How to Make Every Meal the Best Meal Ever

When you think back on the best meal you ever had, chances are, it wasn’t a gourmet dinner that you ate by yourself while reading the newspaper. Sure, good ingredients and skillful preparation are important parts of a great meal, but there’s so much more to the experience. Whether you’re an amazing chef, a microwave maven, or a frequent flyer at your local take-out joint, you can make every meal you eat the best meal ever without buying a single new kitchen gadget. Join Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, as he shares 6 simple steps that are guaranteed to make any meal a memorable one in this delicious new video from #IPEtv!

Below is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings friends, this is Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

Today’s Topic: How to Make Any Meal the Best Meal Ever

I want to be real honest with you. I’m not the world’s best cook. In fact, my friends joke that I’m the nutrition and eating psychology guy who’s relatively useless in the kitchen.

To my defense, I am willing to assert that I make some of the best guacamole on the planet. And to their point, things get ugly from there.

But there’s actually one thing that I’m pretty skilled at that I’d like to share with you when it comes to food. I know how to make any meal the best meal ever. It’s a recipe. It requires some special ingredients. There’s some flexibility in this recipe, but there’s also a few rules about what you CAN’T have in the meal.

And because I’m such a knucklehead in the kitchen, I assure you that this method for making any meal the best meal ever is relatively foolproof. It’s a recipe. And there are 6 key ingredients you’ll need. Here they are:

Ingredient #1 – Celebration

Eating in a meditative state is okay, it can be super satisfying, and sometimes a solitary meal is just what we need. But here’s the thing – humans need each other, we feed off of each other, and something special happens when we make any meal a reason to rejoice. It doesn’t need to be a holiday. Every moment can be made special. Every meal can be a reason to praise life. Celebrate that it’s Monday, celebrate that you have a job, celebrate that you can still breathe and smile, that someone cares about you, or celebrate that despite all the lunatics who’ve annoyed you in your lifetime, you’re still going strong. The more you celebrate, the better the food tastes, and the more your digestive organs will cheer you on.

Ingredient #2 – Love

You know how good love is. I shouldn’t even have to remind you, but I’ll do it anyway, because if we forget to include love in the meal, and if we’re teetering at the edge of depression, or disappointment, or apathy, or loneliness – then we easily fall to the other side where the grass isn’t so green. Food can elevate us. Food plus love can make any problem in the world go away – at least for a little while. Love is not so much an ingredient you add to a meal, as it is the PLACE from where you prepare it, cook it, serve it, eat it, and bless it. The heart is the best kitchen in the world. It makes any meal the best meal ever.

Ingredient #3 – Time

Chances are, anything in life that you can call the best ever probably needed some time. The best vacation ever likely didn’t last for a day. The best kiss ever probably was longer than a peck on the cheek. The best car you ever drove took some time to manufacture. I think you get the picture. A key ingredient to make any meal the best meal ever is time. Slow down. Experience the bounty of your food. Take in every sense, every color, and every nuance. Time is a gift that we give. It’s precious to those we give it to. It shows the universe our investment. Give your meal a hearty dose of time, and it will gratefully nourish you in return.

Ingredient #4 – Communion

Communion is so often associated with a religious experience, and for good reason. It’s all about connecting to something more, something sublime, something a bit more heavenly in a simple morsel of food. Communion means that when we eat, we can experience something that goes far beyond nutrition and far beyond the wholesomeness of eating a nice salad. Communion is a beautiful, intimate moment that makes any meal or any bite the greatest ever. You don’t need a particular religion to feel a sense of communion. You simply need to access the greater wisdom, the higher good, and the grander dimension that’s all about us, but hidden from normal view. Communion makes anything you eat a superfood.

Ingredient #5 –Gratitude

Perhaps if we were more grateful for what we’ve got, then we wouldn’t feel like we’re personally not enough. Gratitude is vastly underrated in the nutrition world. And it might be one of the most absent nutrients in our food chain. People are busy. Perhaps you don’t have enough time for gratitude. But there are plenty of people who don’t even have any food to be grateful for, and their time is running out. About every 4 seconds, someone on planet Earth dies of starvation. If you think about that for a moment, then please say a prayer for the unfortunate soul who just passed on for lack of food. Let’s be grateful together. Food is so valuable, it can save a life.

Ingredient #6 – Finality

How we do food is how we do life. Every meal is a metaphor for how you show up in this world. Are you present? Does the meal matter? Are you complaining? Are you multi-tasking? Are you judging or criticizing this or that? So add love, celebration, time, communion, and gratitude to every meal if you can. No matter how immortal we may think we are, life is short. Imagine if every meal was your last meal ever. How would you experience it? Would you worry about your weight, your appetite, or anything for that matter? Enjoy while you can. Make every meal the best meal ever. You owe it to yourself, and to the greater wisdom that brought you here.

I hope this was helpful my friends.

Please email us at info@psychologyofeating.com if you have specific questions and we will be sure to get back to you. Thanks so much for your time and interest.

This is Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. In the comments below, please let us know your thoughts. We love hearing from you and we read and respond to every comment!