There are three types of eating: eating that is itself the fulfillment of a commandment (such as on the Sabbath), eating in order to have the strength to fulfill a commandment, and eating simply in order to live.
Even this last kind of eating, which has no intrinsic holiness, ascends to holiness if afterward a person uses the energy gained thereby to study Torah or to pray (unless it was connected to something forbidden.
Ultimately, all elements of a person s life, even if not used directly for holiness, attain at least a measure of holiness.
By analogy, although the ark that contains a Torah scroll is not intrinsically holy, it attains holiness because it serves the Torah scroll.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz