Japanese Takeaway

Eating what you enjoy rather than what the food police tell you to eat is the key to healthier and happier living.

- Jennifer Bowden

Food, and the enjoyment of it, is serious business in Japan. “Make all activities pertaining to food and eating pleasurable ones,” the Japanese government instructed citizens in its 1988 dietary guidelines.

Contrast that with the diet-obsessed West, where many of us are fixated on being thin, thinner, thinnest – so obsessed we overlook one of the greatest gifts of life: enjoying good food.

Discovering the satisfaction aspect of food is one of the 10 principles of intuitive eating – an eating philosophy that seeks to reconnect us with our inner wisdom about what, when and how much to eat.

Food satisfaction may sound flaky, but it can be a driving force for happier and healthier living because, when we enjoy what we eat, we’re more likely to be satisfied with less food in total, according to Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, authors of Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works.