You Are How You Eat

My sister and I are so much alike. While we are not Irish twins (we are Polish), we are very close, sixteen months apart, to be exact. We both enjoyed dance as children, and now as we age, we find joy in reading, the beach, and friends.

While recently sharing a week of vacation sans husbands, we found ourselves eating lunch at one of those ”healthy” places serving acai, fruit, and granola. It was a beautiful day as we sat outside waiting for our deliciousness to arrive. With the sun in our eyes and our focus on the beautifully colored fruit, we both attacked our bowls. She started at the top and continued to mix the ingredients so every spoonful contained all the parts. On the other hand, I made a line down the middle and proceeded to eat half of the bowl down to the paper cup.

She looked at me in utter horror and exclaimed, “What are you doing? You are doing it all wrong!”

“Oh no, my friend. My way, I get to finish one side and then start all over again. It’s like having two bowls in one.”

I quickly realized that being sisters and sharing so much did not mean we had all the same habits, so after a persuasive “discussion” on the merits and problems of our eating styles, we agreed to disagree and move on.

But the concept of food and eating got us thinking. Maybe we were more different than we always imagined. We moved our conversation to how we eat our food and approach our dinner plate. I eat my salad, veggies, and protein, followed by the carb. My theory is to fill up on the good stuff so you are complete before the carb. She eats clockwise, sampling all the foods one after another.

Was there a right way? Maybe her way was better. Perhaps I have been eating wrong for the past 50+ years. For a brief moment, I started to panic that I was wrong and messed up my kids by teaching them “my way.”

I laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of my runaway thoughts. But I know there are no accidents, so I started thinking about the way people attack their food and how it might give insight into the person they are. My sister is indeed calm, even-tempered, and steadfast. Her acai bowl was evenly eaten, and there were no surprises. On the other hand, I am in constant search for joy, so not surprising that I wanted two experiences for the price of one. I was pleasantly surprised that there is a whole science that investigates eating habits and personality. For example, one study claimed that people who finish their plate before the rest of the table even begins tend to be more career orientated and like to win, while the slower eaters are more the “don’t forget to smell the roses” kind of folks. I am not one of those scientific people. Yet, I began investigating food’s role and what it might reveal about us.

I started with the fundamental question. How do you attack your plate? I would say that the answers broke down into four categories. Some did the” mix it up” or placed two foods on the fork at once; some ate their least favorite food first and worked to the best. A few people said they keep the food separated (not even touching) and eat clockwise around the plate. And my favorite was the man who ate the fries first (because he likes them hot).

One of my dear friends, a self-proclaimed neat nick and type A personality, eats corn on the cob much like an old-fashioned typewriter might add words to a paper, left to right, returning to the following line. When I asked her to explain her thinking, she said she likes keeping her universe tidy. She laughed when she told me the story of a cousin who haphazardly ate her corn, grabbing pieces from all sides. Although it made her uncomfortable to watch, this was the ideal place to dive deep into a conversation about personality types.

Another friend talked about the chaos of dinner with six children in the family. This was a winner take all competition each night. If you didn’t hunker down and plow through the food, finishing before others hadn’t even started first, by the time the lazy Susan spun to you, there would only be scraps left and, more importantly, the last one to leave the table had to clean the dinner dishes.” You can bet your sweet $%&! I would eat as quickly as possible under those conditions.

I imagine that only children have a very different view of dinner time. Without the competitive nature, maybe dinner is a place of reflection, good conversation, and quality time. Perhaps, you came from a busy family, and dinner was a thirty-minute event before you had to move on and do something else. Regardless of the impetus, the fact that you have kept these habits probably means they have become part of your personality.

So with my very unscientific data in tow, I tried to think about how we could use this information to be better readers of people and, by default, better conversationalists.

Food is a central part of interaction, both personally and professionally. Friends, potential lovers, or business partners find a meal a great place to connect.

On a date, while covering the getting-to-know-you questions, you might discover that your dinner guest does not let his food touch. Is he very particular in more than just his tastes? Perhaps his structure translates to a “strive for perfection” personality. Is he saying one thing but displaying completely different traits in his actions? If we are paying attention, a wealth of information can be garnered by eating. But, instead of judging the behavior and then creating a reason or evaluation that may be based on false data, use the information to start conversations. “I could not help but notice you eat each item on the plate separately. That’s funny because I mix all my food up.” TADA- a perfect segway into stories of childhood, likes and dislikes, and traditions. The list is endless.

The saying, “A leopard does not change his spots’ seems appropriate here. The person that you are, your habits, traits, and quirks are developed early on and are integral to your personality. You can probably hide some of them with your speech or actions, but I will say that many people do not realize that how they eat shines a spotlight on their true personalities.

Use the dinner plate, ice cream cone, cocktails, and appetizers as your guide. You, too, will become a master at using the information gained to give you a place to start the connection that is the key to all good interactions. Now you can use food and eating to get to know the person you are sharing a meal with. Who needs all those catchy personality tests in magazines? You have the key right in front of you. Bonapetite!