Dr Rupy: Today we're going to be talking about the benefits of eating with friends. I actually wanted to call this podcast episode how to eat with friends and be healthier in reference to the highly renowned book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, but I didn't think everyone would get it. Anyway, I wanted to start today's episode with a question for you. When was the last time you sat down at a dinner table and shared a meal with friends over laughter and stories? If you're lucky, you'll be able to remember a time in the last couple of days or the last week. And if you're adverse to the idea of going through the effort of having to find someone to share a meal with, hopefully today's discussion of the research will show you that it has benefits regardless of what is actually on the table. Recent studies have found that regularly eating with others is linked to feelings of happiness, more satisfaction with life, and a trusting nature of others. For children and adolescents, frequent family meals were also associated with better health outcomes. But why? We'll talk about the evidence-based reasons for the health benefits of sharing food around a table, including the evolutionary link as an adaptive benefit from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the psychological reasons as well as the practical benefits. I'll certainly be eating with friends twice a week from now on. And to talk about this topic, I have researcher and science writer at The Doctor's Kitchen, Sakina Akoko, as well as our food producer for The Doctor's Kitchen app, Ola O'Noon. Remember, you can watch today's podcast on YouTube. You can click the link in the podcast caption wherever you're listening to this. It is the easiest way to support our podcast at no cost to you by just subscribing and hitting the notification bell on YouTube. And remember, you can get our eat, listen and read newsletter and seasonal Sundays newsletter for free every week where we share recipes, interesting articles and videos that will help you have a healthier, happier week. On to the podcast.
Dr Rupy: I'm going to talk to you about a single thing that you can do that can improve the taste of food, it can improve life satisfaction, it can improve happiness levels, and the best thing is, it's completely free and anyone can do it. It is simply the act of eating around a table. I'm absolutely bowled over by some of the research around this topic. And to chat to me about this, I've got science writer and researcher at The Doctor's Kitchen, Sakina, and food producer Ola around our podcast table to talk about this topic that is super interesting. I sent Sakina, you a study like a couple of months ago and I was like, we should definitely talk about this because I was pretty shocked that just the act of what's it called, commensality?
Sakina: Commensality, the practice of eating together with other people, which I didn't know this term before I started reading as well.
Dr Rupy: Totally. Commensality is my new favourite word.
Sakina: Yeah, me too. We should use it more often.
Dr Rupy: And you sent me that study and I, we didn't look into it for a few months, but now it's Christmas time almost. So it's the time to to look into that, I think.
Sakina: Exactly, exactly. And I was pretty shocked at like what it showed. And so we thought we'd do this podcast where we could talk about some of the studies, the reasons behind some of the health benefits of eating around a table. And the fact that part of a Mediterranean diet, it's not really a diet, it's more of a lifestyle, is yes, legumes and yes, beans and yes, largely plants, but also eating around a table is actually part of that Mediterranean way of life as well. So, yeah, really excited to get into this subject and hear some of Ola's reactions to what we're going to be chatting to as well. So, let's start off with some of the studies that kicked off this discussion. There's one around life satisfaction. Tell us a bit about that.
Sakina: Yeah, so that's the one you sent. It was a survey, so it was a survey study conducted in the UK. And they found that people who ate with other people more often had higher life satisfaction, and they were more trusting of others than people who ate alone more often, which makes sense, I think. It's quite. And then there was another one that you find on, I think, family.
Dr Rupy: Yes, the healthy eating pattern. So there was a systematic review that found a positive association between family meal frequency, so that's the number of times you sit down to eat with your family, and they found that three or more meals per week improved or was associated with a healthy dietary pattern such as increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans. Now, it's important to say with these sort of reviews, you don't want to confound causality with correlation, because you could also see like, okay, if I am more likely to be able to sit around a table with my family, am I also, is that associated with me being in a high income bracket or having a more stable home life? Is there some sort of correlation that we don't want to confound with causality? But it's still really interesting because we're going to go into some of the reasons as to why that might be happening, right?
