The family that eats together…
…eats more nutritious meals together.
So saith the NY Times. Research indicates that families who eat a regular meal together—be they troubled or un, and their ubiquitous TVs on or off—are eating better, as well.
No one knows quite why, although researchers have tried to control for the obvious possibility that families who eat together are different in additional ways from those who don’t. It would be instructive to see what would happen if one could take families who don’t ordinarily eat together and assign half of them to do so, and then measure the differences between the two groups. Of course, in that instance there might be some subtle differences between families who comply with the order and those who don’t, and this could affect the findings.
That’s the way social science research tends to be: sketchy. I know; it’s a field in which I’ve worked.
But what interests me most about this particular article is the topic of the family meal itself, and its devolution over time. When I was growing up, the evening meal was nearly sacred in almost every family I knew. It happened at a certain appointed hour, and one violated the call to table at one’s peril.
In my family, when my father came home from work at 6 PM, dinner was placed on the table, and woe to the child who hadn’t come in from playing outside, or who was unfindable. The food itself was plain but tasty and well-balanced, and we were expected to at least sample a bit of everything. And if we didn’t like what was served that night, tough. It was understood we wouldn’t starve if most of a single meal was skipped.
I had trouble with, of all things, steak. The vegetarian option so many girls take nowadays wasn’t common back then, so it really didn’t occur to me to stop eating it even if such a thing had been allowed, which it wasn’t.
But worst of all was a dish one almost never sees nowadays, and mercifully so: tongue. I cannot resist trying to attempt a visual here (scroll past quickly, all ye of squeamish stomach):
But sharing that image can’t begin to convey what it was actually like to confront beef tongue as it was regularly served in my home: attached to part of the jawbone. I was not allowed to leave the table, so I erected a barrier to block the grisly sight. The tall water pitcher was pressed into service, as well as the bowls of mashed potatoes and green beans. According to Wikipedia, beef tongue is—or was—popular in families of German origin, and so it was my mother’s German side of the family that I blame.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system I’ll go on to say that it’s my impression that the family meal has far greater benefits then mere improved nutrition, tongue or no tongue (and, by the way, tongue probably wouldn’t come under the heading of healthful food nowadays, since according to Wiki it’s about 75% fat). Eating together doesn’t necessarily make a family happy together, but at least it forces them to interact and to know a bit about each other.
I’ve encountered many families who take their meals as separate individuals. Sometimes it’s a scheduling thing, but sometimes it’s just the path of least resistance in a family whose members are already so uncomfortable in each others’ presence that they’d rather avoid close encounters of any kind. But my totally unscientific observation is that the act of eating separately tends to cause even more estrangement.
My family had its share of problems, and our meals sometimes ended in yelling and/or tears. But mealtime was the time when we most felt like a family, and just as often there was a lot of laughter. Come to think of it, sometimes political discussions would happen at the dinner table as well, perhaps fostering the development of the future blogger in me—one had to learn to defend one’s position with a certain amount of logic and grace.
Bon appetit, families.
we would play afternoon-long sports contests in the neighbor’s yard. Our Mom’s would yell for us to come to dinner, and we would go:
Aw, Mom! The score is 84-77! You have to let us finish this drive!!
We had to eat three bites of every type of food on our table. We would try to hide foods – such as turnip greens – in the remnants of our carrots, et al. My Mom would find this while doing the dishes, and summon us back to the table, after everyone else had gone, to finish our three bites.
Clear emotional and gustatory abuse. Thank God parenting has evolved.
I don’t see what’s so hard to understand. If the family aren’t eating together, that means that each one is just grabbing something quick (and junky?) from the fridge, whereas when a family sits down together for a meal, somebody has prepared that meal.
Non-regular eating disrupts the body’s metabolism. Depending upon the genetic base template, this could cause some interesting problems long term.
Also, eating too quickly can fill a person up but not satisfy the hunger, due to the fact that the stomach needs more than 10 minutes to digest food. This can cause folks to eat snacks later on or drink soda or eat sugar of one kind or another. Coffee suppresses the hunger reflex, but it simply makes people more hungry later on. All this tends to lead to binge fests where people go for the high calorie, high sugar, and high fat foods since they contain the most energy per meal that quickly satisfies their hunger without the need for long digestion times.
Tongue, I’m not eating anything that came out of a cows mouth, bring me a couple of eggs. If you don’t get it don’t bother.
There was one kid in Jr. High School that brought tongue sandwiches to lunch every day. Man, did we ever rank on him! Probably not too good for his self-esteem.
I also have a steak problem. Can’t get enough of it!
I am a disinterested (mostly) party when I observe my sister’s 3 1/2-year old twins (boy & girl) and their 2-year old sister. My sister and her husband impose a fairly regimented routine but getting the kids to do something never descends into a contest of wills; rules like no dessert following not eating enough dinner are treated as matters of fact. The bottom line is for the kids to eat enough rather than cleaning the plate.
When one of the kids was becoming difficult about which parent would do the bath or read a story, they put up a task chart. The kids help set it up each week and then it becomes the law of the land. It works much better than the laissez-faire / free-range baby methods employed by one of my friends.
When I was single, I used to wish for a group of high school boys that I could cook for just to be able to have things that can’t be made in small quantities. Today I cook for two, but still find it difficult to deal with certain things I like because we can’t eat it all. A family can deal with a whole cabbage or cauliflower in one or two nights, so maybe moms are able use nutritious vegies for sit-down family dinners. They whole logistics of meal planning, food storage, and cooking is easier for a family.
