How to love food sounds intriguing. Yet, it’s incredible how many of us find this a challenge. Loving the food that you eat and eating the food you love are similar concepts. But they are not the same. Here are ways you can do both.
How to Love Food 101
How to love food 101 is where we’ll start. Food is essential for survival. Yet, we eat for more than sustenance. Eating food can be a ritual, a mystical experience, fun, a way to spend time with loved ones and family, a learning quest, and much more. Check out the following tips to learn how to love food and enjoy the experience.
How to Love Food: 10 Ways to Enjoy It
First, what do you think about how to love food? Are you comfortable with the discussion? To get the most from anything in life, you must want to accept it wholeheartedly. This pertains to loving the food you eat and eating the food you love.
Sharing a Meal with Others Helps with How to Love Food
Food always seems to taste better when you share a meal with others. Besides, what’s the fun of eating alone unless you must? Whether at work, school, a recreational or leisure activity, or in a restaurant, when you dine with companions, the experience is more of a celebration and a time to appreciate what you eat and drink, like lattes and coffee.
I recall many times when something I ordered looked appetizing to one of my tablemates and vice-versa. We’d sample each other’s meals and pick up a new favorite to order the next time. There’ve also been times when I asked the chef for the recipe, especially if it’s at a friend’s home.
How to Love Food Begins with a Receptive Mindset
Consuming food should be an activity you look forward to rather than something to dread.
- It is possible to teach yourself to become more receptive to food by preparing or ordering meals with main
entrees or ingredients you find tasty and pleasing. - Learn to associate mealtimes with positive, nourishing, healthy thoughts.
- Create new mealtime memories by anticipating dinners with loved ones, family members, or friends.
- Capture the moments with photos. I’ve shared some of my favorite meals on social media to inspire others.
Create a Pleasing Color Palate to Enjoy Food More
Research shows that color is a key sensory cue regarding food taste and flavor expectations. The brighter the colors, the more appetizing and appealing the food appears. Adding colorful foods is one of the easiest ways to add variety and interest to meals.
Color also indicates the presence of powerful vitamins and minerals that benefit health and well-being.
Sort by Color: Phytonutrients
Phytonutrients in fruits and vegetables contribute to overall good health.
Red: These fruits and vegetables are rich sources of lycopene, a carotenoid that rids free radicals.
Green: These are foods rich in cancer-blocking chemicals, isothiocyanates, indoles, and sulforaphane.
Yellow and Orange: These colorful foods contain beta cryptothanxin to help prevent heart disease.
White and Brown: These are in the onion family. They contain anti-tumor fighting allicin.
Purple and Blue: Anthocyanins are potent antioxidants in these fruits and vegetables that slow cell aging and help maintain a healthy heart by preventing blood clots.
Apples
Take apples, for example. These bright red fruits contain:
- Vitamin C
- Antioxidants that may help prevent cancer
- Pectin, which may aid gut health and boost immune function
- Quercetin, a flavonoid that may have anti-Alzheimer’s disease properties
- Dietary fiber, which can help in healthy weight maintenance
- Soluble fiber, which helps prevent high cholesterol and lower blood pressure levels
Savor the Aroma to Maximize the Experience
Did you know that when you eat and experience the flavor, smell, odor, or aroma, the brain associates them with scent? So, savor the memorable aroma to get the most out of eating what you love and loving what you eat.
Take Your Time Eating
Remember the parental advice to chew each bite 32 times? It could have been 36. I don’t remember. The point is not to count off each chew. That’s monotonous and quickly abandoned. What is necessary to ensure proper food digestion is to take your time eating.
Ways I’ve found to slow my eating:
- Put down the knife, fork, or spoon between each bite. This forces a pause while you chew and swallow what’s in your mouth.
- Get up from the table and put away condiments or serving bowls and dishes that others are finished with.
- Ask if anyone wants water or another beverage. Get it for them and serve.
- You can use some time between chews to initiate or add to a conversation with others at the table.
- Please don’t pick up a smartphone or other electronic device. That’s rude and inconsiderate.
Try New Cuisines
When traveling, sample the local cuisine instead of searching for familiar food items you eat at home. This presents opportunities to discover exciting dishes you’ve never tried before. Some you may be familiar with yet never ordered them. Besides, isn’t it enticing for locals to eat and enjoy empanadas, fajitas, or chilaquiles with their companions? Doesn’t it make you want to sample it yourself?
Remember that the color palate and aroma have as much to do with piquing your food interest as being in another city, state, country, or island.
How to Love Food: Experiment with New Recipes
If you enjoy discovering new cuisines and experimenting at home to recreate dishes you’ve tried in restaurants, this is an exciting way to love food more.
For example, try making it at home if you love beets and have a delicious salad with crisp baby greens, mixed, colorful beets, and roasted chicken. I love the mixed beet salad from Urban Plates. Everything is organic, local, and prepared fresh. While I haven’t made it at home yet (I ordered from the restaurant for convenience and because I enjoy the food), I know I can recreate it.
There’s no harm in asking the chef for the recipe or looking it up if the restaurant has a website and posts recipes. If those aren’t options, you can enjoy creating the meal yourself. That’s the experiment part. Once you know how to make it, this could become a mealtime favorite.
Photograph Favorite Dishes and Share with Others
Have you ever recalled a dish you loved when you were a kid and wish you could recreate it? Think about your children today and the family dishes they love.
- Create instant memories or a family cookbook you pass on to them by photographing their favorite meal items.
- Share the photos via text or email messages.
- Post on social media.
If you want to add a link to the recipes or include them in text, email, or social media, that’s a beautiful way to share information about the food you love with others.
Enlist Help from Family for Fun Meals
While preparing a family meal can be a chore if you’re doing it alone, it can be fun when you ask others to help. Meal prep is time-consuming, yet it goes by quickly when the kids take over washing, peeling, and setting the table. Everyone can pitch in, so the meal is a genuine family affair.
Even clean-up time can be shared. The quicker the table is cleared and dishes washed or placed in the dishwasher, the sooner the family can relax to watch a movie or TV show.
Besides, when meal preparation is shared, it becomes a labor of love. And a terrific way to eat what you love and love what you eat.
How to Love Food: Ensure Uninterrupted Mealtime
Mealtimes, especially family dinners, should only be for eating and family conversations.
- There are better times to take phone calls, text, or post on social media.
- Be fully present and engaged when you’re at the table for a meal.
- Your mealtime companions will appreciate your attention and be more engaged.
The benefit of uninterrupted mealtimes is that it helps connections with family, friends, co-workers, and others and aids digestion. This is an effortless way to help you love and enjoy food.
