The Feast of Your Senses

By Teri Gentes

Don’t miss that important time at meals to relax and unwind. Let your senses feast with your stomach with these tips.

Clean eating, whole foods, plant-based, gluten-free, vegetarian, Paleo, raw, vegan, local, real, flexitarian—you name it, we have all kinds of food movements in the making and most every kind of eater one can imagine (or name).

With health issues widely accepted as directly related to diet, it’s no wonder we’re paying more attention to what goes into our body. Whether you’re raving for or rebelling against an increasing return to consumption of less processed and integrity raised or grown foods, our eating habits play a huge role in our lives. Are your eating habits nourishing or sabotaging your health? Do you take time to enjoy preparing and eating great food or do you find yourself too busy to do so? Read on for a reminder of the power of food in every corner of your life.

Love of Food

With a long time committed relationship to foraging, shopping for, preparing, and enjoying the most flavorful and nutrient infused foods, I am a food groupie to be sure. As a lifestyle wellness coach and culinary nutritionist, I have cultivated a love/love relationship with food and aim to enable others to do so as well. Right now so many are drowning in a love/hate relationship with food, and are feeding the ever increasing rate of dietary related diseases.

Coming back to the romance of food: the joy of consciously and graciously consuming meals with loved ones, tasting the cultural influences, and biting into sentiment stirring comfort foods—this is a healthy indulgence that positively impacts every aspect of your well-being.

In this world we’re running and multi-tasking to the point of being unable to focus on one thing at a time; we are in dire need of finding a way to return to the present moment. So let yourself be present over the dinner table with meals that demand your attention and call out to all of your senses.

Adventure of Food

In my view, food is meant to be a joyful adventure in the garden, market, and kitchen. As preparation begins, wafting fragrances beg for your attention and stir a rumbling in your belly. Your sense of vision is fully engaged and delighted with both the raw ingredients as well as foods beautifully presented. Your salivary glands stand at attention with just one bite, and you’re implored to notice all the various taste sensations. You are instilled with a gracious sense of appreciation for food that’s been prepared with palpable love and devotion. Food such as this fully engaging all of your attention is sure to nourish and satisfy.

The oh-so-familiar passionate attachment to mom’s cooking or dad’s homemade sauce or Nona’s cannoli or Baba’s cabbage rolls, and so on, is not only for the taste or for the experience of those cooks. Rather, it’s the longed for sense of love they infused in the entire process of food preparation, and your remembered connection during shared consumption. This is comfort feasting!

As you contemplate your next meal, whether you are the cook or the consumer (perhaps both), a culinary expert or a novice, decide you are worthy of the time invested and enjoy the entire process of preparing meals and sitting down to enjoy them. Do it with gratitude and love.

Bon Appetite! Bon Santé!

Plate it pretty!

No matter what you are serving for your meals, take the time to plate it in an attractive manner and be sure to sit down and enjoy every bite.

Is your poor digestion ruining your mood?