Tongue is a precious delicacy.
Either your mother wasn’t very proficient cook, or it’s just your own personal quirk (we all have them; so called veggie burgers induce immediate vomiting in me. I know somebody who can’t make himself to eat beets. Etc)
Well-prepared veal tongue is a focal point of an appetizer course in any self-respecting Jewish cook.
Besides, per latest research, fat is good for you.
My mother fixed tongue somewhat regularly, I have fond memories of tongue sandwiches with oodles of mayonaise and mustard on soft white bread… nobody at school would have ever known, it was a little like candy to me only better, I’d wolf it right down…. the good old days….
Scrapiron Says:
Tongue, I’m not eating anything that came out of a cows mouth, bring me a couple of eggs.
Er, where do eggs come out?
I was on a chicken list and one of the ladies said her husband refused to eat eggs from her hens for just that reason.
He would, however, eat eggs from the store.
Maybe he thought those came from someplace else.
The dinner meal was a big part of the day in my family. Another point: Family dinner is where one learns fine manners, from using the correct utensils, asking to be excused, to addressing each other with respect.
The kids also did the dishes in our family. I’m not as tough about that with my boys as was my old man.
Have a great week!
I’ve eaten tongue ever since I was a kid, and I occasionally prepare and cook it myself. It’s delicious.
I actually broke down and tried it last year; tasted like corned beef. Never could get the idea past my head in my younger days…when I worked in a deli.
The main problem with social science is not that it is sketchy – many sciencies are – but that it is a science in the name only, basically this is a philosophy. The best approximation to true science is when it is done on social insects, like ants. Here you at least can do experiments in controlled laboratory conditions. The only true social science research on humans was done by Dr. Mengele. The results were destroyed, and this was a wise decision. All other classical work in the field is open to drastically different interpretations, depending on observer’s political and philosophic convictions. If this is a science, then astrology is science too: it’s basic technique is rigorous, reproducible and mathematized, only interpretation is somewhat subjective and arbitrary – to the same extent as results of social psychology “studies”.
If you remember polemics around “Bell Curve”, it is purely political and ideological: the statistics of Murray can not be resonably dismissed, these results are mathematically correct, they are only politically incorrect. The same about recent gaffe of Nobel prize laureate in molecular genetics Watson: his science is straightforward, only his interpretation of it is unacceptable on purely moral grounds (for some). It was labeled as scientific racism; this is really an oxymoron. If it is really scientific, it is not racism; if it is really racism, it has nothing to do with science.
What Neo’s article seems to say is that in this most primordial of social rituals are born not just the bonding of a family but the necessary habits of respect and reason that allow us to rise from barbarism to civilization.
And yet it wasn’t enough to prevent the children of the Greatest Generation from being hijacked by the Left. Did the members of “G” Generation forget something?
Already sliced tongue from the deli was big in my family growing up and into adulthood, until one day my then young nephew, who enjoyed the stuff, looked up at some comment about it an adult had made, and said “Do you mean tongue like in cow’s tongue????” He was crushed–and I don’t recall that my Mom ever served it again. . .
My wife–a Spanish teacher–and I took some of her students to Spain. We thought we’d covered everything; kings, economy, geography, literature, art.
We hadn’t thought of table manners in restaurants.
We were humiliated.
Tongue “attached to part of the jawbone”, Neo? Come on, get anatomic. No butcher or meat processor would do that, because doing so would require a great deal of effort to no useful purpose.
The oral tongue of the cow is quite lean, entirely muscular. It is the base of the cow tongue that is fatty. Just as in man. The fat-infiltrated, enlarged base of tongue is the primary cause, in man, of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common malady of obesity. OSA is treated with a CPAP device, since vigorous weight loss is unachievable for most of the snoring afflicted.
I suppose some form of ‘peer’ pressure is involved. You don’t want to eat a bunch of junk (or too much) when everyone is watching. 🙂
sergey Says:
“It was labeled as scientific racism; this is really an oxymoron. If it is really scientific, it is not racism; if it is really racism, it has nothing to do with science.”
Some of his comments, like about melatonin and sex drive, are probably not science (I doubt he has a study available that can demonstrate it)… He seems a little loose cannonish… I wouldn’t hold him up without triple checking what he is saying…
Besides, per latest research, fat is good for you.
Really? Oooh, link?
Dr. Mengele’s work was not destroyed because it didn’t work, but because it worked all too well. How could some of the greatest intellectuals and humanitarians of the 20th century commit genocide as casually as you or I might get dressed to go to work in the morning? The exact answer was all contained in Mengele’s notes.
But science is a funny thing. It does not create phenomena, only the understanding of existing phenomena. If everyone were to forget Newton’saw Law of Gravity, people would not start floating around; they would simply be rendered unable to build things like elevators and skyscrapers, except by random chance or careful imitation of existing structures. Even that would be fraught with peril, as without an understanding of the forces involved, the most likely result would be that they would make something that works for a time, but eventually falls apart in the end due to inability to compensate for the slight differences that inevitably crop up.
I wonder if destroying his work was really such a good idea. Clearly there has been independent rediscoveries made, by a variety of organizations ranging from the Soviet KGB to Jim Jones. Just like destroying the work of the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have prevented the creation of the A-bomb, only given the Soviets the opportunity to complete it first, I think the destruction of Mengele’s notes have simply turned the knowledge they contained over to those least likely to use their research responsibly.
He would, however, eat eggs from the store.
Maybe he thought those came from someplace else.
Obviously it’s different when you know the chicken!
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