Welcome to Gut Check, our column dedicated to the complex, ever-evolving relationship between food and our bodies. Whether you’re curious about mindful eating or want to understand what makes picky eaters picky, read on and let award-winning journalist Betsy Andrews answer all your burning questions. 

The last time I ever ate at one of my old, go-to lunch spots, a Manhattan restaurant favorably reviewed in the The New York Times, I ended up desperately ill. I blame the aïoli that came with the roast chicken, which I loved so much I always asked for extra. The cashier would scoop a handful of unrefrigerated plastic ramekins from a tub behind the register and dump them in my bag.  One day, that sauce laid me flat for 48 hours, in between bouts in the bathroom. My partner considered taking me to the emergency room. 

It was the second-worst case of food poisoning I ever had, and I tell you about it because, really, food poisoning can happen anywhere. If conditions exist for the growth of food-borne microbes that your body has few immunities to, you can get sick thousands of miles away or in your own hometown. 

That’s why it’s unhelpful to stigmatize places like Mexico, where I had a run-in with E.coli. I was in a village near Puebla researching mole poblano and made some traveler’s mistakes, including drinking Hi-C made with tap water and spooning fresh salsa onto the mole. I knew better, and I forgot myself in the thrall of reporting. 

That’s the kind of harrowing food-poisoning experience American travelers are quick to recount upon returning from far-flung vacations. But as I learned from medical experts who specialize in gut health, food-related illnesses are often worse for people coming to the U.S. than for Americans going abroad. We should be cognizant of that when feeding guests from afar, but we also must be aware of ways to protect our own gut when we disrupt our routine by taking a trip. 

When we travel, our diet inevitably changes, explains gastroenterologist and author Dr. Shilpa Ravella. New micro-flora and -fauna, different standards of hygiene, lack of exercise and sleep, and even travel stress, she says, can negatively affect the gastrointestinal tract. No matter where we’re from or are headed to, shit happens—or, disconcertingly, doesn’t—when we travel. But the precautions are basically universal. With summer travel upon us, and my checkered past with food poisoning haunting me, I figured this was a good time to ask the experts for their best advice on maintaining and restoring good gut health on culinary adventures near and far.

What to Pack

Eat right, get sleep, hydrate—the most important gut-healthy behaviors are unsurprising. Still, says registered dietitian, podcaster, and cookbook author Desiree Nielsen, “if you’re on vacation, you’re on vacation,” a mindset that makes most of us less diligent. To go all in on the local cuisine, it’s wise to carry digestive aids lest our moveable feast goes awry.

To that end, Dr. Kéra Nyemb-Diop, the food scientist behind the platform Black Nutritionist, packs an anti-diarrheal, such as Immodium; a laxative like Metamucil for constipation; and an antacid, such as Pepto Bismol, to relieve indigestion and heartburn. For those with particularly touchy tummies, she also suggests a consultation with a travel medicine specialist. Along with giving vaccines, these practitioners can prescribe appropriate antibiotics for use if you do get sick. Whether you choose to hire a specialist, make an appointment with your primary care physician, or wing it, it’s worth researching the digestive risks of your destinations through the Centers for Disease Control and prevention website. 

For her part, Nielsen keeps regular on the road by snacking on nuts and other nutrient-dense, high-fiber foods. I wish I had been so smart last winter in Rome. I was hungry after our flight and dinner was still hours away. My partner offered a granola bar from her bag, but I insisted on eating something local: a snack-shop tramezzini stuffed with tuna salad so foul that I gagged. That night, I wound up hugging our house-swap toilet while my partner ran to a nearby pharmacy. She returned with liquid probiotics, which I guzzled down, desperate for relief.

I’m not sure they helped. The sickness lasted through the next day, and opinions are mixed on probiotics for either remedial or preventative use. When Nielsen carries them, she first consults USprobioticguide.com. It uses peer-reviewed research to determine the effectiveness of specific brands and dosages for curbing or preventing conditions like traveler’s diarrhea. The website is easy to use, but it’s a clinical tool meant for professionals, so you should double-check probiotic suggestions with a doctor. 

To help digest a range of foods, Nielsen also packs enzymes like Beano and FODZYME, though she draws the line at papaya enzymes, a popular health food store supplement. “I recommend eating fruit, including papaya, but the research on papain (a natural enzyme) in papaya is almost exclusively animal research, so I wouldn’t make claims about it for digestion,” she says. 

In places where drinking water is iffy, Dr. Mark Pimentel carries a choice piece of gear: a purifying water bottle. Pimentel is the executive director of Cedars-Sinai’s Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) program, which researches treatments for microbiome-related conditions, and he’s wary of the systems some hotels use to sanitize their water. “Reverse osmosis does remove pathogenic bacteria, but all water treatments require maintenance. This is where things can go wrong,” he says. Iodine tablets work, but they make water taste bad. Bottled water is generally safe, but it’s a source of plastic waste. Purifying water bottles don’t come cheap, but ones by brands like Grayl are a good investment. “You can use it over and over,” says Pimentel.

