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    Mindful Eating: A HarperOne Select
    Mindful Eating: A HarperOne Select
    Mindful Eating: A HarperOne Select
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Mindful Eating: A HarperOne Select

    By Thich Nhat Hanh and Lilian Cheung

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    About this ebook

    Common sense tells us that to lose weight, we must eat less and exercise more. But somehow we get stalled. We start on a weight loss program with good intentions but we cannot stay on track. Neither the countless numbers of fad diets, nor the annual spending of $50 billion on weight loss efforts are helping us feel better or lose weight. With Mindful Eating, world-renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and Harvard nutritionist Dr. Lilian Cheung join together to show us how to end our struggles with weight once and for all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 7, 2012
    ISBN9780062123718
    Mindful Eating: A HarperOne Select
    Author

    Thich Nhat Hanh

    Thich Nhat Hanh was a world-renowned Buddhist Zen master, poet, author, scholar, and activist for social change, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was the author of many bestselling books, including the classics Peace Is Every Step and The Art of Living. Through his books and retreats at the monasteries he has founded in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia, he became a pre-eminent figure in contemporary Buddhism, offering teachings that are both deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and accessible to all.  Sister Chan Khong is Thich Nhat Hanh’s most senior monastic disciple and lifelong collaborator. A leading force in his engaged Buddhism programs and humanitarian projects, her books include Learning True Love and Beginning Anew. Sister True Dedication is a former journalist and monastic Dharma Teacher ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

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      Book preview

      Mindful Eating - Thich Nhat Hanh

      Mindful Eating

      A HarperOne Select

      Thich Nhat Hanh and Lilian Cheung

      HO_title_pg.eps

      Contents

      Mindful Eating

      About the Authors

      Books by Thich Nhat Hanh

      Also from HarperOne

      Also Available from HarperOne Selects

      Permissions

      About the Publisher

      Mindful Eating

      Conscious breathing is an essential practice for bringing our body and mind together, nurturing the well-being of the body and mind, and fostering our connection to all things. And just as mindfully breathing air sustains our physical and spiritual life, so, too, does eating food. Not only does food provide the nutrients and energy we need to support our physical bodies; mindful eating can also help us touch the interdependent nature of all things—and can help us end our difficulty with weight.

      Looking deeply at the food we eat, we see that it contains the earth, the air, the rain, the sunshine, and the hard work of farmers and all those who process, transport, and sell us the food. When we eat with full awareness, we become increasingly mindful of all the elements and effort needed to make our meals a reality, and this in turn fosters our appreciation of the constant support we get from others and from nature. Whenever we eat or drink, we can engage all our senses in the eating and drinking experience. Eating and drinking like this, we not only feed our bodies and safeguard our physical health but also nurture our feelings, our mind, and our consciousness. And we can do this numerous times throughout the day. Mindful eating begins with our choice of what to eat and drink. We want to choose foods and drinks that are good for our health and good for the planet, in the modest portions that will help us control our weight. Yet there are so many types of foods and drinks, and so much information about nutrition and so many diet plans, that we can find it quite difficult to make the right choices. A good way to overcome this challenge is to get up to speed on the latest science-based advice.

      The Basics of Eating Well: What Nutrients Are in Our Food?

      Food gives the body the raw materials it needs to run the metabolic processes of life. All foods contain at least one, and often two or three, of the so-called macronutrients—carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. These macronutrients give us energy to fuel our daily activities. They also perform unique roles throughout the body. Carbohydrates provide the fastest form of energy, usable by every cell. Proteins provide the building blocks for all of our tissues and organs—skin and muscle, bone and blood, liver and heart. They also form countless cellular mechanisms and minute messengers, such as the enzymes that digest our food and the neurotransmitters that send signals from the brain throughout the body. Fats get woven into the membrane of every cell, insulate nerves, and serve as a precursor to life-sustaining hormones. Food also provides us with vitamins and minerals, the so-called micronutrients—literally, nutrients that are essential in tiny amounts—used to build tissues and catalyze chemical reactions throughout the body.

      Nutrition science of the early twentieth century focused on understanding what macronutrients and micronutrients we need to prevent diseases of deficiency, such as protein-deficiency kwashiorkor and vitamin D–deficiency rickets. Starting in the mid-twentieth century, nutrition science shifted its focus to complex chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer—illnesses that develop imperceptibly over time, have no easy cure, and end lives prematurely. Thanks to many advances in science, we now know quite a bit about what to eat and drink—and what not to eat and drink—to prevent these chronic diseases. But you do not need to be a scientist to eat well. Nutrients, after all, are found in foods. And you need only follow a few fundamental food guidelines to maintain your health and well-being.

      The dietary recommendations that follow are for adults and are adapted from dietary guidelines developed by experts in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.¹

      Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fats: Choosing the Healthiest

      Diet books from Atkins to Zone portray carbohydrates as the enemy. Other nutrition gurus tout low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets to lose weight and prevent disease, or push high-protein diets as the way to achieve good health and a healthy weight. The truth about macronutrients and health, however, is that the type of carbohydrate, protein, and fat we choose is much more important than their relative amounts in our diet.

      Take carbohydrates. They are found in many types of whole and processed foods—from apples to ziti—but not all carbohydrates are created equal. The healthiest carbohydrates come from whole grains, legumes, vegetables, and whole fruits. The least-healthy carbohydrates come from white bread, white rice, pasta and other refined grains, sugary foods and drinks, and potatoes. We talk about the reasons for limiting these less-healthy carbohydrates later. Here, let’s focus on the positive: Whole grains, vegetables, whole fruits, and legumes are good choices as carbohydrates, and they are also rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Whole-grain foods—such as whole-wheat bread, whole oats, brown rice, millet, barley, quinoa, and the like—deserve special mention, because more and more research points to the benefits of making whole grains a daily habit. Long-term studies have found that people who eat, on average, two or three servings of whole-grain foods a day have a 20 to 30 percent lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, compared with people who rarely eat whole grains.² Eating whole grains may also offer some protection against colon cancer, but more research is needed on this diet-to-disease relationship.³

      Why Are Whole Grains So Good for Your Health?

      Exactly how whole grains protect against heart disease and diabetes is still an open research question. What we do know is that whole grains contain fiber, which slows their digestion and makes for a gentler rise in blood glucose after a meal; the soluble fiber in whole grains, especially the type found in oats, also helps lower low-density

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