So, how do we approach food and nutrition from a spiritual angle?  While there is not a Bahá’í ‘diet,’ we do have some guidelines about where we – as a civilization – will be heading in the future. It’s a process, individually and collectively, of moving towards health, not just for ourselves, but for every living thing on the planet.

Listen to this excellent podcast, entitled “Nutrition from a Bahá’í Perspective: Food for the Body, Food for the Soul”, prepared by Margaret Tash.

You can view/download the transcript of this presentation here.

“A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips”, these uncomfortable sayings ominously follow us around like a black cloud. Squeeze our conscience, whether looking at a menu in a restaurant, or visiting the supermarket (feeling the overwhelming draw towards the dessert section) or during a lazy afternoon at home. It is a rude reminder of the dangers of falling victim to our appetites. However, we provide ourselves with excuses: “Just one more”; “It’s a celebration”; “I deserve it” ; ”I need it” ; “It’s a reward”; “If I don’t eat it, it will go to waste”. Occasionally, we use food to fill our spare time, internally claiming we have nothing better to do than find something tasty to eat!

This reality contrasts starkly with the growing obsession to look good and diet. The whole concept has become such a ubiquitous preoccupation in society that it dominates and dictates the thoughts and goals of many peoples’ lives. Everything, all the way up to advertising, is aimed at looking good and eating healthily-with a very unhealthy leaning towards weight loss! Simultaneously, we are bombarded with images of skinny models devouring hidden chocolate, fattening ice cream, fast food or calorie-filled drinks while miraculously looking so slender and toned. Advertising and the media provides us with norms. Images teach us we deserve flavour, should succumb to temptations and are entitled to eat what we like while maintaining desired figures. We are taught that distorted body images are healthy and that was is actually healthy is boring. Society is geared towards tasty fattening fast fixes, and immediate gratification without adequate warning of the effects thereof. This quote from Abdu’l-Bahá perhaps best explains this conundrum we are facing.

Abdu’l-Bahá states:

But man hath perversely continued to serve his lustful appetites, and he would not content himself with simple foods. Rather, he prepared for himself food that was compounded of many ingredients, of substances differing one from the other. With this, and with the perpetrating of vile and ignoble acts, his attention was engrossed, and he abandoned the temperance and moderation of a natural way of life. The result was the engendering of diseases both violent and diverse.

When the subject of eating healthily is investigated more thoroughly, moving away from the purely weight loss aspect of the process, the impact our diets have on our wellbeing as individuals as well as on general society becomes apparent.  According to the Báb:

The Báb hath said that the people of Bahá must develop the science of medicine to such a high degree that they will heal illnesses by means of foods. The basic reason for this is that if, in some component substance of the human body, an imbalance should occur, altering its correct, relative proportion to the whole, this fact will inevitably result in the onset of disease.

It is increasingly accepted that overeating or undereating has a huge role in general health. Interestingly, there is now a new focus emerging in the public health sector; namely, the effect our diet has on the overall health of our body and minds as well as a preventative for disease.

Even the meaning of eating healthy has drastically changed over the years. As recently as 2005, the well-known and commonly accepted ideas that were prevalent in society were improved. The Harvard School of Public Health has designed a guide to healthy eating known as the Healthy Eating Pyramid based on 15 years of research. This period has reshaped the definition of healthy eating providing us with a wealth of insight into the matter. As part of the research, it was discovered that through adopting the methods and new diet, stressing on the consumption of whole grains, vegetables and exercise, the risks of falling victim to diseases that have plagued many individuals are considerably reduced. It also offers the very welcome concept of not worrying about the grams consumed but rather the type of food. A delightful idea for those of us that enjoy sizeable portions of food! On the other hand though, not as welcome when you are considering devouring that extra chocolate bar you have stashed away for a better time or thinking of heading to the local fast food joint for an extra large portion of fish and chips!

A lot of encouragement is taken from the guidance offered by these discoveries and from the direction the research in this field is taking us. Through careful consideration of our eating habits as well as the types of food we eat the lives of individuals can and in many cases have been considerably eased as well as improved. The field of healthy eating is indeed vast and still very much in its infancy. Through accepting and adjusting ourselves to the new discoveries a healthier way of life is formed and perhaps one could venture to say, a healthier society can be achieved.