Focusing on your Food: Use Your Senses for Maximum Enjoyment

Food, especially food that is truly worth eating, can be enjoyed by so much more than just your taste buds.  A beautiful presentation, a smell that just makes you melt or the manner in which you eat certain foods can truly elevate the experience.  You can easily lose all this as you fly through a drive-thru or quickly warm up left overs, but by getting back in touch with your senses, it is easier to get back in touch with your food.

How do you accomplish this?  Start by slowing down.  It is important to put your food on a plate, sit at the table, and eat in a calm relaxed atmosphere.  The less time you spend eating at the steering wheel or standing at the kitchen counter, the more time you can savor your food.  If you start using your senses to truly enjoy your food, you will likely find that you will eat less.

Try to allocate at least 20 minutes for your meal.  When you plow through a meal faster than that, you often don’t even remember that you ate.  Theirs is minimal enjoyment in that.  Then what happens?  You end up going back for more because you don’t “remember” even tasting that first serving.  But if you take the time to use your senses – sight, smell, touch and taste – of your meal, you are much more likely to feel satisfied after eating.

It may sound labor intensive, but if taking a couple of extra minutes to set the stage for a meal allows you to get in touch with your satiety, then it is worth it.  Plus you will find yourself enjoying your meals so much more with all your senses involved!

Your turn to take action: Share your experience in the comments section below and tell me how your eating experience was when using all your senses.