Sakina: Yeah, and it's difficult with correlation data to understand what direction the relationship goes. But with the study, the survey study, they did a path analysis to try and see, so it still doesn't prove causality, but it's try to understand the direction of the relationship and they showed that it clearly favours going from eating together leading to better outcomes rather than the opposite way. So with that, so with the three studies that we're going to talk about and the potential reasons, it still shows that there could be benefits in that direction of eating together causing benefits rather than the other way around as well.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. And there was another one looking at the the or there was a 14 papers for about frequency of family meals as well. Again, associated with psychosocial outcomes. Was that the same one that you were?
Sakina: That's a different one. That's a third paper. And it was looking at psychological wellbeing in children and adolescents. So they found that frequent family meals was linked to better psychological outcomes. And also school success and self-esteem. So people who families who ate regularly more often, their children had better outcomes in terms of their mental health and also in terms of school success. Which same, it could be the other way around. It could be, there's a lot of other factors that could play, but it's an interesting link, I think.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. So the headline is, look, more likely, the more likely you are to be sat around a table, the more likely you are to have better self-esteem, happiness, school success, all these different things. So taking in mind that sort of like correlation causation. Ola, how many times do you sit around a table to eat your meals at home?
Ola: At home now, I do it every day.
Dr Rupy: Oh, do you?
Ola: Yeah, well, because, well, okay, so I've lived with my boyfriend for a year. So I think we're still in the honeymoon stage where like, yeah, that's something we really prioritise. But when you were talking about that, one period in my life I remembered was when I was working as a chef, where you were lucky if you got to take a break at all. And I know that's common for chefs everywhere. And if you did get to take a break, it would be like maybe 15 minutes and like you'd go to a storeroom and like maybe find an empty bucket and turn it upside down and just sit and like wolf something down. And yeah, that's not great. Yeah, so I feel I'm a lot happier now that I don't have to eat my lunch that way.
Dr Rupy: Honestly, it reminds me of every single situation I've been in when working within the NHS in hospitals. It is exactly the same. You literally go on your designated lunch break, whatever that, whenever that is, whenever you can actually take a break. You grab your like, you know, Tupperware from the fridge. The fridge is crazy full with loads of stuff that's out of date. You wolf something down on your own and then you go right back to work.
Sakina: Super quickly.
Dr Rupy: Super quickly.
Ola: And you feel guilty for eating at all.
Dr Rupy: 100%. Yeah, you do. Yeah. There's a lot of similarity, I think, with the sort of chef lifestyle. I remember doing some like wellbeing events for restaurateurs and people working in chefs and like, you know, it's similar, like to my experience working in A&E, you're in like an environment where there's no natural light, you don't get a chance to go outside. In a lot of cases, chefs work underground in the basement. Again, like, like 10 minutes to go outside and usually have like a cigarette break or whatever. There's a commonality with cigarette smoking and A&E doctors as well. So yeah, lots of, lots of similarities.
Sakina: Yeah, and when you get home at night, it's quite late as well, right? So you don't really have the time and you maybe you come home and your partner's already in bed or so you don't have the time or people are just on different schedules. So you won't eat with other people at all.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. There's actually new legislation around hospital doctors or hospitals in general, saying that there has to be 24-hour provisions of hot food for staff, which sounds like a good thing, but actually practical in in practical terms, it's very, very hard to execute on that. And actually, people who operate the restaurants would be operating at a loss because there's just isn't the amount the demand required and the staff needed to provide 24-hour provisions is obviously going to outstrip the number of people purchasing from those concessions. So.
Sakina: Yeah, in practice, it's a tricky one too. Like all these studies are really interesting and they point us in a good direction. So it's it's cool to understand the reasons why so we can put time aside when we can, but in practice, it can be very difficult to do and find the time.
Dr Rupy: And actually, when you were just saying, you know, getting back from a like a late shift, whether you're a chef or a doctor or another shift worker, if you're going to be eating around that time, you're going to be disrupting your circadian rhythm, you're going to be disrupting the quality of your sleep. You're introducing food where your microbiome actually needs a rest, your gut needs a rest. So there's all these sort of like compounding factors that can lead to the negative consequences of someone who is eating alone, you know. So what do you think are the reasons why? So we have those studies. What do you think could explain those benefits of eating with other people? Do you have any kind of, we had a quick look at it, but I'm sure there's lots of reasons because there's not that much research on it. We need more, I think, research because I think it's an interesting topic and it's part of human history to to eat with other people. What do you think are some of the reasons to explain the link?
