One should not eat anything without first mentally remembering God and Guru and offering it to them.

Hemadpant, the author of Sai Charitra

(from "Quintessence of Sai Charitra"):

A haat, or local market, use to be conducted in Shirdi every Sunday. People from neighbouring villages came and set up their various stalls on either side of the village road and it was abuzz with the chaos of buyers and sellers. The mosque used to be filled with people at noon time on weekdays, but on Sundays, the crowd used to be very thick. On one such crowded Sunday, Hemadpant was serving his Master. Shame sat near Baba's left foot while some others sat on his right side. Butisaheb and Kakasaheb Dixit were present around Baba too. Suddenly, Shaama's eyes fell on a few roasted gram seeds in the fold of Hemadpant's overcoat. He laughingly said to him, "Hey, I think I can see a few gram seeds sticking on your coat!", and proceeded to check his coat from where he produced a few gram seeds. When Hemadpant brushed his sleeves, several gram seeds fell off on the floor, which was playfully collected by the others. The devotees had found a topic to share the fun with each other in their master's loving presence and all of them began to rack their brains and crack jokes trying to tease Hemadpant about how on earth could those gram seeds have found their way into their brother's coat.

Participating in the humour, Baba teased, "This Hemadpant has a very bad habit of eating all by himself. Today is the Sunday Market day and no wonder he must have reached this place happily eating gram seeds all the way." Hemadpant lapped shocked and Baba added, "The gram seeds discovered on his coat are proof of my words. Don't look surprised!" Hemadpant protested playfully as if in mock outrage, "Well, Baba, I certainly do not have the very bad habit of eating all by myself as you have put it! You know that very well, too! So why on earth do you have to place a false flame upon me? And as far as the Sunday market is concerned, I have never visited it even once in my whole lifetime! Then, tell me, how could I have bought these gram seeds from the market? And when I never bought them, the question of me eating them does not arise/ And as far as my eating habits are concerned, I never have a morsel of food without first offering it to whoever is present with me."

Baba said, "You have spoken the truth. But if there is no one present with you or me while we eat, what can be done? All right, tell me, right before you start eating, do you remember me? Do I not accompany you all the time, everywhere? Do you offer me your food before you have it for yourself?"

In this small incident, Sai Baba not only heartily participated in the fun and laughter, but at the same time, he offered priceless teaching. The essence of his teaching was, that before enjoying food with mind and sense preceptors, it is important to remember Baba  - it is both a duty as well as a spiritual practice. When any article of gross-sensory needs is offered to God first, the illusive attachment towards it gets reduced because its gross material energy gets transmuted to subtle energy through the power of divine remembrance. In the same way, it helps to transmute other lower energies like anger, lust, and material indulgence. Before indulging in mundane pleasures, if one comes consciously aware of Baba's presence in that place, next to him, the question will very spontaneously arise in his heart whether such indulgence is rightful, and the attachment will loosen on its own accord. In this way, tendencies of the lower mind will get transformed into positive behavioural changes.

Thus devotion to Guru will rise, and with that, the gateway to pure knowledge will open. When pure knowledge slowly begins to dawn on the mind, the pull of gross intellect begins to loosen its grip; the intellect thereby begins to become subtler and subtler, and the mind soars upward to merge with the highest level of cosmic unity. There is no difference between God and Guru in their true essence. It is only the mind's ignorance that created a distinction between the two forms of the same universal entity. To see one's Guru as God is the foundation of a spiritual journey with the Master. The one who meditated on the form of the Guru as God and serves his lotus feet ultimately is blessed wot God's grace. Then, his mind is purified with a touch of his grace and he gives us the taste of self-realisation. 

The essence is that one should not eat anything without first mentally remembering God and Guru and offering it to them. To eat something without first offering to him with gratitude is no different from stealing it from God. Everything that belongs to this world belongs to him; is this not true? The five elements, Pancha-bhuta, of which every Nature particle is composed - Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth, or the five pranks - apana, prana, samana, vyana and udana. All of these are manifestations of the one Universal Consciousness.

Thus, anything and everything must certainly be offered to the Universe before we cherish it. When we have anything after we have offered it to God. The intellect gets subtler and the food reaches the spirit, resulting in transformation not only on the physical level but also on the spiritual level of our existence. The mere practice of indulging in food, thinking of it as Prasad, holy food, we begin to lose the mindset of indulgence. The negative karmic knots are cleansed. One attains peace.