Is There a Relationship Between Mindfulness & a Vegan Diet?

In this article we dive into the relationship between mindfulness & a vegan diet but first of all, what does mindfulness actually mean? And how can it help your life?

Becoming more mindful can lead to changes such as eating more mindfully, reducing plastic in your home, learning how to meditate, improving our relationships and unlocking our true potential for success.

Do you have to be vegan to be spiritual?

To understand the relationship between mindfulness and a vegan diet, let’s take a look at the general points.

Table of Contents

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about becoming more aware of ourselves and the world around us in any given moment.

It’s a practice which raises our consciousness and increases our awareness, leading to a greater control of our actions and a deeper understanding and compassion for those around us.

Practising mindfulness meditation is one way of helping to increase mindfulness, and it’s often practised alongside applying mindfulness to your daily activities throughout the day.

Some of the most popular exercises for increasing mindfulness are eating mindfully, listening mindfully, and breathing mindfully, though ultimately it will make your more mindful in everything you do.

You can practise mindfulness meditation anywhere, and if you’ve ever wondered whether you can meditate with noise around you, the answer is yes, you can.

Mindfulness doesn’t just happen overnight though, it takes time and practise to become more skilled at it and it’s just one of many ways to focus in your meditation.

How Can Mindfulness Affect Diet?

As you get stronger in your practice of mindfulness you may become more aware of people, animals and the environment around you.

You can also find that you react less impulsively to triggers or negative situations.

This heightened awareness leads to much more intentional decisions and actions in life.

And this can lead to you fully acknowledging the source of your food, as well as the health-giving properties (or otherwise) of what you eat.

The well known adage You are what you eat becomes real to you as you question why you would eat food sourced from suffering, which also creates ill health in the body.

Enhanced mindfulness can lead to increased compassion for others as you become more awakened and you approach life with less egoistic attachment.

This awareness will affect your diet in many ways, if you allow it to.

Meditation May Awaken You to . . .

You may become more aware of the ongoing destruction of our environment
You will feel a heightened sense of shame at extreme life of suffering that animals endure at the hands of humans in the name of the food industry.
You awaken to the profound health benefits of choosing a whole foods plant plant based diet which resonates with your body’s needs.
You recognise the negative consequences of poor food choices, as they cause reactions of ill health in your body (digestive issues, headaches, sleep problems, mood swings, weight issues, skin problems, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, depression and more).
You see how your body is a marvellous precision vehicle when it’s fed on the right fuel and given the exercise and stimulation it needs.
Gradually, the long lists of chemical and harmful ingredients that are attached to most processed foods will no longer appeal to you.
You will become more aware of the impact of your chosen lifestyle upon the environment.
You may become more empathetic to the pain and suffering of all others, human and non-human.
You will find satisfaction in sourcing more ethically produced plant based foods.
You may begin reducing or eliminating the plastic wrapped food you choose to buy in order to help the planet and raise your vibrations through eating purer food.

How Can Diet Affect Mindfulness Meditation?

When you’re mindful, you’re calm. You feel collected and in touch with your inner wisdom as you allow things to come to pass without judgement.

Diet can create havoc with the natural balance of the body’s systems as well as with the levels of peace within the mind.

It’s now widely accepted that diet influences everything, from mood swings to depression, blood pressure, skin digestive system . . . absolutely everything within the body.

And when one part of the system is out of sync, it will affect all the rest, and this can take away the quality of your thoughts as you grapple with physical pain/discomfort/depression etc..

If you practise mindfulness in meditation as well as throughout your daily life, then the quality of your mediation can also be affected by your body’s reactions to diet.

And although there’s no actual wrong way to meditate, there are many factors to bring you more or less success in your mediation.

You may also ask yourself what to focus on during meditation, but whatever your choice, it will be easier and more powerful when you eat a wholesome diet free from all the toxins and the vibrations of terror.

Imagine trying to meditate on peace or love for example, while at the same time having raging stress hormones running wild within your body, and negative impulses and thoughts taking over your mind.

It’s easy to see how this can reduce the purity of mind during your meditation or your mindfulness practise throughout the day.

If in doubt, try meditating on a question related to your food and see what comes up for you.

As you remove the toxins and replace your food with a plant based whole foods diet, so your meditation and mindfulness can increase both in power and in quality.

You Are What You Eat

Another reason that diet affects mindfulness is the vibrational quality of what we eat.

You are what you eat is a widespread expression used to describe the phenomenal connection between what we eat and how healthy we may be.

But it also refers to vibrational frequencies of the foods we eat.

When you eat a piece of food which comes from a living being who was terrified at the time of death, there are high levels of cortisol in the bloodstream of that individual, which you are subsequently ingesting.

You’re eating not only the cortisol and the stress but also the low vibrations of a terrified animal.

Mindfulness creates more awareness, which brings about an awakened understanding of what we’re eating.

And when you see it in this light, you’re left with two choices. 1. to ignore your newly found insight or 2. to change your diet to be in more alignment with your body’s needs and your moral convictions.

Going vegan for the animals, for your own health, and going vegan for the environment aren’t the only reasons: there’s also the spiritual gains to be had from living in alignment with your moral compass.

Russell Simmons Video on How Meditation Can Lead to a Vegan Diet

Awakened Compassion via Mindfulness

Mindfulness by its very nature awakens you to your inner compassion.

When you’re compassionate about other living beings it becomes increasingly impossible to turn a blind eye to the immense suffering of the meat, fish, dairy and leather industries (to name just a few).

And the thought of feeding your body on tortured beings suddenly takes on a new light.

It’s not truly possible to say I’m compassionate towards animals and I also support the commercial meat industry.

The only way we can get away with saying that and believing it in our hearts is if we don’t really look at it. We close our eyes.

Of course, not everybody has compassion towards animals and that’s their own path, but if you do, then mindfulness will awaken that within you, making it impossible to continue with double standards.

The true answer lies within you. What do you hold important in life? What truly resonates with you?

How would it make you feel if you went to visit a slaughterhouse?

It’s true that some people will not blink in the face of the fear and death before them, but if you are not one of them, then mindfulness may well lead you to a change of diet.

Choosing a whole foods plant based diet is not only healthier for you, more compassionate and better for the environment but it can also lead to an deeper mindfulness meditation practice.