Setting The Mood…for Eating!

One of the most important things I try to impart to clients is that eating a meal shouldn’t be part of a multi-tasking experience.  

Multi-sensory, yes, as in the food should look good, taste good, smell good and feel good in the mouth, but not  multi-tast as in shoving food in one’s face while driving, texting and reprimanding kids in the back seat.

This piece of advice really just comes from my own experience as well as that of other clients over the years, so it was rather affirming to see that a study had actually been done recently, which found that “when people dined in upscale restaurants versus fast food, they spent an average of 4.7 percent more time eating, and ate less of what they ordered — 86 percent of the food on their plates, compared with 95 percent for those in the regular area”.

Ring a bell?

The old ‘put down your utensils between bites’ comes to mind here. 

One of the authors of the study went on to add, “You create a nice atmosphere, people talk more, they concentrate less on the food and they leave the place more satisfied.”

This needn’t be confused with a message telling people that they have to dine at a three star Michelin establishment regularly.  Rather, it’s the state of mind and approach used.

One can create a lovely meal, and mood, with the simplest of ingredients, set their table at home and enjoy a delicious Paleo meal, even despite a tight budget- as long as they have another very important asset- time!     Making the time to shop for real food, prepare it, and then enjoy it is, hands-down, one of the most important pieces of sustaining the Paleo lifestyle indefinitely.