food before you.