At thanksgiving and, for some Christians, at every meal, people thank God for the food he has provided them and then they ask God to bless them.  
    Gnostics see it a little differently.  We ask God to bless the food we are about to consume and then ask God to forgive us for eating it!  Why ask for forgiveness?  Because killing and eating other living things, plant or animal, is not something God wants us to do and is not something he approves of.  He does, however, understand that we have become so densely material that we truly cannot survive without eating other life forms.  It has not always been that way.  We know, for example, that the most spiritually developed members of the ancient Essenes went for weeks between meals, than ate a meal of bread and wine or bread and water.  The bread was whole grain and had herbs added to it, but still, just a little bread and water and that is all they had to eat for weeks.  They could do it because they "ate" God's Light, the Light of the Spiritual Sun, which nourished the soul which, in turn, nourished the body.  Someday, we will gain back this ability.  We don't have a choice in the matter.  Our food supply will one day be gone so that is another reason why we all need to start learning how to once again live on God's Light.