Understanding and Addressing the Desire and Craving for Food

We have a fixation on food. We do not seek food just for nourishment and proper care of our bodies, generally; rather, we use food to provide us with comfort, emotional support, and fulfillment of desires for various tastes. We center many of our relationship rituals around food.

At some point, many individuals conclude that they need to adjust their eating habits, whether through dieting, or fasting. The disease conditions of anorexia and bulimia are extreme examples of our attempts to incorporate our manner of addressing food issues in relation to societal expectations and norms.

Spiritual seekers also have, at some point in their spiritual growth, frequently adopted various habits related to food, nutrition and taking care of the body. In many cases, when they try to control the impulse for food, they try to enforce a discipline on the body and work to suppress the response. This does not necessarily ‘solve’ the issue. The attention to the drive for food, or for particular types of food, remains, and at times this attention asserts itself and distracts the seeker from the spiritual effort. This can lead to a cycle of attention, suppression, and obsession that does not resolve the issue satisfactorily.

There is a need to get to the real root of the issue, which can be understood through a process of detailed observation. Most times the individual is focused elsewhere and thus, there is not a constant pressure. When the interruptions arise, the observational standpoint of the witness can engage to determine the actual causative factors, so that they can be removed, modified or transformed.

All actions of the outer nature are driven by the action of the three Gunas, qualities of Nature, Tamas, Rajas and Sattwa. There are thus different factors involved depending on which Guna is predominant at any point in time. Cravings and desire for food that arise during the ascendency of Tamas include habits that are built up by repeated experiences, regardless of the actual needs of the body. Also, as a response to stress, as well as hormonal triggers based on despondency, feelings of weakness and alienation etc. A craving for sweet taste frequently arises during Tamasic events. Those that arise as a result of Rajas tend to include a drive for particular responses or tastes, such as a hankering for highly spiced or salted foods. Rajas also responds easily to energies that the individual is exposed to in daily interactions. Engagement with individuals who are filled with desires or ambitions, or pressures that arise due to societal tendencies and expectations frequently translate internally into a sense of hunger. There are even responses of hunger associated with the predominance of Sattwa, for instance when one undertakes to focus intensely on the body, its nutritional needs, a scientific way of eating, or some particular dietary preference, and thus, the fixation on eating is translated into a process justified as having a rational and necessary basis.

Whichever causative factor may be involved, the physiological response includes the release of hormones, neurotransmitters and signals that spur a response to food or a particular food. Feedback loops are created by repeated, habitual activities, such that the body expects food at certain times and will send signals around that time to remind the being that it is “time to eat”.

Once we can begin to understand and identify the mechanism, the next step is to specifically unravel these varying motive forces and apply a suitable corrective. In some cases, simply denying the impulse repeatedly will work if the basis is a habitual response that the body has cultivated. In other cases, recognising the influence of exte
al pressures or the force of rajasic desire, a conscious shift of attention to a higher level focus and callilng forth sattwic support can aid the process. In some instances, we can actually recognise the need for a particular nutritional element and satisfy that, noting then that the craving is resolved and does not return once the underlying missing element has been provided. In modern day life, processed foods are actually made with tastes and chemicals to enhance the ‘addictive’ nature of the foods, and thus, avoidance of highly processed foods can yield fast and highly advantageous results, both to help resolve cravings and for the individual’s overall health and well-being over time.

Some paths try to solve the issue by asking the practitioner to simply accept whatever comes into the begging bowl that day. Others try to enforce the body through discipline and in some cases elements of torture. Still others counsel a specific dietary regimen to follow such that the scope of craving and desire is held back.

The issue then is to understand and solve rather than to put a lot of energy obsessing about food, the craving for food, or the suppression of the craving. In the end, the energy spent in the obsession is energy that could be better directed to the spiritual pursuits.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your attitude has not been quite correct. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that — what the body needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more, then that is indulging the vital. As for particular foods the palate likes, the attitude of the mind and vital should be, ‘If I get, I take; if I don’t get, I shall not mind.’ One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress — that is the best.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 166