Week IV: Vote with Your Fork

This challenge is about satisfaction, recognizing and defining your pleasure. Every time you eat, rate the food and beverage on a scale from 1 to 10, the higher the number the better the meal. Rate not only the overall quality of the meal, but each part of it (i.e. salad was okay but nothing special = 5,  main dish was delicious = 8, dessert was stale = 3).

Define what gives each eating experience its value: taste, smell, presentation, texture, temperature, color, ambiance of the room. Don't miss the flavor at the end of each bite (the lingering after taste of chocolate is my favorite part of candy). Locate the primary physical area of the pleasure in your body (i.e. coffee in your nose, salty foods along the roof of your mouth, sweet at the tip of your tongue). Then look for patterns in your habits.

Most importantly, don't forget the sensation in your torso. When your hunger is getting gratified, the feeling may start out as a ten. Watch for the moment the satisfaction level in your belly drops to below 5.

Make it Real:
It is okay to eat something that is less than pleasing because you're hungry and it's all that is available at the moment. Indeed, this is a circumstance forced upon most of the people on this planet. In our case it's a choice, so let's set a limit to this compromise. Know how much mediocre food you'll consume to forestall hunger and STOP there.

You can realize that a familiar food is no longer satisfying, eat it and plan on changing the flavor or the situation later.

If writing the rating down helps your focus then use your notebook from the Week I challenge: Written in Stone. Your host or hostess doesn't need to know what the low number rating on the page signifies.

Food for Thought:
Do you usually give highest marks to breakfast foods, dinners at home or lunch out?

After assessing a food with less than a rating of 5, do you eat all of it anyway? Do you keep eating beyond your delight? Will you drink a second glass of bad wine?

Does the food or flavor become less interesting or satisfying as you chew or after several bites, dropping from a high rating at the beginning of the meal to a lower number by the time you finish?

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