It’s ridiculous to propose that there is such a thing as eating incorrectly! But, is it really that outlandish? One of the most infamous examples of eating the “wrong way” would be to take one huge bite out of a whole Kit Kat bar instead of breaking it up into individual pieces like the design intends. In a similar vein to this, imagine if someone were to cut a slice of pizza or pie right out of the center and not from the outer edge of the circular food. How about eating ice cream starting from the bottom of the cone upwards, or biting into a hot dog from the middle first. To so many of us, these manners of eating seem so unnatural and seeing others eat like this can even cause us distress and frustration.
Why do we think these ways of eating are inherently wrong? It’s most likely because they are inefficient, unbalanced and illogical. Maybe it goes against the implied social conventions of food consumption. Though this begs the question, is there a correct way to eat food?
If there are wrong ways to eat food, then that should conversely mean there are right ways to consume our day to day meals. There typically is a logical process we follow when eating our meals because of the habits formed around when and what we eat. The daily cycle and order of breakfast, lunch, and dinner for example, is a planned and organized structure to eating. Because of this, there is already an established baseline to which foods are eaten at specific times and essentially, these are unspoken rules. If this broader aspect of eating has such unspoken rules applied to it, then surely there must be similar rules to the smaller, more specific details of eating. For instance, one might choose to eat the warmer foods first before they get cold, or eat the cooler portions of your meal if some parts are too hot, or save a particular food for last, and even eat the food in a grouped order, such as meats before vegetables. These aren't necessarily seen as a right or wrong, but rather a structure an individual may use.Â
Though there are some methods of eating that are seen as breaking conventional structures which are viewed as odd or illogical, such as having cereal and milk for dinner or dessert before the main course. One curious thing to note is what reason compels someone to eat incorrectly. Perhaps it may be that they are ignorant to the way in which a food is usually eaten, or they enjoy the anarchy of such an act and the reactions of others in response, or they simply don’t care for these meticulous processes where we scrutinize our eating habits to the point of meals being structured similarly to filling in a paint-by-numbers page. Honestly, it seems quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things to talk about something as silly as unconscious actions we take while eating the food on our plates, but trying to understand these mundane and seemingly trivial parts of humanity does, in a strange sense, give insight into how individuals processes work.