Ola: I guess the gut.
Dr Rupy: First, first gut.
Ola: I was like, don't ask me to explain gut science. I didn't agree to that.
Dr Rupy: That's all right.
Ola: I guess it's just like relationships make us happier and having connection with other people. Like I think that's one of the most important things for a happy life. And so just like having that moment to like be with other people, is good for you.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I I um, I had this conversation with my therapist actually a couple of months ago and she was like, what is your happy place? What do you picture when you think of like some of the happiest moments in your life? And it is always, and I don't know whether this is because I'm in food and I'm a massive foodie, but it's always when I'm sat around a table with my closest and dearest friends. And the image that comes to mind is my wedding day and we had this long table where I literally had my family, like my my baby sister was opposite me. I had my my wife's family and all my best friends on one long table. We had a very, very small wedding in um in Italy. And that is like that just for me is just happiness in like a in a snapshot for me. But it it can also be extended to like the other week when I went to, have you been to the Pelican in Notting Hill?
Ola: No, but you keep on telling me I need to go.
Dr Rupy: Oh my god, it's it's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. They do this like lobster pie. Phenomenal. Um it's really good. It it serves like three or four people and it's like 80 pounds. But it's worth it. If you can find like three three people to to choose that with you. And that was just like, you know, four or five of us. I had my dog with me. And that for me is like happy, happy space. And I guess it's like um that opportunity for laughter and storytelling. It's just one of the reasons that we isolated as the the potential associations between sat being sat around a table, having time to to eat your meal with others as to why we see those um those benefits.
Sakina: Yeah, that's one of the, one of the studies um actually showed that social laughter, laughing with other people, releases endorphins in the brain. So it can promote feelings of calm, feeling calm and feeling safe. And so it can promote bonds between people. And obviously we don't always laugh when we're eating on the table, but it's an opportunity to kind of tell stories, tell jokes, what happened in the day. And I think even in the office today, most of the moments where we connected with each other and we had a laugh was when it was around food. Either because someone made a joke about a bad joke about something or or um or we we kind of had a story or a quick chat and it it did create those opportunities to laugh and to connect and to to kind of do those social activities. So that could be one of the link. It's funny because for me, the moments where um that I remember, for example, are actually quite simple moments of eating with other people, like eating um on on a weekday with housemates or with friends or with family. It's like very simple meals where it's literally like leftovers or something. And we just sat sat there with my parents, for example, when I was a kid, and it's very simple and there's not nothing special about it, but just us all sitting together in a very simple way are actually the the memories I have and that are the strongest for my childhood, for example. And it's yeah, it's always linked to food. It's always linked to food in some way. So there's something that.
Dr Rupy: I I love that. I mean, like even uh even though it's just me and my wife at home, um we tend to make the point of of always sat sitting at the table when we have dinner, phones away, share like what we're grateful for that day. I know it's a bit corny, but actually that is associated with the sort of like feelings of um happiness and calm and contentment and appreciation. Um and then across, you know, a meal, I think that's a it's a really important habit to instill.
Ola: Yeah. Apparently the Obamas did that every day. In the White House, Barack Obama would go and have dinner and ask them for their, wait.
Dr Rupy: Is it three things they're grateful for?
Ola: Yeah, yeah, or like the best part of their day and the worst part of their day. And look at them. So.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, you always have the good facts about.
Ola: Yeah, I know, I love that.
Dr Rupy: There's there's loads of like questions you can ask yourself um over over a meal, you know, it can be what made you smile today? What made you feel grateful? Like what is a positive thing that you've done today? Um I think my the positive thing that I've done today is I cooked a fish pie that Charlie.
Sakina: That's positive for us as well.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's positive for a number of people, but Charlie in particular who's behind camera three, um was uh was particularly enamoured by because he's not usually a fish guy apparently.
Sakina: Yeah, finding good questions. I think that's the thing, the developing the art of conversation and and uh asking people's question and being curious about people's experiences and the way they see the world, the way they experience their days and stuff. It's an opportunity to do that, which I think we don't do a lot, like being open to other people and asking questions and experimenting. So that's another cool one. I don't know how to ask great questions. We need a list of questions around the table.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We should do that for our Christmas dinner.