Finally, pack self-forgiveness. There’s no shame in farting, for instance. “We all have normal amounts of gas in our intestines, and it’s normal to pass gas,” says Ravella. “Particularly because gut health is a trend, we over-pathologize being a bit bloated or constipated,” Nielsen concurs.

But if you treat it with care, a healthy GI system will eventually work things out. “Your gut can adapt to new foods and environments with time,” says Nyemb-Diop. “Be patient.”  

Getting There

I always work on airplanes. Now as I type, I’m on a long haul to Tokyo from London, where during a lengthy layover, I caught the tube to the town of Hayes for lunch. I ordered dal makhani at a Nepalese restaurant. It’s a dish I love, but it’s lentil-based, and legumes, dear reader, blow me up. Gas can become more acute on a plane. “When an airplane is climbing, cabin pressure falls,” says Ravella. The lower air pressure, she explains, slows down your muscle contractions, which in turn slows your digestion. 

Also, on an airplane, says Pimentel, “you expand because the pressure outside your body is lower than the pressure inside. If you’re eating things that have or make gas, that’s just a whole lot more fun.” Airlines didn’t get the memo. “The flight attendant gives you hummus, chips, and soda, and you’re bloated out of your mind because soda is gas and hummus gives gas to everybody,” he grouses. 

Add to that the sitting for hours, the seatbelt squeezing your middle, and closed quarters you don’t want to fart in, and you’ve got a recipe for bloat. Planes are dehydrating to boot. “When you’re dehydrated, one failsafe of metabolism is it can harness water from the gut, which means your stool becomes drier and harder to pass,” notes Nielsen.

Research by gastroenterologists suggests the body reacts similarly when you visit a mountain destination like Cuzco or Denver. “High altitude is hard on your body, so it tells your body to take energy out of your gut and put it elsewhere,” says Nielsen. To counteract the effects, she suggests eating lighter things that are easier to digest— smoothies, oatmeal, rice bowls, nothing too fibrous—until the bloat subsides.

To keep your gut limber during long hauls, start ahead. In the days before your flight, tank up on water and eat high-fiber foods. Pack low-FODMAP snacks to eat on board. Familiar to sufferers of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), these foods have fewer fermentable carbohydrates than others, so they don’t generate as much gas. Bring a bottle to fill at the airport with water—not the bubbly kind. And if you like sipping an onboard bloody Mary, be careful not to over-indulge because alcohol is dehydrating. 

Finally, dress for comfort and don’t just sit there. “I have IBS, and I wear a long, flowy dress with no waistband because tight waistbands contribute to bloat,” says Nielsen, who adds, “Movement begets movement. Take a few laps around the terminal, and book an aisle seat so you can stretch your legs and go to the bathroom easily.”

When You Can’t Go

Constipation is a travel hazard. “After a night’s sleep, most of us have a strong urge, called the gastrocolic reflex, to have a movement because the digestive tract runs on a circadian rhythm,” explains Nielsen. Jet lag throws it off. 

The solution, says Ravella, is to sync your rhythm to your destination: try going to bed at a reasonable hour and waking with the sunlight. “It’s a cue to your gut that you’re in a new pattern.”

Set your meals to local time, if you can, and as you did before your flight, lube up your insides with H2O. At least until you get over your jet lag, you might want to avoid fatty, fried, or processed foods that slow your gut, and instead seek out fiber from whole plants. “If you’re cooking where you’re staying, try to make your first stop the farmers market or grocery store,” says Ravella, grabbing any local, seasonal produce you can find, as well as probiotic-rich foods that help your gut adjust. “Every culture has some version: fermented dosas, sauerkraut, kombucha.” 

Walk to and from local destinations, when possible. Staying active helps move things along in your gut by increasing blood flow to your digestive tract. When dining out, avoid overeating, which can cause indigestion. 

Follow these pointers, and you should get regular quickly without resorting to dicier means. “If you’re drinking coffee to alleviate constipation, it’s also stimulating,” Ravella points out. In addition to exacerbating jet lag, “it speeds up digestion, and then you’re more prone to getting diarrhea.” 

When You Can’t Stop Going

Like coffee, alcohol and soft drinks can be irritants, but in some locales, they’re safer to drink than tap water. That’s due to four main digestive pathogens. “The path of physiology is related to the equator. Hot locales south of the U.S.-Mexico border—Mexico, Central America, and northern parts of South America—have more E.coli. Asia has more campylobacter, which is harder to treat. Campylobacter is also in the U.S., but it’s not as common as in Southeast Asia. Salmonella and shigella can be anywhere,” says Pimentel. “It also has to do with regulations. Some countries don’t have inspection systems.” In risky locales, only drink water if it’s treated or in a clean, sealed bottle. Skip the ice, which might have been frozen from the tap. 

