Primary Food

I hold a Health Coach certification with The Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN).  One of the philosophies of the program is Primary Food.  Primary Food is described as more than what’s on your plate.  Primary food can be a career of passion, a strong spiritual connection with your higher power, consistent exercise or positive relationships, for example.  They are things that fill your soul and satisfy your hunger for experiencing life. 

When you’re in a place of balanced Primary Foods, you’re satiated and life feeds you which makes what you put in your mouth for nutrition secondary.  Think back to times when you were so happy you could hardly contain yourself – maybe that’s when you got married, when you had a baby, when you fell in love, when you were an innocent child, etc.  These are the times that you most likely forgot about food because you were too busy being high on life.

The idea of filling up on Primary Food is to be fed by the energy of our lives primarily with nutritional food becoming secondary.  As humans, we are hungry for spirituality, healthy relationships, connection, purpose, value, meaning, fun, romance, love, success, music, excitement, adventure, self-expression, art, achievement, intimacy, play, touch, etc.  All of these examples are forms of nourishment. 

Secondary foods, foods we actually consume nutritionally, don’t come close to giving us the same level of fulfillment, meaning or joy that Primary Foods do.  More than we care to admit, we use secondary food as a means to suppress, numb or ignore out hunger for Primary Food.  When we get to this point, our mind and body suffer.  We begin stuffing ourselves with secondary food when what’s really going on is that we are starving for Primary Food.  Signs that you are deficient on Primary Food can include isolation, sadness, frustration, anger, disappointment, and depression to name a few.