Jessica Love parses a study that finds we’re significantly less conscious of the flavor and quality of our food while we do other things. She calls it “zombie eating”:
Just about anything can turn us into zombie eaters: reading the newspaper, listening to Pride and Prejudice, even socializing. As distractions mount, so do the dangers. When our focus isn’t on our food, we may be slower to notice the physiological cues that tell us we’re full. And without tangible evidence of our binge—a pile of incriminating candy wrappers, say—we tend to lose track of how much we’ve eaten. This spurs us to eat more, for this meal and—hey, why not?—even for our next.
The antidote to zombie eating is mindful eating, where one focuses on eating—just eating—in a deliberate, even meditative, manner. Yesterday over lunch I gave mindful eating a whirl. To my mind the experience was not unlike silent hiking: my movements slowed, my senses piqued, the familiar became wonderfully strange.
The Dish 