December 5, 2012 | 8:00 am

Mindful Eating

Posted by Susan Esther Barnes

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As part of services last Saturday, we had what was billed as a creative eating meditation. “In our all too-busy world,” the congregation weekly email explained, “the practice of mindful eating helps us bring our full attention to the process of eating – to all the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. And what better time to slow down and focus than Shabbat?”

Toward the end of the service, we moved from the sanctuary into the social hall, where tables and chairs were waiting for us. We were instructed not to talk, and were provided with note cards and pens with which to write down our thoughts as the meditation progressed.

We started with hot chocolate, and spent a couple of minutes looking at it, smelling it, and then slowly tasting it, holding it in our mouth without swallowing for a while, moving it from one part of our tongue to another.

We then proceeded through several types of bar chocolate, culminating with a completely different hot chocolate, one at a time, with plenty of time to spend with each one. Throughout the meditation, Rabbi Michael Lezak prompted us with several things to observe and to consider. “Look at the texture of the chocolate,” he would say, “Look at where it is broken, and how the break looks different than on the last piece. How fast does it melt? What ingredients can you taste?”

The first big surprise for me was the strong, emotional reaction I had to the smell of the first cup of hot chocolate. It immediately transported me back to the summer camp I attended as a child, as I pictured crisp, clear mornings at the dining hall, full of anticipation about what great fun the new day would bring.

The next big surprise was the taste of the Hershey’s Kiss. When I took only a small bite and let it melt slowly on my tongue without chewing, it tasted nothing like the thousands of Hershey’s Kisses I had eaten before it.

Several times Rabbi Lezak said, “Compare this chocolate to the others before it. Which do you like the best?”

Part of me wished he hadn’t asked that question. I would have preferred to appreciate each individual chocolate piece on its own merits alone, without judging it against the others. Why turn this experience of appreciation of the variety of God’s bounty into a competition?

It also felt like a bit of a setup, since we were comparing things like Nesquick hot chocolate and a Hershey’s Kiss, against Swiss chocolate and a chocolate bar which costs, we were later told, $8.00 for two ounces.

On the other hand, it is only natural for people to compare, contrast, and rate in a situation like this, when trying several different varieties of a certain type of food. And I must say, the last item was the very best hot chocolate I have ever tasted in my life. The Denver Post published the recipe online here, from "Cooking My Way Back Home" by Mitchell Rosenthal.

I was glad the meditation was done in silence, leaving me to explore my own thoughts and experiences, uninterrupted. My apologies to the rabbi and the other participants if my act of taking a couple photos for this blog during the event interrupted anyone else’s train of thought.

After the meditation, we returned to the sanctuary for Aleinu and the Mourner’s Kaddish. I was disappointed that we didn’t take any time to discuss our experiences as a group.

For me, it was an excellent reminder of how I normally eat my food without really stopping to think about it, and without slowing down enough to savor the taste of it, even when I’m eating something I consider to be one of my favorite things. And the smell of the hot chocolate was a powerful example of how a scent can summon vivid sights, memories, and feelings with just one whiff.

Was it a spiritual experience? No. But I have never been to a service in which every single moment felt spiritual. It was certainly a worthwhile one. You may want to try it at your synagogue.

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