Mindful Eating

On the same day that The New York Times published a front-page story about the latest trends in multi-tasking (think multiple computer screens), the newspaper also ran an article about the benefits of something that is almost exactly the opposite of multi-tasking: mindful eating.

Based in Buddhism, mindful eating is the practice of attending closely to how the senses are engaged when one has a meal. When one mindfully eats, one is focusing on nothing but the food. There’s no reading the newspaper, no watching TV -- not even any conversation at the table.

Mindfulness offers a take on food different from the more common view of “good” and “bad” foods. Instead of avoiding a certain food because it’s “bad” to eat too much of it, you slow down the experience of eating the food. You savor it, think about it -- try to really taste it. Mindful eating is a surprisingly challenging thing to do, since we have so many distractions at mealtimes and we’re so used to using food itself to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling, both emotionally and physically. Mindful eating is widely used in treating people with eating disorders because so much of that disordered behavior is about consuming food, not tasting it.

Mindful eating is a difficult practice to master; even the experts quoted can’t do it all the time. But even thinking about the concept and trying it can help us. Compare the difference between really looking, smelling and tasting a piece of chocolate and then just popping it into your mouth without paying attention. It can be a completely different and more pleasurable experience when you taste the chocolatey taste and feel the melting texture of the chocolate. You may find that you feel satisfied with less, and enjoy what you have eaten more.