Sakina: I think that could be like, you know, 50 cards to ask, 50, yes, exactly. Like you can imagine it being one of those um like novelty gifts that you get in like crackers or whatever.
Dr Rupy: We should try that for our Christmas dinner.
Sakina: Another business idea.
Dr Rupy: Christmas dinner. Um so okay, so the first reason that we've discussed as to why sat being sat around a table can um improve your health and wellbeing is because of the laughter and storytelling. The second one, this is hopefully going to blow all of his mind is it can potentially improve the taste of the food.
Ola: What?
Dr Rupy: Or make it more pleasant, actually.
Sakina: So they did a small brain imaging study where they took participant and they showed them just pictures of food, um and with a different social context. So one, they showed the same food with a label as eating together. So the social context was eating together. And then the same food with a label as eating alone. And when the participant were presented with the food as eating together, they rated the food as more pleasant. And they had more activity in in brain regions activity um associated with reward compared to eating alone. Um so they expected the food to be more pleasant just based on a photo when it was associated with a social context compared to when it was associated with eating alone. So there's there's a whole anticipation thing when you know you're going to eat the same food with other people um compared to eating alone, which I thought was quite crazy.
Dr Rupy: This is awesome because it's, you know, they used brain imaging and you you see all these sort of like headlines these days like, you know, an fMRI was used to prove that this particular area of the brain was stimulated or was more active when such and such did X activity. I actually quite like these studies, but there seem to be so many of them. But the fact that it triggers more positive feelings and and increased brain activity uh related to food reward, I thought was was fascinating. And and the first thing that comes to mind is that whole sharing culture that we have at restaurants these days. Like every time you go to a restaurant, it's a sharing concept.
Ola: That's true. Yeah. Yeah.
Sakina: It's true. Small plates.
Dr Rupy: Small plates.
Ola: Small plates. Have you been here guys before? Like it's small plates, it's a sharing concept.
Sakina: You never know how many you need to order as well.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I know. How many are we supposed to share? I'm hungry.
Ola: It's very true. Yeah. Do you like small plates?
Dr Rupy: Um.
Ola: That's a no.
Dr Rupy: It it I think it. I'm just feel like it's been done to death and it's like, okay, we get it. It's not cool anymore. No, it's cool, but it's like stop trying to make it more of a thing than it is. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Ola: And I think I always, I'm always a little bit skeptical because doesn't it make it easier from a restaurant point of view to just like pull out the plates whenever they're ready rather than having to coordinate four different plates at the same time.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Okay. Potentially. Yeah.
Ola: Okay.
Dr Rupy: That's my theory anyway. That's my conspiracy.
Ola: Yeah. That is interesting.
Dr Rupy: I wish it was more common to have a big pot of food that you share like you would in a home, you know, in a restaurant. And you can yeah, a big hot, a big pot and you can serve as much portion as you want.
Sakina: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Rupy: I wish it was more common because it feels quite, I like that about, not the small plates, but a big pot and you all, you serve yourself, you know.
Sakina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That tends to be like how I used to eat when I was at home with my family. We would have like, mom would make a big dal and then she'd make like a a bit of side salad stuff and then bread. That like for me is the sort of embodiment of like a sharing concept, I guess. But yeah, the small plates thing, I I think there's a, there's probably um uh a reason, a more of a commercial reason as to why that's popular.
Ola: Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: But the caveat to that is, well, well, sharing platters, you know, could make food more pleasant.
Ola: Yeah. That also reminds me of when I was a chef and I just had this moment of realising like I used to feel so much pressure, like, is it good enough? Like, and then I realised like the food is only part of a person's dining experience. When you go out, it's about the lighting, it's about the background music, it's about the service, it's about your friends, it's about the weather, it's about the day you've had. Like the food needs to be good, but like when you go, when you talk to your friends about going to a restaurant, like the food is only part of it. You also mention the service and all those other elements. So, yeah.
Dr Rupy: And purely anecdotally, as an anecdote. Purely as an anecdote. I feel like food definitely tastes better when you're eating it out as well. And if I I can, I'm sure if you did an experiment where you're eating it in the restaurant and you take it at home, the same food would not taste the same. Because there is the context. The context influences how you experience it for sure.
