Quote Originally Posted by Valda View Post
The word "кушать" however does have a "present/future tense gerund"... It is "ку́шая"...so in this case, I just write "ку́шая"? :

Э́то ва́жное ку́шая хоро́шую пищу

Would appreciate feedback...thank you
Valda, see my comment above about the difference between an English gerund (which is inherently a noun) and the so-called Russian "gerund" (which is inherently an adverb).

I can understand that you're trying to say "Eating good food is important." In this sentence, eating is a noun/gerund, and one could paraphrase the sentence as "The eating of good food is important." But you could also paraphrase it as "To eat good food is important," or "It's important to eat good food," using an infinitive instead of a gerund. And in Russian, it sounds much better if you use the infinitive in this context. I would possibly translate the sentence as:

Важно питаться хорошей едой. (It's important to feed on good food.)

As far as I know, кушать хорошую еду/пищу would also be possible, but питаться + instrumental ("to feed upon, to nourish oneself with") better emphasizes that you're making a general statement about nutrition.

The so-called "gerund" кушая could be used in a sentence like:

Она каталась на велосипеде по парку, кушая мороженное. ("She was riding a bike around the park, eating ice cream.")