As we race through our busy days and barely take time to eat, let alone enjoy a meal, more is at stake than simply depriving our taste buds - vitality is seriously compromised too. When we don't take pleasure in our food, regardless of how nutritionally superior it may be, our mental and physical well-being plummet. Scientific research agrees: If we consume tasteless fare, health suffers.
Pleasure as the ultimate health kick
Seeking a way to lower cholesterol, absorb more nutrients or slim down? Research has found the simple element of pleasure may be the key. According to Marc David, founder of the
Institute for the Psychology of Eating, "When you're turned on by food, you turn on metabolism." He references three studies involving pleasure and health.
The first took place at the
University of Texas where participants suffering from high cholesterol were given a general low-fat diet - with one exception: each was allowed to splurge every other day with a ham and cheese sandwich along with a milkshake. We would expect cholesterol levels to sky-rocket, but they didn't. In fact, there wasn't an elevation at all. David attributes this surprising finding to "… relaxed and celebrated moments in an otherwise bland and stressful diet. And that decrease in fight-or-flight chemistry could have been, by itself, enough to lower cholesterol…"