Even if alcohol is safer than the local water supply, you still should be careful not to overdo the booze, especially at the beach. Stay hydrated and under the umbrella. “Sunstroke can cause diarrhea because it’s stressful on the body and alters electrolyte balance,” says Nielsen. A sports drink can help. “Coconut water, on the other hand, is not as effective as the Internet would have you believe. It does have electrolytes, but it’s primarily potassium. You want sodium.”

Eating intentionally to avoid gut imbalances is trickier. “While street food can be tempting, always ensure it’s prepared and served in clean conditions,” says Nyemb-Diop. Easier said than done: A vendor might be immune to the local bacteria, so things can look safe when they aren’t. Few of us are turning down a tour of Singapore’s hawker stands or Oaxaca’s taco stalls, so Nyemb-Diop has a simple guideline: “Prioritize cooked foods. Uncooked and raw foods pose a higher risk of harboring harmful bacteria or parasites, potentially leading to food poisoning or diarrhea.”

Remember, food poisoning—when your body gets sick from eating contaminated, spoiled, or toxic food—can happen anywhere. “The all-you-can-eat buffet is the worst,” says Pimentel. “My friend the infectious disease doctor always dips the serving spoon where the burner is and not at the edges of the steam tray because the edges are at room temperature, which is great for growing the bad stuff that will ruin your vacation.”

Be wary of premade salads and condiments. “Potato salad is particularly problematic,” he says, so you might think twice about grabbing that random tub of it in the quick mart. As for one of my own culprits, studies have shown that salsa, which is often unrefrigerated, is a ripe environment for stomach bugs both north and south of the border. If you do eat fruits or raw vegetables when traveling in a place prone to gut pathogens, buy them whole and prepare them yourself by rinsing them in clean water and peeling them yourself, advises Ravella. (And be sure to wash your hands.) 

If You Do Catch a Bug, Like I Did

One bite of spoiled food can affect you for life. I’ve just come from Spain, where I toured the pristine kitchen of a two-Michelin-star restaurant that served me medium-rare pork. Under less-controlled conditions, undercooked pork can contain a parasite similar to the worm said to have died in the brain of a certain presidential hopeful, perhaps affecting his cognition. Food-borne bacteria can have long-lasting effects, too. “It changes the types of microbes you have in your gut,” says Ravella. “You can develop post-infectious IBS.”

Prepared with care, the pork was just fine. But the mussels en escabeche from a highly recommended tapas bar made me sick the next day: nausea, chills, and the runs. I had no antibiotics, but I wasn’t desperate enough to go to a clinic. Pepto Bismol and Immodium might have soothed me, but I hadn’t packed with my gut health in mind. So I took what I had, which was Advil. It provided some relief so I could sleep, but it wasn’t the best course of action. “Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory, so the effect you had is expected,” Pimentel wrote when I emailed him. “But it can cause ulcers in the long run. Even one dose can cause gastritis, so Tylenol [i.e., acetaminophen] would be better for the fever.” Now I know.

After downing as much water as I could, I was back to eating lightly the next day. “If you do get traveler’s diarrhea, hydration is critical,” says Nielsen. “Be extra careful with your food choices. Stick to simple, well-cooked, easily digested foods, like grains.” 

I should have sought a pharmacy for a rehydration solution, such as Pedialyte. But in the absence of bloody stool or severe stomach pain—symptoms indicative of a more-severe problem—I was in the clear. “Most infections are self-limited to a few days, and your body will re-adjust after it expels the germs,” says Ravella. 

The Larger Perspective

My latest run-in with food poisoning happened not in an equatorial locale but in Santiago de Compostela. “Travel-related digestive issues often carry a stigma, with certain destinations or cuisines being unfairly labeled as riskier for gut health. However, these issues can happen anywhere, including in highly developed countries,” says Nyemb-Diop. Ultimately, most stomach bugs caught on vacation are temporary. 

Many people who come to the U.S. discover that the American diet is no picnic for them, in return. For those who stay, the dietary issues can be ongoing. A Burmese expat whom my partner and I once interviewed for an article about refugee gardens bemoaned, “Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich! All you Americans eat is a sandwich!” He was growing vegetables to feed himself more nutritiously but blamed his bad belly on our deli food.

Science may back him up. “Recent research shows that U.S. immigrants from countries like Thailand, Mexico, and Haiti who adopt a Westernized diet after migrating often experience significant changes in gut microbiome composition and function,” Nyemb-Diop notes, including a loss of microbiome diversity and an imbalance in gut bacteria. “This finding is a reminder that the Western world can learn much from other cultures, especially those that emphasize whole foods, more dietary fibers, and less fat.”

