Primary and Secondary Food

Have you ever been exposed to the idea of “Primary food” and “Secondary food”?   I am just beginning to study this topic and I want to share it with you as it is very thought provoking.   

Primary food is all the things in life that nourish you that aren’t food.  For example:

1. Relationships – Marriage or romantic, friendships, children.
2. Physical activity- exercising in a way we enjoy, that balances the 3 pillars of strength, cardiovascular, and flexibility.
3. Career- finding work that you love or figuring out how to love the work that you do.
4. Spirituality- actively practicing either the religion you were raised with or exploring new ideas and practices that help you connect with the highest part of yourself.

Secondary Food is the actual food you eat.   The idea is that the primary food is even more important than the secondary food.  You can have the perfect healthy diet, but if your marriage is unhappy, you are unsatisfied in your career, your physical activity is low, and/or you are lacking spirituality, it can be hard for you to feel healthy in a truly balanced way.    I think we can all relate to this feeling in one way or another.   Also when primary food is lacking, we can look to fill the void with secondary food.   When examining these 4 parts of primary food, we should look to see where and how we can improve because the more primary food we receive, the less we depend on secondary food for happiness.

I love this idea of looking at nourishment as a whole life experience as I know I have felt first hand how when one part of my primary food is out of wack, my overall health can suffer.   

As I continue to study these concepts I will be sharing more in my blog and on instagram.  In the mean time, I hope you can look at how you can improve your Primary food.  Often times, a good hug can be even healthier than a salad.

Categorized in: General