There are so many factors for why we eat, how we enjoy our food, and why we choose the food we do. When was the last time you truly enjoyed your food? Did you embrace the opportunity to select food based on hunger, fullness, mindfulness, taste, smell, or cuisine? Maybe you did all of these things, or simply one or two. However, learning to eat and enjoy food often takes thought that you’ve never considered before now. So is it time to rethink how you eat and try mindful strategies for your next meal?
A new approach to food for nourishment and enjoyment is learning to savor the flavor of our food with mindful practices. Being mindful has many different aspects that we can cultivate within our space and certainly while eating. Being Mindful is a combination of recognizing and accepting with awareness of your space or environment. More easily described as the human ability to be present and aware of where you are and what you are doing. With the mindful experience, transitioning that same thought with eating can be a way to combine nourishing food with a positive non-judgment food experience harmoniously.
Mindful eating has several parts to consider that can help promote a new appreciation of food.
- Learning to recognize true hunger and fullness cues
- Eating slowly without distraction (mindful intake)
- Use your senses to notice colors, smells, sounds, textures, and flavors.
Hunger Cues:
Eating when we are hungry and eating to comfortable fullness are both benefits of mindful eating. These are described as hunger cues which can often be confused or ignored with busy day-to-day distractions. Try evaluating a hunger scale to determine your true hunger and fullness. In addition, recognizing emotional hunger vs. physical hunger can also be necessary with recognizing when and why we are hungry.
Mindful intake:
Many of you may find yourselves eating at your desk, on the go, or distracted by electronics. It can be easy to get carried away with food when pleasantly distracted. Did you taste your lunch? Also, it may be easy to eat multiple servings out of a chip bag when watching a show or studying. There is no shame here. It’s something to recognize and use mindful tools for support to reduce overeating. Yet many people fall into cycles of guilt with food and eating when they mindlessly consume food. Eating slowly without distractions can help you
-Recognize fullness while eating to be satisfied
-Be present with your dining experience
-Take time to be curious about ingredients
-Appreciate and have gratitude for the food you or someone has prepared
-Allow yourself to use your senses to increase enjoyment
-Take the time to ‘Savor the Flavor’ of your food while enjoying it and feeling positive in your environment improves eating intake and may help manage hunger and intake.
The Five Senses:
As many of you may already know, human responses to the properties of foods happen through the five senses, which are sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing. When it comes to picking what your next meal will be, what matters the most to you, maybe it’s taste or cuisine. What`s interesting about this is that picking foods based on taste is not a general response for everyone. Some people would rather rely on the sight or on the smell, or even on both to do so.
Even though the eyes receive the first impression of food, the most influential factor when it comes to food selection is the taste. To be tasted, food will enter the mouth and be dissolved in saliva. After that happens, the gustatory cells, which are the cells that send the message to the brain, will communicate with the brain, which will translate that impulse into a sensation and recognize it as taste.
An apple will always be an apple, but diverse people taste differently, that happens because the impulse that we described above varies from person to person. There are many distinct factors that can affect the taste, such as genetics, the temperature of foods (your taste buds operate best at 86F), variety, color, time of the day, age, gender, and last but not least, the degree of hunger.
Like anything else, for some people, these five senses can greatly impact their experience with food as well as its ingestion. We employ you today to consider these factors at your next dining experience:
Touch-Notice the feel, texture, and shape
Smell- Notice the scent from the food
Hearing- Notice the sound before, during, and after
Sight- Notice the texture, color, and shape
Taste-Notice any experience related to taste such as mouthfeel, flavors, distinctive notes of herbs, spices, etc.
There are dozens of reasons why people choose or avoid certain foods. Maybe it is based on tastes, familiarity, convenience, health reasons, or even fear of certain foods.
Mindful eating is being present at the moment, comfortable and positive in your space, without distractions, enjoying a meal with all of your senses to allow for a pleasant experience. Hopefully, today you can re-evaluate your experience with food and use mindful practices to improve your eating habits. Try adding in some mindful eating practices by removing electronics and other distractions, evaluate your hunger and eat when you are not emotional so that satisfaction can be a stopping point. Slow down and breathe before you eat; take each bite with purpose. Try utilizing your senses to increase awareness of your food and learn to ‘savor the flavors.’
Prepared by Mindy Diller, MS, RDN, LD Registered Dietitian and Nina Otterloo, Nutrition Assistant
www/Smartchoices@ttu.edu
Eat at Texas Tech 
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