“A lot of diets—the Mediterranean diet as practiced years ago in Naples, the Ayurvedic diet in India, traditional Mexican and African diets—are wonderful for gastrointestinal health and also pleasurable,” Ravella says. But our appreciation of them when we travel depends on how we approach them. “People want to experience new cuisines. But balance is key. If we are doing the right things when we travel, we can experience the food as it’s meant to be experienced, exposed to a new way of eating that’s actually incredibly healthy.”

My latest bug came after a week of heavy, wine-fueled meals. Who knows what was going on behind the scenes at that tapas bar, but no matter where in the world I am, I’m responsible for my own choices. I should have moderated the indulgence with lighter, plant-based eating. I know my GI tract was overtaxed. In the end, digestive health isn’t just about being cautious and taking the right meds; it’s also about listening to your body and learning as you travel. As Nyemb-Diop says, “Trust your gut!”

The post Is Travel Actually Bad for Your Gut? appeared first on Saveur.

Welcome to Gut Check, our column dedicated to the complex, ever-evolving relationship between food and our bodies. Whether you’re curious about mindful eating or want to understand what makes picky eaters picky, read on and let award-winning journalist Betsy Andrews answer all your burning questions. 

So many comments were vicious. Last spring, a lifestyle account posted a one-minute video on social media in which they were “helping” a life-long “picky eater” to “expand her palate.” Carrots, celery, baba ghannouj, raw onion, roasted salmon—the woman tried each for the camera and pretty much rejected them all. Followers called her a “fucking child.” They declared, “I despise her,” and, “Picky eaters are a major major turn off.” Yet, watching her attempt to bite the carrot then saying it “feels wrong,” I found myself thinking, along with a handful of other commenters, about food sensory issues. 

“Picky eater” is a label, not an explanation. There are many reasons someone might have more restrictive eating habits than another, food sensory issues among them. I thought the video, done another way that explored the reasons behind her diet, could have jump-started a real discussion about personal needs and wants in eating, and the compassion we should have for others around that. Don’t we all need to respect a “No, thank you” to food, just as we should respect it around anything else having to do with bodily autonomy? How does our negativity toward “picky eaters” affect them? 

Reading through the comments, I considered my own biases toward food restrictions. As a journalist, I go out to dinner a lot, and there’s always this question: “Any allergies or dietary restrictions we should know about?” I have to confess, when I respond, “Nope!” there’s a hint of pride in it, like I’m not one of those people whose difficult needs will inconvenience you. What a privilege it is to think this way, and how unfair. Like the negative commenters, I’ve been making value judgements, pitting my no-holds-barred eating against others’ limitations. I don’t know what it is like to live in a body with dietary restrictions, so why should I take pride in not having them? Determined to deconstruct my biases, I decided to talk to some folks who knew more about all this than I did. I started with my niece.

“I’m on the spectrum. That’s the biggest thing that affects my eating,” Rachel told me. Texture, smell—she’s sensitive to these. At 22, her diet is restricted to cheese pizza and a dozen other foods. She has been through intensive feeding clinics. She has tried, and sometimes succeeded, in adding new foods to her diet. When she does, like recently with buttered bagels, she is proud. That type of perseverance should be honored, but so should her needs around food to begin with. 

“I hate telling people I’m a picky eater or even on the spectrum because I feel like I’m going to be judged,” she says, “but if people want to go into depth, I will talk about it because people should have an understanding that it doesn’t matter what I eat. It’s my personality, what I do, who I am as a person that matters.” A senior in college, Rachel has found her community of support. “Some people are shocked but most understand. My friends are accepting of it. They don’t care.”

Who should? “How bad can it be that I have a daughter that is only extremely limited in her diet, but all her physical tests show that she’s healthy?” says my sister Jane. “Rachel’s an adult and in control. She makes it work. Why fix what’s not broken? That’s where we are.”

Morgan Blair, a licensed clinical counselor who writes the Psychology Today blog “Eating Disorders Among Gender-Expansive and Neurodivergent Individuals,” would agree with that approach. “If a person’s restrictive eating isn’t causing distress or impairment to the individual, then it doesn’t have to be a clinical concern,” she says. “My ultimate goal in treating neurodivergent individuals with eating struggles is to help them allow themselves to interact with their environment in a way that makes them feel content, happy, and fulfilled.” 

In other words, not everyone with food sensory issues has a disorder. Though there is a correlation between neurodivergency and eating disorders, there is also confusion among doctors, who might misdiagnose the eating style of a person on the spectrum as a disorder. Food sensory issues result from differences in processing sensations as well as a need for safety in a world made for neurotypical minds. Labeling people on the spectrum as “picky eaters,” says Blair, “creates an unfair and stigmatizing assumption that their struggles are superficial or created out of personal choice.”  

