Eat with your hands

Eating with our hands is equated with bad manners. But why not make eating playful?

Use a fork or a spoon and the millions of nerve endings on the tips of our fingers become deprived of texture and temperature. Using cutlery promises nothing. We, literally, lose touch with the food on the plate in front of us and the opportunity to feed our mind as well as our stomach is lost.

In western society eating with your hands is generally considered vulgar. But we should throw off this cultural shackle as often as we dare. We should become Indian, or Middle Eastern, or African. We should wash our hands, not worry too much about what’s under our fingernails, and dig in.

The process of eating starts with anticipation, if we are aware enough to give it some thought. Those of us who are stretching our lives then take care to look at our food, and appreciate the aromas. Then before we taste it we should use our fingers, a vital part of the sensual eating process. As well as keeping us grounded in the present, it evokes emotions and feelings, and a personal, tactile connection with your food that can never be achieved with the mindless use of industrial utensils. You need to pay more careful attention to what’s on your plate and to how you will gather it up and carry it to your mouth. You become absorbed by the process.

Distractions, like a television set, will only contribute to a mess down your shirt front. So my message is – shun the silverware and take time to connect with your dinner again.

Image credit: Alpha/flickr