Mindful eating

In what might have been the MOST NPR story ever, a woman named Lilian Cheung, who is the director of mindfulness research and practice at Harvard University, appeared on "All Things Considered" with NPR Life Kit host Marielle Segarra  to advocate for mindful eating.

"Mindful eating" is a way of sliding food down our necks which asks us to slow down and notice our food. I notice it, all right, and I usually regard it with rapt attention, because I am usually the person who cooks it.

Fletcherizing your dinner sounds like something that is illegal all across the Bible Belt, but it's a way to really pay attention to your chow 32 times. Fletcherizing is  “chewing food slowly and thoroughly, 32 times, so as to get all the nutrition from it and make it easier for your belly." That's the belly which is often asked to process half a pepperoni and salami pizza, remember, so as "to extract its maximum nutrition.” The process of getting chewy is named after Horace Fletcher, who lived from 1849 to 1919, and never came in contact with a Wendy's Pretzel Roll Baconator. 

One pretzel baconator to go, please

Ms Cheung also believes that we will eat fewer Fritos if we have to take just a handful out of the bag and put them in a nice serving bowl, and then, while slowly munching on that good corniness, thinking about how nature sent sun and rain to help the corn grow, and thinking about the corn being harvested and taken to the factory and then the bags coming off the production line and being boxed up and taken to the store, where it is shelved and ready for us to buy.

Then the discussion took a comedic turn as Ms Cheung recommended that 6 or 8 chips would be enough for anyone's snack.