Food, the new sex?

A famous consumer food company conducted a taste test in which subjects were asked to identify the taste of a jelly with their eyes closed. In this test, one more sense was eliminated. Smell.  Subjects’ noses were blocked. No one could get the taste right. In the next round, noses were unblocked and almost everyone could tell if the jelly was sour or sweet or salty.

Eating food is supposed to be a wholesome experience. Like sex. Why do we call someone sensual? Why do we enjoy sex so much? Why does sex make us complete and happy? Because it uses all the five senses. During your most fulfilling sex, you would not be watching Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon or be reading the New York Times while making love.

In this day and age, the twenty some-things are very ambitious. They try to pack in too many activities in twenty four hours because they can’t invent time yet. But it is practically not possible to achieve all that in a day, so they begin multi-tasking, even with food. I, like so many other twenty some-things, eat my Nature Path sunrise crunchy maple and read the IDS campus newspaper together. For different people, everything after the ‘and’ can be replaced by thousands of options including skimming Wall Street Journal or watching The Today Show. For most single twenty some-things, including me, dinners are accompanied with Workaholics or The Office or something to that effect. So often, the meal becomes a secondary activity and the actual accompanying activity becomes the primary one. It almost becomes background music. Your eyes are so fixated on the screen of the device that you don’t admire the colors of food. Your brain is so occupied in the content that you don’t attempt to feel the texture of your toast. Your ears are so busy hearing the voices in the show that you can’t appreciate the subtle sounds that echo when butter melts in your mouth, than only you can hear. In this new lifestyle, how can eating food make you happy?

Why should then food not be the new sex? Why should it not be given the same respect, time and devotion that we give to sex? There are not many activities left that human beings can do every day without feeling sick of it. Since food is one of those things, it should be consumed with complete sensuality to experience a holistic healthy life. Most joys are ephemeral and require lot of efforts. Food, like sex, can give you blissful pleasure everyday.