Maybe you have a family who keeps a traditional family meal schedule. Maybe you have a glittering social life. Maybe you are encouraged by your employer to entertain
for business. Maybe you work in a restaurant that hosts a staff meal. If so, congratulations--you are probably healthy as a horse and pretty happy to boot. But think for a minute about the hoards of busy single parents working two jobs and whose
meal times consist of hitting the drive-through during the commute from job to
job. Think about the all the lonely seniors who say they are satisfied with a can of soup
alone in front of the TV. Think about
the scores of young, busy people who wolf down a bowl of cereal in front of
Facebook and call the event "dinner". Ugh.
The meal
taken alone not only fails to satisfy, it is downright
unhealthy.
However much we enjoy some solitude, however much we
treasure our independence…we, as humans, are a social animal and it is
essential that we periodically connect with one another for our emotional
health. What better time to fuel our
emotional health than when we are fueling our physical health at mealtime? A good dinner amongst good people can nurture
us on so many levels.
Last night while out walking the dog, I met Joey.
Joey is a new neighbor. We were both trying to be friendly although Joey and
I seem to have little in common: Joey is a relatively recent immigrant to the US from a war-torn southeast Asian country has had an almost unimaginably different life experience from mine. Our list of differences would be a long one, indeed.
But we connected over a seasoning---lemongrass. In our brief and initially awkward
meet-the-new-neighbor chat out on the sidewalk, he happened to mention that
although he works in a different business now, he was a chef for 30 years. I told him I, too, cook for a living.
Then I confided that having no formal training in Asian cookery, I was never really
sure if my self-guided method for fabricating lemongrass into recipes was
correct or wasteful. With that, Joey brightened,
called his wife outside, exclaimed something in another language, and she returned bearing giant containers of the grassy culinary herb. He excitedly went on about the best way to use it in
Korean barbeque, shrimp soup, lemongrass chicken, and beef stew. He said he would show me how to do all of these things. There is a plan to get our families together for a dinner.
So despite all of our differences, it quickly became clear in
our half-hour chat on the sidewalk that not only do Joey and I both like to
cook, we both see the value in connecting. In that way, I have everything in common with him.
While popular books and magazines deliver us fuzzy science on
the health benefits of Veganism, or Paleo/low-carb programs, or omega-rich Mediterranean
diets, I’ll gladly toss all of their conjecture out the window and tell you that a bowl
of deep-fried, corn-syrup-drenched junk taken in the company of others is much
healthier than the naked vegetable stalk taken in solitude. Sharing with others
also forces some moderation. You cannot kill the whole bowl of deep-fried,
corn-syrup-drenched junk all by yourself when the portion needs to be shared
amongst a whole table of others. Conversely,
you can do the most misguided eating in solitude….I mean, haven’t we all?
On some primal level, we are meant to be together. We are meant to crawl out of our offices and
talk to one another. We are meant to see
that the guy who grew up on the other side of the earth actually does have
something in common with us. We are
meant to share. We are meant to leave something
for the others. We are meant for the challenge
of trying new things. We are meant to
sit and listen. We are meant to contribute
to the feast. We are not meant to carry
a calorie calculator. We are not meant
to close the door on entire food groups.
We are not meant to have a television as a dining companion. We are not meant to allow our isolationism to
cause us to invent wacky ideas about eating.
We are not meant to make extreme lifestyle choices in order to thrive
and be healthy. No matter what is on the plate, the mere act of sharing with others magically transforms the stuff into "health food".
Eat with others.
Do it often. Tell me if you don’t
feel an improvement in the quality of your life.