Rachel is fortunate. Her mother struggled with trauma-related bulimia as a teenager and is attuned to the difference between a disorder and a manageable sensory issue. “When Rachel was younger, I was constantly having to justify my child’s eating behaviors to other parents,” says Jane. “People judged me as being an enabler.” 

Stigma can follow people like Rachel throughout their lives. “I have seen time and time again neurodivergent individuals with food sensory issues be pressured, bullied, and stigmatized,” says Blair. People push them to eat, call them rude for not trying, or leave them out of gatherings around food. “I have also seen how this can then lead to the neurodivergent person suppressing, withdrawing, or masking their struggle to avoid those negative responses.” 

Yet, as anyone with a food allergy or intolerance can attest, neurodivergent people aren’t the only ones dealing with social pressures around food. A registered dietitian specializing in autoimmune conditions and eating disorders, Danielle Crumble Smith has suffered painful, food-related symptoms from Celiac disease, Lyme disease, SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), and hypothyroidism. “It can be quite a psychological burden. It becomes very isolating if people are not accepting,” she says. “At the same time, I’ve had people graciously try to make things for me to eat without fully understanding that that can be a stressor because I feel obligated to eat it.” Family members often push Smith’s patients with, “You can have a little bit.” But, though they might mean well, they are inadvertently causing problems. Even a bite or two of the wrong food can create inflammation in a body intolerant to it. 

The medical community should be driving public understanding, says Smith, but despite the estimated 20 percent of people who suffer food intolerance, physicians have long failed to examine the problem. “Doctors would say, it’s in your head, you’re stressed, you’re picky,” Smith says. With new research into the microbiome—the microorganisms living in our bodies that profoundly affect our health—“doctors are starting to see that these reactions are real,” says Smith. The paradigm shift is seeping from medicine into the wider culture. “It’s easier nowadays. I can call restaurants and ask specifically what I can have and how it’s prepared.”

Social media, says Kate Scarlata, can be both harmful and helpful. A registered dietitian and author, Scarlata specializes in the low FODMAP diet, a regimen of elimination and reintroduction of foods rich in short-chain carbohydrates that many bodies can’t digest. The bulk of her clients suffer from IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, a group of painful intestinal symptoms. Affecting up to 16 percent of people, IBS can be so debilitating that one survey found patients would sacrifice 25 percent of their remaining life for relief. But research on it is underfunded, says Scarlata, perhaps because it mainly impacts women.

“There has been a fair amount of medical gaslighting and stigma,” she says. “There’s embarrassment. They feel alone. ‘I’m having diarrhea. Pass the nachos.’ It’s not exactly cocktail party conversation.” In response, she started the hashtag #ibelieveinyourstory. Sufferers DM her, and she shares the science with them. “Part of my job is advocacy, giving them tools to talk to friends, neighbors, doctors, whoever.”

Social media campaigns like hers are making IBS a hot topic. “The poop emoji has been a star in breaking the taboo,” she adds. But as the “picky eater” video illustrates, social media is a double-edged sword, and its dangers go beyond intolerance to have a negative influence. “With eating disorders, increased social media use is a risk factor, and people with food-related special diet needs are at higher risk for developing disordered eating.” That does not mean your friend on a low-FODMAP diet is at risk for anorexia. “If you’re concerned your friend’s diet is so limited they can’t meet their nutritional needs, and it’s affecting their psychosocial functioning, that’s when you encourage them to get help,” Scarlata advises. 

It’s an entirely different thing, though, to pressure someone with food intolerances to have just one bite, or worse, to deride their diet. In a survey of food-allergic people in which 93 percent were children, nearly a quarter reported being bullied, teased, or harassed for their allergies. The bullies are spreading a culture that’s intolerant of food intolerance. “Parents say, ‘I wish we could just have peanut butter at the party.’ Kids hear that and may project it onto the kid with the allergy in their class.”

As our understanding of restrictive eating evolves, my niece Rachel clocks increased awareness. “It’s been a while since someone has interrogated me,” she says. That gives her breathing room to talk about more than her dietary habits.

I wish I’d had the wisdom to give such breathing room to my son, Harper, when he was little. A kid from Maine, Harper’s favorite food was clam chowder—until he was diagnosed with a shellfish allergy at nine. In the year that followed, he refused to eat restaurant food. I fretted over this. I’m a food writer. Dining out is what I do, who I am. How could my partner and I just stay at home and cook for this kid forever? Months later, a psychologist put things in perspective when he reminded us that Harper’s response was rational. “The wrong food could kill him,” the therapist said.

