What are your New Year’s Resolutions this year? Unfortunately, statistics reveal that only 9.2% of people actually achieve their resolutions with 80% failing as early as February.

So how about selecting a more attainable resolution for the year ahead? Eating more healthily is often at the top of people’s resolution lists. Although we may not stick to our ideal nutritional plan throughout the year, we can still begin to make subtle improvements to our health by shifting the way we approach our meals.

It would be fair to say that mealtimes are not often prioritised in our society. With our increasingly fast-paced lifestyles and work driven culture, taking time to eat is seen as a luxury that most of us cannot afford. Whereas eating on the run (or at our desks) has become the norm. As a result, most of us eat so quickly that we aren’t really tasting our food.

A survey conducted by Conscious Food revealed that people spend an average of six minutes eating breakfast, eight on lunch and nine minutes for dinner. This amounts to a startling 23 minutes in total for all three meals.

This means we tend to spend more time cooking a meal and cleaning up than we devote to actually eating that meal. As Kristina Locke, the founder of Conscious Food has said: ‘We are constantly surprised by the lack of time and importance that people dedicate to eating.’

Today, select a snack and commit to consciously slowing down as you eat it. It can be a piece of fruit or a square of chocolate – whatever you prefer is fine. Before you begin eating, take your time to notice its texture and begin to smell the food. If it’s chocolate, let it melt in your mouth. If it’s something else, chew it slowly and deliberately and allow yourself to observe its flavours.

You may notice when you do this exercise that your mouth begins to salivate before you even begin eating and this is no accident. The digestive process begins in our brain before we start eating. When we eat too quickly and forget to chew, we neglect this important step. It is therefore not very surprising that a staggering 73% of those polled in the Conscious Food survey admitted to suffering from digestive issues.

Eating too quickly not only compromises our digestion, it also means that we end up robbing ourselves of one life’s greatest pleasures. How much more enjoyable would the experience of eating be if everyone made more time for their meals?

While there is no doubt that what we eat makes an impact on our health, how we eat is equally important. So, if the prospect of following a strict nutrition plan for 2019 feels a little daunting, perhaps introduce the more manageable resolution of cultivating a mindful eating practice this year.

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