Guest Post by: Susanne Mueller
I remember in Grade Three learning about the digestive system. My memory of it is quite vague but I recall being taught the importance of chewing. We learned that we should chew each bite about twenty to thirty times before swallowing.
Logistically, the benefits made sense. I understood how that would help our body digest, assimilate and absorb the nutrients. I also understood that it would allow us to recognize sooner when we are full, which would discourage overeating.
But I found it incredibly boring and it wasn’t long into my first meal after the lesson that I dropped the suggestion.
I now realize there was a missing piece to the recommendation. A big one: the importance of taste. I began to realize that there is a huge difference between simply chewing your food and fully tasting your food. And there are far more benefits that come with the latter.
By tasting the range of flavours, we start to see that every bite full offers an array of aromas that transform the more we chew. Our meals start to become more exciting. Through the practice of mindfully tasting our food, what we chose to eat also begins to effortlessly change.
We begin to want to bring the flavours into our mouths and our lives that make us feel alive.
The great and ironic side effect to fully tasting food is that you naturally begin to chew more. We bring more awareness and mindfulness to what we are eating that we almost don’t even notice ourselves instinctively chewing fully. It just happens through the process of loving every bite.
Only by fully experiencing every bite of food, does our body really know what it is eating. It can be very relaxing to shut out the world and bring flavours of food into your complete awareness. When our bodies are relaxed our digestive system works optimally. Through this process, our bodies know exactly which nutrients are about to enter and the body is prepared to digest it. Amazing!
Steps to shift yourself into tasting and loving every single bite:
- Turn off any distracting electronic – phones, computer, TV.
- Sit down – a park bench, your couch, at the table – just don’t walk or multitask and eat.
- Close your eyes and take a deep breath.
- Smell when you are about to eat.
- Take a bite and taste!
- Put your fork down and let all the flavours fill your palate from the beginning of the bite, to the end.
- Repeat!
We are so conditioned to believe that 'healthy' foods are not exciting - when i started the above exercise i found healthier foods to be so much more fun and 'joyful' than i ever expected! Thank-you for this post!
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