That sunk in. Before my kid was diagnosed, I was one of those parents who rolled their eyes at the school’s no-nuts policy, the type of behavior that might make my child think his allergic classmates were weirdos. Because of my own need for control around food—to eat whatever I want wherever and whenever and to have those around me join in—I resented others’ food restrictions. Writing this story has helped me realize: I’m still evolving that mindset.

What I’m saying is, if you’ve had your own moments of ambivalence over “picky eating,” I can relate. Food is a vessel for our physicality, our experiences, and our feelings. That could include some negative feelings over someone else’s relationship to food inconveniencing you. But maybe we should all take a note from Rachel. After all, she’s been nothing but respectful and patient with us non-picky eaters all these years. At family gatherings, she sits gracefully, usually not eating but happy to be there. Personally, I’d like to do unto others as Rachel does us.

The post What Everyone Gets Wrong About Picky Eaters appeared first on Saveur.

Welcome to Gut Check, our column dedicated to the complex, ever-evolving relationship between food and our bodies. Whether you’re curious about mindful eating or want to understand what makes picky eaters picky, read on and let award-winning journalist Betsy Andrews answer all your burning questions. 

This past July, I turned 60, and I started thinking more about my health. To me, the idea of healthy eating has always been a drag. I’m from Philadelphia. I want my cheesesteak. The aroma of caramelized meat and onions, the luscious goo of the Whiz, the burn of the long hots, the pillowy heft of the roll. Popping statins to quell my cholesterol, I’ve long eschewed diet culture in favor of truly enjoying my meals. 

But recently, something changed. The cheese and long hots are gastrically challenging, the bread is bloating, and the meat is a climate-damaging guilt trip. How, in that context, can I continue to love my cheesesteak? I am a food writer. Pleasure is ostensibly my subject and privilege. Yet I wonder how often I actually enjoy my meal, being prone to scarfing down lunch at my desk by day, then posting photos of fancy restaurant food by night. When I worked at SAVEUR in its onsite days, all the recipe testing, product samples, press meals, and long hours fueled by expense-account pizza meant weight gain. We called it the “Saveur 30.” We were privileged eaters, but I’m not so sure we were pausing to actually savor our meals.

In recent years, nutritionists and dietitians have started centering the idea of savoring—the pleasure of tuning in—as a way of improving our relationship to food. Many of them work with people who’ve cycled on and off diets all their lives. Is there something for non-dieters like me to learn? Can I have my cheesesteak and eat it, too? 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines savoring as, “In modern use, to taste with relish, to dwell on the taste of, also figuratively, to give oneself to the enjoyment or appreciation of.” With eating, the enjoyment is both figurative and literal because it is not a simple act. “People don’t eat nutrition; they eat food,” says registered dietitian and wellness and nutrition expert Tamara Melton. “They’re looking for flavors, textures, temperatures, sounds. Pleasure hormones in our brains get turned on once we start eating.”

Beyond that hit of dopamine, lots more happens. In Gastrophysics: The New Science of Food, psychologist Charles Spence, head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford, invites us to imagine eating a peach. “Your brain has to bind together the aromatic smell, the taste, the texture, the color, the sound as your teeth bite through the juicy flesh, not to mention the furry feeling of the peach fuzz in your hand and mouth.” 

Your thalamus processes that information and filters it to your cerebral cortex, where it’s connected to a slew of associations and memories. If you pay attention as you eat, slowly savoring each bite, those random thoughts organize themselves into a deeper enjoyment of your experience. As Spence told me when we spoke, “It’s like the pleasure of standing in front of a work of art and the transformative moment when you understand it and cry, ‘Aha!’”

That’s precisely the type of pleasure chef and psychologist Caroline Baerten promotes. Founder of Brussels’ Centre for Mindful Eating and Nutrition, Baerten is a disciple of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who popularized mindfulness—being present in the moment—through books like 2014’s How to Eat. During retreats, Hanh guides attendees in eating a single raisin. “Thanks to 100-percent attention to what I was doing, I was blown away. I had never tasted a raisin in such a profound way,” says Baerten. Stopping to savor a single raisin is likely a laughable proposition to the 39 percent of North American workers who basically never break for lunch (despite 94 percent saying they’re happier when they do). Mindful eating, then, is triage. You do what you can, taking a moment or two during eating to focus on your sense of smell, taste, or touch, checking in with how you and your body are feeling. 

After work, mindfulness can mean turning off the television and setting the table to essentially feel like an invited guest in your own home. “It creates this almost sacred moment where we can find this pleasure while we are eating, through the senses,” says Baerten.

A growing body of research points to the long-term psychological benefits of mindfulness. It’s an antidote to “an epidemic of stress,” says Dr. Lilian Cheung, director of mindfulness research and practice at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and author, along with Hanh, of Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life. The research backs her up. She also cites studies showing mindful eating’s association with decreased binge eating and a higher-quality diet. 