Sakina: Totally. Like I've had that experience like many people have where they get takeout from the same restaurant. And and I love the restaurant. There's a Thai restaurant that I absolutely love getting the pad see ew from and we have like a a green sort of veggie curry. Tastes amazing. It's got these beautiful bowls. It's steaming hot. But if you get it delivered to you, yeah, it might be slightly like, you know, uh less hot and steamy, but there's something else that's missing. And I think it's that experience, the lighting, the smell, the the ordering, the serve, all that kind of stuff. It really does impact your overall enjoyment of the of the food.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. So, third reason, uh it can promote a sense of trust and togetherness when you are sat around a table eating.
Sakina: Yes, that's another small study. These are all small studies, but I think they're quite interesting. So I think they're just cool studies to to nudge us in in the reasons why. So they found that strangers who ate the same food reached common agreement quicker in a negotiation game or in a trust game than um when they ate different foods. So it was suggested that in a business setting, for example, sharing food, eating on the table could help you reach a common ground quicker and promote trust and cooperation between people compared to eating different foods. So I thought also that was quite cool as well.
Dr Rupy: That's great. So top tip, if you're negotiating a business deal or a merger or something and you want to try and get to a resolution as quickly as possible, share the same meal. Do it over food. Do it over food, eat the same food. I wonder if there's like some sort of uh evolutionary um primal reason as to why if you're literally seeing someone eat the same food as you, it does promote that sense of trust at a very, very deep psychological level. I can imagine they might be. I don't. There is, yeah, I guess you can feel like they're part of your group or you know, you would you wouldn't share food with people who you don't trust already or I don't know. There's probably something going on.
Sakina: Yeah, there's something there. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, there's something there for sure. The other uh potential reason is that it encourages healthy eating habits. So eating behaviour is strongly influenced by those around us, which is why I always say to people if they're trying to like, you know, um start a healthy eating habit, start a WhatsApp group with people who are also aligned to the same goal, or like check in with someone who's also like, you've got to buddy up. You get some accountability, you get motivation, you sort of get that sort of uh sense of compounding that behaviour with someone else who's going through the same struggles with you as well. And it seems that sharing meals around a table has that same sort of impact.
Sakina: Yeah, so there's no, I didn't find any studies on that, but I think um we could make the hypothesis that it could also expand your dietary habits. So you could be exposed to new eating habits and you could be exposed to new ingredients and flavours, spices. Like I'm sure we can all think of a time where we've shared food with people and we've discovered a new way of preparing food or a new ingredient or a new flavour, spice or anything like that. Do you have an example of uh like a new ingredient you've discovered through someone?
Ola: Yeah, well, because my boyfriend is Israeli, so we have this um it's a chili garlic um tahini. It is amazing. And and we put it on the table sometimes as like a hot sauce. And yeah, now I just have so much tahini in my diet. And sometimes if I'm testing a recipe and I'm trying it out on him, I'll put it on the table and if he puts it on, that's how I know I need to retest the recipe because it needs another go. But if he doesn't use it, then the recipe has passed.
Dr Rupy: Is that like an agreed cue?
Ola: No, he doesn't know. No, we shouldn't. I don't want him to listen to this. He doesn't actually know that that's what I'm doing sometimes. That's an interesting cue. Yeah, yeah. I actually, I have a similar thing with my my wife, um where she adds salt to the meal. But the thing is, she is Italian and she does love her salt. So it's quite hard to use as a cue to, you know, to tell whether it's because the food's not flavourful enough or I've just generally underseasoned it. Um she's usually very good at just being blunt as to whether she likes a meal I've cooked or not, but yeah. And I guess sort of like the elephant in the room is, you know, if you're more likely to be sat around a table with your family, you're more likely to be having home-cooked food, which you know exactly what you've put into it. It's unlikely to be processed. You're you're less likely to have processed foods in your diet and that can be again correlated with a healthier eating pattern and healthier outcomes.
Sakina: Yeah. And the and the fifth reason that we talked about, um is it's an opportunity to create memories with people.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I love this.
