Meditating with Doritoes

Here’s a fun activity for kids and adults of all ages. I’ve used this in classes for more than a decade with great results. I’ll be using it next month with medical students from NY Medical College where I teach on occasion. Today,  I’m putting it out there free of charge for all the world to share. If you like it, please visit my new “tip jar” on the right hand side of the blog and buy me a cup of tea!

The latest piece in the NY Times about the addictive nature of food is not news to me. I’ve been more than aware of food industry manipulation of your taste buds and your brain for quite some time. This is one of the reasons I am inspired to share my Dorito meditation with you all. It’s one thing to read information and quite another to experience it for yourself.

Here’s what you need for the meditation.

• 1 raisin per person
• 1 small cup cooked short grain rice
• 1 Cool Ranch Dorito chip. That’s right, just one. One is all you’ll need.

We will start with a raisin.

Take 4 pounds of grapes put them in the sun to dry and you get 1 pound of raisins.  Raisins have lots of sugar, they’ve been popular for ever. Up until the European medieval period, when cane sugar was imported, raisins and honey were the top two sweeteners.

Just about all of the raisins we eat come from California’s San Joaquin valley.  The grapes are harvested in august, spread on paper trays, dried in the sun for 2 weeks in the vineyard, then the stems are removed and they are sorted and packaged.

As you look at the raisin in your hand, think of it’s life in California in the sunshine on a grape vine. It gets picked, gets to hang out in the sunshine for a couple of weeks, as it gets tan and juicy. Before it gets packaged, sent to a warehouse, sent off in a truck to a store near you.

Slowly put the raisin in your mouth.

Don’t eat it, just roll it around there for a minute. A good 60 seconds. Time it if you have to.

Now take one tiny bite.

Notice the explosion of taste in your mouth.

Notice how sweet it is.

Now slowly, mindfully chew the raisin.

Pay attention to how your mouth feels.

Take a breath. Relax.

Next is a spoonful of rice.

Take a look at the rice on your spoon, this is a short grain brown rice.

You are more than likely used to eating long grain rice. Notice how this rice looks a little short and chubby. It makes for a wonderful porridge in the morning, by the way.

There are lots of different types of rice upwards of 120,000 varieties.

Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s populations. Americans eat 25 lbs rice/ year, people in the far east eat more than 100 lbs/year.  We only grow less than 1% of the worlds rice. Rice has been produced in the U.S. since the late 17th century. Today, six states produce more than 99% of all rice grown in America – Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Most likely, the rice you’re looking at was grown in India, Southeast Asia, or Japan. Portugal, Spain, USSR, Italy, and France also grow lots of rice.

Rice plants grow 4- 6 feet tall.

Rice is often grown in flooded fields called rice paddies. It is shipped to a mill where the hulls on the grain are removed to produce brown rice. The outer bran layer of brown rice is high in fiber, B vitamins, and minerals like calcium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, and potassium. Although the bran layer contains most of the nutritious components of the grain, it is also a barrier to water absorption and is the reason why it takes longer to cook brown rice than white rice.

So take a look at this grain, don’t eat it yet! Close your eyes and imagine it growing tall in a flooded rice paddy either in this country or one over seas.

Imagine someone harvesting the rice, sending it to the mill. Putting it into a 50-pound burlap bag. That bag gets shipped to a warehouse, and then off to a store. You find the rice at the store, buy it, and bring it home. I’m taking the time to explain where these foods originated and how they got onto our plates because part of meditation is slowing down, and considering the journey that our food took. In our busy lives, we rarely take this time to stop and think about where our food comes from.

OK. Now its time to taste the rice.

Take one small spoonful.

Slowly, carefully, chew this rice.

Keep count in your mind how many chews it takes to finish this spoonful of rice.

When you’re done, pay attention to what your mouth feels like.

Take a breath. Relax.

 

Now we are going to take another bite of rice.

This time, I want you to go even slower!!

Close your eyes, that will help you to go inward and pay attention even more.

Slow down your chewing so that you can feel the rice grains smashing against the cusps of your molars.

Try to double the # of chews from your last bite.

Sit quietly, focused on the chewing in your mouth.

Notice how the sweetness of the rice changes over time. That is due to enzymes in your saliva turning starch into sugar.

How do you feel right now??

Zen monks chew each bite 75 times. When you see them, they are so serene.

Do you feel a little zoned out by this exercise? Do you feel calm?

When your rice is gone, pay attention to how your mouth feels.

And how you feel.

 

Next and last food we are meditating on.

Cool ranch Doritos.

Take a close look at the chip. Look at all the colored specks, what is that??

Read the ingredients on the side of the bag outloud. Can you pronounce all of them?

Now let’s imagine where this chip actually came from……I cannot tell you for sure like I can with the raisin and the rice.

 

Slowly, mindfully take a bite of the Doritos and carefully chew it.

Slowly, like  you did with the rice.

Mindully, paying attention to tastes and textures in your mouth.

How does your mouth taste??

Why do you think it tastes that way?

How do you feel?

Do you feel centered and grounded like you did when you ate the rice??

 

Look at the packaging of the Doritoes. What sort of message are they trying to get across??

Why do you think it tastes so gross to eat Doritoes slowly?

Doritoes were designed to be eaten rapidly. To slow down and actually taste them is like taking a look at the emperor and realizing he’s got nothing on!

Doritoes has nothing going for it, with the exception of chemicals designed specifically to make you crave them.

Go ahead, have another spoonful of rice. It’s subtle sweetness will grow on you.

Don’t feel bad about throwing out the rest of the bag of Doritoes uneaten.

I hope this meditation helped to break the spell of junk food for you.

Feel free to try this strategy with any processed food vs. a real food.

Mother Nature is far wiser than any food chemist.