That doesn’t mean, nor do studies show, that mindfulness works for weight loss. “Viewing mindfulness and savoring through the lens of diet culture is problematic,” says clinical psychologist Alexis Conason, author of The Diet-Free Revolution. “I’m about tuning people in to what feels good and doesn’t. Allowing ourselves to have food is a radical act when we’re told most of our lives that our pleasure is gluttonous.”

Proponents of intuitive eating, another anti-diet approach, are even more explicit about the need for pleasure. As Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, the method’s co-founders, write in Intuitive Eating, “When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content.” You can use satisfaction to achieve balance, whatever the size of your body, so that your enjoyment of food is the driver behind experiencing a comfortable level of both hunger and fullness. 

Savoring your food, ultimately, helps you savor the rest of your life. Indeed, intuitive eating’s connection to “numerous adaptive psychological constructs” has been asserted in studies. “People have better moods, self-compassion, and they’re less connected with eating disorders and pathology,” Tribole notes. “They’re able to engage in life.”

Yet, savoring doesn’t have to be an all-in process. Intuitive eating dietitian Christy Harrison, host of the Rethinking Wellness and Food Psych podcasts, notes, “For people who are restricting or binging, savoring can be overwhelming. Distraction—looking at their phone, being out with friends—can be helpful.” Savoring doesn’t have to be, and for some people shouldn’t be, a solitary act. Meals with friends and family, if uncomplicated, can help you really connect with yourself, with others, and with the food you’re eating..

The social context is how Melton, co-founder of Diversify Dietetics, a non-profit promoting diversity in the field, approaches savoring. “Think of a group of friends sitting around eating. They all dig in and go ‘Mmm.’ Social pleasure comes from that collective experience,” she says. 

For Melton, whose father is Trinidadian, an essential part of helping people savor their food is honoring the culture it came from. “Often food is the one thing people can experience from home multiple times a day,” she says. “Let’s take away the stigma that what you are feeding to your family is not healthy just because mainstream culture says it’s not. What do you like to eat? What memories is it bringing back? Celebrations, family, customs—Is there a reason why you are craving this kind of food?”

Where does all this leave my cheesesteak and me? Well, I’m biologically programmed to crave it, for starters. “From an evolutionary perspective, there must be a reason we have dopamine,” Baerten said. “Pleasure pulls us toward something. The question is, what gives you not just superficial pleasure but profound, soul-based pleasure? That has to do with connecting with deeper layers within yourself and others.” She wasn’t talking about cheesesteaks, of course. She was thinking of the way you savor broccoli from a grower you come to know at the farmers market. But I certainly feel connected to my family and my community when I’m back in Philly and eat my hometown sandwich. 

The next time I order a cheesesteak, I will tune into what feels good and what doesn’t, as Conason says, and not eat it with so many gut-challenging long hots. I’ve also been thinking about something Cheung suggested: “We’re in the habit of saying, ‘I don’t have enough time for lunch, so I’ll eat while meeting the deadline,’” she said. “One way of savoring your food is spending 10 minutes doing nothing but eating. If you’re in a hurry, save the rest for a snack. You’ll get hungry later, and you can have the food again and appreciate it.” Then she mentioned how on Okinawa, one of the planet’s so-called Blue Zones, where people live to be in excess of 100, they make sure to eat to only 80 percent fullness.

I’ll eat my cheesesteak, not like I normally do, while driving. Instead I’ll slide into a booth at the local joint, unwrap the sandwich carefully, ponder the sensations of the meaty, melty filling and its sturdy roll as I eat it, until I feel I am just this side of “Oy, I am stuffed.” I’ll rewrap what’s left contemplatively, and look forward to savoring it the next day, when I feel hungry again.  

The post The Science of Savoring appeared first on Saveur.

Welcome to Gut Check, our column dedicated to the complex, ever-evolving relationship between food and our bodies. Whether you’re curious about mindful eating or want to understand what makes picky eaters picky, read on and let award-winning journalist Betsy Andrews answer all your burning questions. 

Eating disorders run in my family. Recently, a cousin died of one. It wasn’t just how much he ate but what: cola, chips, and candy round the clock. He basically snacked himself to death on a diet that led to heart disease, diabetes, and other complications. One reason he might have made unhealthy food choices is counterintuitive: He couldn’t stay full. “Food that is mainly carbohydrates or high in sugar is palatable. It goes down easily. It’s lower in volume, or water content, so you can eat a lot before your stomach expands,” explains Cara Harbstreet, a dietitian and the founder of Street Smart Nutrition. “But it doesn’t carry the fiber or other things that contribute to fullness and slow down eating.” 

