As we talked before, it is not healthy eating too fast. However, slowing down is not easy. On the one hand, people do not have much time eating too slowly, on the other hand, people get used to eating fast. It requires lots of perseverance to control your own mouth and chew slowly and carefully. In the meantime, it is very difficult from the instinct to face the food unhurriedly when you are starving to death. 

Then, what should we do? Just the usual way: solve it fundamentally. Since we know the reason why we eat fast, we can find the way to tackle it.

First, for breakfast: in two steps.

Breakfast is truly a meal without enough time. Although as the old saying: Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. If you get up half an hour earlier, you do not have to eat too fast. But the current situation is that young people are unwilling to go to bed at night, and refuse to get up in the morning, so naturally the breakfast time is squeezed seriously. On this condition, it is recommended that have something easy to swallow for breakfast, for example, milk and bread, or steamed stuffed bun and Jellied Tofu, you can finish it in five minutes.

You can only do it in two steps if you want to last your breakfast time. Stuff yourself before leaving home, and have an extra one between two meals. It requires a little preparation. Put a fruit, a small bag of nuts, or a box of soybean milk or yogurt. Take these things out for snacks between meals around 10 to 11. This extra meal prolongs the breakfast time actually. In this way, food varieties are increased, the quantities of the breakfast are supplemented, and the nutritional qualities are improved. At the same time, it can prevent the hunger before noon efficiently; make yourself who is facing the lunch not swallow anxiously, but calmly.

Next comes the lunch: relax the mood.

There is usually one hour resting time during lunch, you do not have to be too hurry. Why people still eating rapidly? On the one hand, few things are included in breakfast, you eat too fast when faced with food in the noon. You can solve it with the first method. On the other hand, office worker usually eat snacks outside, food itself give priority to rice、steamed bread、bread and so on. They are easy to swallow, and with few vegetables. And one more important reason is that people have no mood to relax, still in the condition of working, not focus on the meal itself.

It is difficult for you to decide what kinds of food to eat. But it is necessary to relax yourself at noon. So, it is recommended that the office workers adjust mood while having lunch, forget about the work temporarily and focus on the meal. Before the meal, take a deep breath firstly, remove all the work and other thoughts out of your brain, count carefully how many times you have chewed, how many food materials you have taken. Remind yourself of chewing at least 15 times per mouthful of food, naturally you will slow down. Taste each mouthful with carefully; the unpalatable food will be tasty.

I read from a book that there used to be an invention of “weight reduction spoon” abroad. There are traffic lights on the handle of the spoon. When the red light shines and the spoon starts to beep, it means you are eating too fast, it will remind you to slow down. It seems that our country needs this invention badly too. People may burst into laughter when he hears the spoon complaining, he will not be that nervous any more, and he will relax and slow down while eating.

Then the supper: vegetables and roughage.

Among all kinds of food, vegetables and roughage are chewing needed and most time-consuming when you have dinner. Generally, office workers don’t have vegetables and roughage in the morning, not much in the noon, so they make it up at night. So, throw yourself with a big plate of vegetables, first finish half of it then have other food, you will slow down naturally. It will be better if added a kind of roughage. In this way, you can improve your nutrition balance effectively, also slow down your supper speed efficiently.

The best way to slow down is to have the mixed vegetables. Because when having raw food, you can not swallow them without chewing carefully. So it will take you longer time to take the meal. The main course of roughage will surely causes you longer time than the rice and flour. For example, it takes you longer time to finish oatmeal than the porridge; and so is the graham steamed bread than the white steamed bread.

So, if you find the right food, it is impossible to finish the supper in 5 minutes. If you can have dinner with families and friends, you can relax your mind even better, and with more diverse varieties of food, naturally time will mount up to at least 20 minutes.

Then comes the way to cook: Increase the volume.

When having food, it is easily having too much and excessive food if the food is small in size and with more content. We may do it in an opposite way, larger the size of the food but lower the energy density. In this way, even if the mechanical sensor in the stomach feels full, actually not much dry material are included. Eating like this, the food volume of every meal increased, so you will eat more slowly, but the risk of getting fat will be reduced.

According to this theory, it is definitely absurd to have biscuits for a meal. Because the biscuit is lack of water and has high energy intensity. Using the Coarser Grains Porridge as the main course is very good. Because of large volume, there is less than 10% dry staff in a big bowl of porridge. Even if you can finish one quickly, you can not be too fast for the second or the third one. And actually, three bowls of mush are equal to one bowl of rice, then how about gruel? Four to five will do. But, to finish three bowls of porridge is much slower than one bowl of rice, and the roughage porridge is even slower. 

Another way to increase volume is to add fruits and vegetables which contain large sum of water. Vegetables contain more than 90% of water except potatoes, and some can even reach 96%, such as cucumbers、tomatoes、Chinese cabbages and so on. You had better not throw layers and outer leaves which are hard to chew. Have more vegetables, you won’t be afraid of getting fat, and also it can reduce the speed. It is also a great way to have fruits during meal. I can responsibly say that, it is totally harmless to your health having fruits during the meal, as long as they are not iced. If you still have some concerns, you can refer to my articles in the blog on the above.

Actually, according to this theory, taking soup before meal is also a good way. Its direct effect is letting the food eaten dilute inside the stomach, thereby increasing satiety. Once a person feels full, he will slow the pace of eating.

    If you are interested in feeling the really taste of the food, you may try this: Eat according to the request of the food tasting: take in half mouthful of food, chew it carefully for at least 20 times, put the food on the tongue smoothly, then scroll your tongue, let the taste buds of the whole tongue totally feel its taste(the taste bud’s jobs on the tongue are different, the front ones feel the sweet, left and right ones feel salty and acid separately, and the ones the end of the tongue feel bitter). Then swallow the food in two or three times. Eating in this way, you will find lots of minor tastes and flavors which cannot be felt on our daily life, it is very interesting.

If you insist on a period time of “slow eating”, you will find the effects naturally. Not only your body will feel more comfortable, but also mentally will become calmer. In this way, our quality of life will be improved, isn’t it?