One thing my husband and I fiercely agreed on when our two older children were in elementary school was prioritizing family dinners.
Research has found that children who regularly eat with their families are better off physically and emotionally. We had to make special efforts to eat together after we noticed hectic schedules had our family ties feeling like more ships passing in the night. It took some planning and intention, but dinner became our chance to connect and exhale together.
Family dinners build trust and understanding. They can also improve our digestion so we get more nutrition from our food. That's in part because of the cephalic phase of digestion—the thoughts and sensory experiences we have before eating which activate saliva and other digestive juices.
"In more traditional times people would sit down together for a meal at the table and they would take their time waiting for all the dishes to come to the table, and in that process, they're looking at the food and smelling it and having conversations together," Robin Fillner, a certified functional nutritional counselor told The Epoch Times in a story about the cephalic stage of digestion.
It's a real challenge for the body when we inhale fast food in the car in between appointments or do computer work during lunch, said Fillner. Multi-tasking can rev up the nervous system, which ought to be calm for optimal digestion...
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