You know that stuffed feeling after polishing off a steak or a bowl of pea soup? Experts call it satiety. In 1995, Australian nutritionists devised a satiety index to track which foods made us feel fullest. Feeding subjects different foods and monitoring their hunger afterward, the researchers found foods with the lowest satiety were carb-and-sugar bombs. These are delicious, but their dopamine rewards amount to empty calories. 

Foods with high satiety—those that keep you fullest the longest—are “high-thermic,” says food scientist Dr. Taylor C. Wallace, meaning that “muscles in the stomach and intestines take a lot of energy to break them down.” Chief among high-thermic foods is protein. “The body spends almost 30 percent of the calories it takes in from a protein trying to digest it.” 

After protein on the high-thermic scale, there’s fat, which slows the body’s absorption of carbohydrates. Anyone who loves toast slathered in butter knows how fat carries flavor, which begets satiety and satisfaction. Then comes fiber—the roughage that makes whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and legumes harder (in a good way) to digest. High-fiber foods often contain lots of water, which further fills your belly. 

That’s the gist of satiety: There are foods that take their time in your gut, and foods that don’t. “Generally, whole foods make you feel full longer than processed ones,” says dietitian nutritionist Kylene Bogden, a dietitian and functional sports nutrition expert who works with professional athletes. 

But every expert I spoke with cautioned against using the satiety index as a diet plan. Diets, they say, don’t work. “Clinical studies show minimal, if any, effect,” Wallace notes. And the satiety index has only been used in a limited way in labs; it hasn’t been applied to a broad study of actual, everyday behavior, where its efficacy can really be tested.

Still, the concept of satiety is useful. “If you eat a doughnut, and your brain’s happy, you can understand why your stomach still wants a meal. If you eat fish and vegetables, and your body is happy, you know why your brain still wants the doughnut,” says Ariane Resnick, a special-diet chef and nutritionist whose clients have included Gwyneth Paltrow and P!nk. 

Makes sense to me. In a world where celebrities are clamoring for weight-loss short-cuts like taking Ozempic and other diabetes drugs to suppress their appetites, and where others, like my cousin, refuse to take care of their diabetes and go for broke on unhealthful foods, paying attention to fullness seems like a sober and balanced approach to eating. The pros I spoke with have pointers for thinking about the satiety index. 

Don’t mistake satiety for healthfulness. “You could eat a Wendy’s triple cheeseburger without the bun, and that’s high satiety, but it’s not healthy,” says Wallace. “You’ll see weight loss, but did you raise your bad cholesterol or give yourself hypertension?” Satiety can, however, help avoid the pitfalls of calorie counting. “You could starve yourself slamming low-cal Ritz Cracker packs that spike your blood sugar level. Then you’re hungry, can’t lose weight, and have no energy,” says Bogden. “Foods that are slower to digest keep blood sugar more stable.”

Go for satisfaction. Resnick isn’t a fan of steamed vegetables. “Roasted under a chicken or stir fried, vegetables are more appealing,” she says. If you agree with her, then you’re more inclined to eat your veggies with some fat on them. As it turns out, some vitamins are fat soluble; your body can’t access them unless the veggies are glistening in chicken drippings. “So think about what gives you satisfaction as well as nutrition. We do better listening to our bodies than to ideology.”

Diversify your plate. Protein, fat, and fiber: Satiety requires all three. “If one is missing, that leads to hunger,” Harbstreet explains. “You end up dissatisfied and might rummage around for something else to munch on.” That means combining colors, textures, and flavors at every meal as much as possible. 

Resist dogma. “You’ll probably need more than fish and vegetables because, typically, those foods don’t give you the most joy and satisfaction, as they’re not full of sugar, salt, or fat, which are emotional triggers,” says Resnick. “So add a carbohydrate if you like.” If refined carbs (like white bread or pasta) make you happy, start there, then give less-refined carbs (like brown rice and pulses) a try. 

Be proactive. Fully eliminating low-satiety foods is impossible. We aren’t robots, after all. Rather than abstinence, Harbstreet recommends a measured, mindful approach: “If you’re going to a birthday party, be strategic. Have a balanced meal beforehand, then go ahead and eat some cake.” It’s not about hard rights and wrongs. Make your choices on a “cake-by-cake” basis.

Write your own story. Get to know yourself through your eating. “Start with what you normally eat and keep a journal of how you’re feeling, and how full you are, 30 minutes, one hour, and two hours from eating,” suggests Bogden. Did your energy dip? Do you want to eat more? “Then gravitate to higher satiety foods, and journal again.” If journaling is dredging up bad feelings, go see a professional who can help you use satiety and other tools in a way that works for your mind and body. “None are the be-all, end-all,” says Resnick. “Every tool is something to consider to find what’s best for you.”

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