Is Food Just For Nourishment

Food is critical for nourishment.  The better your diet, the better you feel.  Eating better can help you keep off the unwanted pounds. However, better eating without exercise might not get you the waist line you always wanted.  The better you feel and getting to the weight you always wanted will help you toward your goal to happiness.

The question is, is food only for nourishment?  If you're poor, above the poverty level, middle class or higher and live in most countries, food takes on a much larger role in society and the development of your happiness.

Food brings people together.  What do we do on most major holidays - we eat!  Not just eat anything.  We eat the foods of our culture.  We eat that food with friends and family.  This serves two purposes.  It brings people together who might not see each other often and It reminds us of the foods our parents and their parents ate many years ago.  

Bring people together, getting re-involved in their lives, sharing with them what's going on in your life, seeing how they've changed since the last time you saw them, creating new contacts with people you hardly knew and even reminding someone they owe you a hundred bucks (remember, ask for what you want just don't demand it) will make you feel warm inside and that's what I call happiness.

Eating the foods of the past might remind you of good times.  That first bite might put a video in your brain of a time when you were young and happy.  Experiencing past happiness is a great way to enrich today's happiness.  Even on holidays like Thanksgiving, most family's mix in a little soul food with their turkey.  It's about the food we loved to eat when we were young.

Food should be considered entertainment.  Entertainment is not something you do every day.  Therefore, many times food is just food (unless you're married to a great chef like my wife).  However, on a special day or even a few days a week, you should treat food as entertainment.  It might be something naughty like a Wopper at Burger King or a different ethnic dinner you've never eaten before.  It doesn't matter.  What does matter is it's food you look forward to eating.  It's food that feels like you're being entertained.  It's food that makes you happy.

Food is only part of the entertainment.  At least a few times a month go to a place that not only has great food, but also has an interesting atmosphere.  Spend time looking around and enjoying the view.  It might be peanuts shells on the floor or a fabulous art deco designed room. What's important is you take a step back and take in the interesting and beautiful restaurant you've selected.

Food can also be art.  Even if your single and don't cook, set up the food you eat so it looks good.  Treating food as something special (even if it's takeout) will help it taste better and put a smile on your face.  Don't say: "it's just food."  Don't say: "I don't have time to be creative."  Place the takeout on the plate so it looks good to eat. You might be surprised at how interesting you can make the food look.

Being creative with food is another way to enjoy your life.  Don't take food for granted.  Don't treat it as just nourishment. Try learning how to cook.  You don't have to become a chef.  Just the fact you tried will make you happy.  Don't just slap the food on a plate, eat it in five minutes and sit and watch TV. 

What I'm trying to get across is that everything and anything you do in life is an opportunity to enrich your happiness.  Going through life unconscious, even about food, is no way to get what you want - which is a happy life.  You should take a look at even the little things you do every day and see the happiness opportunity in them.

Look at food as an opportunity not nourishment.  If you're on a strict diet, you can still make the food look interesting.  If you're young, you might not understand what I'm talking about.  However, I assure you, when you get older you will realize what an opportunity you passed up by just throwing the food, you ate, down your throat and not appreciating its role in happiness. 
When my wife and I go to Vegas there are three kinds of entertainment we love.  Gambling, shows and food.  Those three things make us happy.  Soon we're going to Paris and one of the things we're looking forward to is the great food.  

Food can make you happy if you pay attention to it.  Don't let food be the unforgotten ingredient in your life's goal to happiness.  

You deserve all the little things in life that could make you happy.  Food should be one of those things.