Food, Glorious Food, Hot Sausage and Chopra?

Since the beginning, food has always been around, literally. Food has been a big part of my life. Let me explain that, I am someone who would learn photography just to take glorious photos of food. While I love food, I tend not to turn to food for comfort. Food does have links to my positive emotions; happiness and fun come to mind.

Since getting my eBook reader, I have really taken on board reading as I am very digital at heart. So onto the book review: What are you hungry for? When I started reading the book the first thing I thought was, “wow, Deepak sure has written a lot of books”. The genre of the book was right up my alley, a bit of food, mindfulness and spirituality. However, I didn’t really connect with a lot of Deepak’s messages. I am currently very happy with my relationship with food, though it’s been a journey to get to this point. Only recently have I taken on the art of portion control, it’s really the glue that holds my healthy lifestyle together. I used to overeat so regularly that it was what my body expected each meal. Now I understand and am starting to feel the actual amount of food my body needs. I enjoyed the practical exercises scattered through the book, they were simple to follow and provided valuable exploration.

Another great aspect of the book was the information about how the body works; it’s always good when you can back up with real facts and science.

Perhaps the best thing I got from reading “What are you hungry for?” was the realisation that I am very thankful for the period of my life when I was overweight and unfit. I can feel the difference having a healthy body makes to my overall wellbeing and happiness.

The book included a range of recipes too. There are three main things I use to determine the strength of a recipe.

1. The simplicity of ingredients (i.e. availability and number required)
2. The time taken to make the meal
3. How it tastes

So in order to give a fair review, I read through the recipes to determine whether there were any I would incorporate into my food lifestyle. There were a few recipes which I would consider making, and a few more that seemed ingredient heavy. Some of the recipe looked delicious in their simplicity.

• Fresh Pesto and Almonds
• Spicy Lime and Red Pepper Dipping Sauce
• Berry Yoghurt Parfait

What initially attracted me to the book was the bright food photography trailing up the side of the spine. Overall, I found the book a little tedious in places, a fair chunk of the content didn’t relate to my current situation with food and some of the recipes felt over the top. I would recommend the book people who have difficulty with their relationship with food, particularly if there are strong emotions involved.

I am glad to have read it, and I will leave you with some words that really made sense to me “hunger is one of the most powerful chemical messages sent by the body to the brain… which means that the experience of hunger can exist even when the need for food doesn’t.”