Have You Lost the Art of Savoring?

This year, I encourage you to consider not just celebrating Thanksgiving but actually savoring it. Most American families spend hours (or even days!) preparing a delicious, homemade meal to share with friends and family. We will make an extra trip to the store to ensure we don’t run out of anything. We will dig out Granny’s sweet potato recipe. And we’ll get up early in the day to get a headstart on Aunt Marge’s prized pie. We put immense love and care and time into our Thanksgiving preparation. And the house slowly fills with enticing aromas. Everyone eagerly awaits the feast. Yet once we are seated, however, most Thanksgiving meals are over after a 15-minute feeding frenzy of clinking flatware!

Why do we rush things we find so pleasurable? Unfortunately it’s a reflection of the typical American meal these days (which on weekdays typically lasts about 12 minutes). We eat quickly!  Most of the time, it’s probably more accurate to say that we just “eat” as opposed to “experience a nice meal”. As a food and health buff, I confess I get my jollies at times by watching how people eat in restaurants. It’s fascinating to watch people scarf down an expensive, gourmet meal in just a few minutes.  Did they really have time to enjoy it?  Sometimes it’s almost as though we’re afraid someone’s going to steal it. We barely chew our food (something I’ve written about before in terms of causing GI issues like acid reflux or IBS). Just enough to gulp it down with some liquid. And while we’re chewing rapidly, we already have the next bite queued up. Shovel at the ready!

Wolfing down our food denies our brain the pleasure of truly savoring it. In addition to setting ourselves up for indigestion and a post-meal fatigue! We miss out on the opportunity to allow the richness of flavors to develop through slow, careful, sensual chewing. Breathing deeply while eating enhances flavors as the aromas of our food mingle. Textures can be explored with a curious tongue. In truth, the longer we chew food, the sweeter it tastes. It also takes at least 20 minutes for your body to secrete a natural hormones  that tells your brain you are satisfied and reduces your appetite. Eating quickly usually makes us overeat. We spring up to go back for seconds and then 20 minutes later feel stuffed.

We can get either 2 or 20 minutes of pleasure out of the same piece of pie. It’s all in the timing. This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to make a conscious effort to slow down and really savor your feast. Try to be the last one at the table who finishes. Many families make this a fun game by going around the table and having each member share something they are grateful for in between every bite of food. Another fun idea is to serve Thanksgiving in courses. Let each dish in turn (or 2 at once) have its own prized position in the center of the table. If guests are coming, have them bring a set of their plates too, so you’ll have plenty. This is also a great way to give kids exposure to “fine dining” principles and clarify such issues as “which fork do I use now?”. Allow each course to take 15 minutes. Stir up some rich, quality conversation. Allow the cook of each dish to introduce their offering and perhaps tell a little story about its history or why they chose to share it. You can easily spread a meal out over an hour or two in this way. Plus you will truly savor the flavor of every dish and the loving generosity with which it was prepared.

When we are speeding through our days, it can be hard to see (much less appreciate) the real goodness in our lives. Gratitude comes when we slow down enough to realize just how many gifts surround us.