How To Satisfy Your Nine Hungers

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When I lived away from India, I missed home dearly and longed for connection and familiarity.

I had a ritual for such days.

It started with going into the kitchen I shared with six other students. The pressure cooker would come out of my tiny little cupboard. I measured, washed, and placed the correct amount of yellow lentils in the cooker. Along with the lentils, half a can of tomatoes, some frozen onion, garlic cloves, grated ginger, spices, and enough water would go in. I close the lid snugly and pop the whistle onto the lid.

While the dal was cooking, I would wash one potato, cut it into cubes, and fry it in a pan with the right spices. Once the whistle blew five times, I knew that the dal was ready. I would take it out in a glass serving bowl, temper it generously with mustard and cumin seeds, and garnish it with one sprig of coriander (if I had any in my frugal pantry). The rice would be cooked in a pot of boiling water in another saucepan.

As the cooking neared its completion, everything was transferred to serving bowls, and the cooking utensils were washed. I would then take from my tiny cupboard a secret packet of podi (spice powder) ground by my mother and my tiny stash of tomato pickle.

I would serve a heap of rice in the middle of my plate, a generous serving of dal, one spoon of podi and a tiny dash of pickle. I would take this plate to my room, sit on the bed, hold it up to my face and remember what it feels like to be home.

I would engage in this ritual when I felt raw hunger in my stomach. The hunger was so intense that one had to have food immediately, but for some reason, I would engage in slow cooking even if I had 100 other things to do.

The process of cooking and then eating my comfort food, with the secret stash of my mom’s podi and pickle, would always fill my heart.

That was the first time I understood hunger isn’t always about the stomach. Food also filled my heart.

In the book, “Mindful Eating: A guide to rediscovering a healthy and joyful relationship with food”, Jan Chozen Bays introduces us to “The Nine Kinds of Hunger”. I found this chapter to be the most insightful in understanding my own experience of hunger.

I had rather simplistically assumed (despite having read the book!) that mindful eating is about the process of consuming food. I hadn’t fully understood how understanding and knowing hunger is an intimate part of mindful eating.

Jan Chozen Bays says,

Through her own Zen practice and her work as a paediatrician, Jan has explored hunger. She lists nine kinds or aspects of hunger that we could become aware of. Jan explores each of these hungers in detail and what would satisfy each kind of hunger.

1. Eye Hunger

2. Touch Hunger

3. Ear Hunger

4. Nose Hunger

5. Mouth Hunger

6. Stomach Hunger

7. Cellular Hunger

8. Mind Hunger

9. Heart Hunger

Before we eat, and at various times when we have the urge to eat or drink something, Jan asks us to pause, check in with ourselves, and ask,

The primary insight I gained from the nine kinds of hunger is that each hunger exists and needs to be satisfied. Often, this cannot be done through food.

For example, the hungers that stood out for me in the above list were Touch and Heart Hunger.

Since I live alone, touch from another human being is not a frequent occurrence. I might have this need met when I hug a friend, but otherwise, casual human touches are not part of the equation. This is something many people experience on an everyday basis, especially when one lives alone.

Sometimes, along with touch hunger comes heart hunger. Heart hunger is about the desire to be loved and cared for.

Reflecting on my eating patterns, I realised I use food to soothe myself, especially to satiate touch and heart hunger.

Jan says, “Many people are aware that they eat in an attempt to fill a hole, not in the stomach but in the heart. But we must understand that food put into the stomach will never ease the emptiness, the ache in a heart. “

“When you talk with people at any length about comfort foods, you will always uncover a story that is warm with feelings of connection, love and companionship. All the rich food in the world will not fill our heart’s hunger. The heart is nourished by intimacy with others.” writes Jan about our deep emotional connection with food.

So, how does one fulfil this hunger when there are few opportunities to do so?

Jan writes, “We cannot always depend upon others to fulfil our desire for intimacy, however, because people are always changing.

We cannot depend upon food to fill the empty place in our heart.

Ultimately what must nourish our heart is intimacy with this very moment. We can experience this intimacy with anything that presents itself to us, people or plants, rocks, rice or raisins.

This is what being present brings us to, the sweet and poignant taste of true presence. When this presence fills us, all hungers vanish. All things, just as they are, are perfect satisfaction.”

I have 15 pages of notes on this chapter on “Nine Kinds of Hunger.” It brought out my deep relationship with emotions and foods and how they are intrinsically linked to how I eat.

As I read this chapter, many memories and insights about food and life swept into my awareness, and so many were poignant. I cried a few times as I read this book.

With this, I will round up this edition of our newsletter, in which we continue deep-diving into the book “Mindful Eating” by Jan Chozen Bays.

If you are reading the book, reply with your favourite quote. I’d love to know how this book is landing for you.

And we finish this edition with a tiny story.

💌 Siri