What matters is not so much what or how much we should eat but how we should to eat, what attitude we should have in regard to food and how to raise the act of eating from its usual triteness to the level of mystical significance it attained in the Last Supper. Even those to whom this spiritual aspect is foreign will realize that their attitude toward food can lead to a deeper understanding of the relation between man and nature, for nature supplies man with food, and man, if his thoughts and feelings are attuned to nature, becomes capable of extracting from his physical food the subtle elements necessary to the full flowering of his whole being.

Since human beings possess not only a physical body but also other, subtler bodies in which reside their psychic and spiritual functions, the question arises of how to nourish those bodies which, because of ignorance, are often left without food. People know more or less what they should give their physical body but they have no idea what they should give their other bodies: the etheric or vital body, the astral body which is the seat of feelings and emotions, the mental body, which is the seat of the intellect, and even more remote, the bodies of the higher self.
The act of chewing benefits principally the physical body. For the benefit of the etheric body you must also breathe correctly. .. Digestion is a combustion, so while eating you should pause from time to time to take a deep breath, and the improved combustion which results will enable the etheric body to extract subtler particles from your food… Also, if you pause for a few moments to consider your food with love, your astral body will be ready to extract from it particles that are even more precious.
When the astral body is nourished by these elements it is capable of kindling very elevated feelings, feelings of love for the whole world and a deep sense of happiness, peace and harmony with nature.
In order to nourish their mental body, initiates concentrate on their food; often, they will close their eyes so as to concentrate more deeply. And since they envisage food as a manifestation of the Godhead, they endeavour to study every aspect of it: where it comes from, what it contains, the qualities and virtues that correspond to particular types of food and the entities that have had a part in preparing it. With their mind absorbed in these thoughts, their food provides them with elements superior even to those of the astral plane. Clarity of thought and a profound understanding of life and of the world are born of meals taken in these conditions.

All creatures eat, including man, but why? To receive energies, you might say. Yes, but is there another purpose? Everything we do has more than one reason, one purpose. To stay alive and healthy is not the only reason we eat.
Look at worms? They swallow the earth and then throw it back. By letting the earth pass through them, they give it oxygen and make it richer and more fertile. Well, a human being does the same with his own food. His psychological and spiritual faculties put him on a much higher level of evolution than the matter he absorbs. So, matter passes through him to be enriched and refined. This is worth meditating on.