Sakina: Um I think it was a quite a good one because there's another cool study um that was published quite recently, I think 2022 or 2023. Um and they found that print, 3D printed flavour cues of food um could elicit very detailed memories and a very positive emotional experience in people, in older adults about past events linked to food. Um so just just the flavour, just the the cue, the flavour cue was able to bring them on a time travel experience. Yeah, yeah. Um so food has that that um capacity to really create memories that are quite strong and ties to other people, ties to our identity, our ancestors, our history, um with other people and and create a narrative of food across your life that you can then think back to and it can be kind of a a time capsule that you can keep and think back to when you're experiencing those foods again later in life.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. You're basically describing the scene in Ratatouille. Oh, have you? It's just where, I don't know if you remember that.
Ola: I haven't seen Ratatouille.
Dr Rupy: You haven't seen Ratatouille? Oh my god. Ola, you got to watch that this weekend. So there's this really famous scene in Ratatouille where um the chef, I think he's a critic, uh tries the ratatouille that the chef/the rat has made in the kitchen. Yeah, that's exactly what happens in the movie. Um and he's instantly brought back to his childhood when his mom made ratatouille and like, you know, there's a whole experience and everyone has that sort of experience because ratatouille is, I I'm guessing it's quite a big thing in France. Is that right?
Sakina: Uh ratatouille, the dish, not the the movie.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, no, no, no, not the movie, the dish.
Sakina: Yeah, the dish, even in South of France particularly.
Dr Rupy: Oh, really?
Sakina: Yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure it's from Provence or I'm not. I hope I'm not wrong about that. I think it's from Provence. Yeah. I would be butchering my own culture.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, ratatouille is definitely very famous in France.
Sakina: I mean, I I think everyone has their own version of ratatouille. Like for me, it's saag, which is this deep green dish that's made with all the different sort of greens you can imagine growing on a farm. You put um makhani in, which is um like a white butter that is like usually freshly churned. My dad grew up on a farm and uh when we go back, we tend to have that dish. But even if I try that same dish when I'm in London and my mom's made it, for example, it takes me back to that time where we were sat around this like this earth and fire and you've got the smells of the of the bread being made and stuff. So there is that sort of uh uh the ability to time travel to sort of like um hit those sort of memories that you you sort of cherish, right? It just it just comes out to me as soon as I have that dish. I'm assuming you got a dish as well, right?
Ola: I was going to say mine is like the totally opposite end of the spectrum because we lived in America when I was young. So for me, um it's peanut, no, marshmallow fluff.
Dr Rupy: Marshmallow fluff? What is marshmallow fluff? I don't know what that is.
Ola: It's like marshmallow, it's like a spread made of marshmallows. And it's great because if you take a spoonful, like Nutella, it just goes down and no one knows that you've gone into the tub. It just goes down. It's magic. Yeah. Oh my word. Marshmallow fluff. What would you eat it on?
Dr Rupy: Would you have it on bread or what would it?
Ola: Oh, okay. It really shines on on bread with peanut butter. They call it a fluffernutter.
Dr Rupy: Peanut butter. Wow.
Ola: It's amazing.
Dr Rupy: That's next level.
Ola: The textures must be crazy.
Dr Rupy: It's really good. But now that I'm a grown-up, I'll have an apple, slice up an apple, and then I'll have a little dish with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff.
Ola: You can find it in the UK?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I saw it in the shop the other day and I got a tub just for nostalgic reasons.
Ola: Which shop is this? I don't know.
Dr Rupy: I got it in Sainsbury's.
Ola: You got it in Sainsbury's? You get everything in Sainsbury's. You got the chickpea spread.
Dr Rupy: They're very well stocked. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, I'm definitely have to try that out in moderation, obviously.
Ola: I don't think it's really going to be your thing, but try it out.
Dr Rupy: Hey, I mean, like to be fair, to be fair to me, I eat a lot, I my wife will attest to this. I do eat a lot of like junk food. Not a lot. I do I do enjoy it whenever I do. And I think like if you are going to enjoy like marshmallow fluff or whatever it is, don't feel guilty about it. Just enjoy it for the moment that it is. And then like, you know, 80, 90% of the time you're going to be eating whole, unprocessed, home-cooked food. But when you are going to be eating junk, which is inevitable for everyone, just enjoy it.
Ola: This is it. The poison is in the dose.
Dr Rupy: Exactly, exactly.
Sakina: We talk about that a lot.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, we do. It's all about dose and quality when it comes to any any sort of ingredient for sure.
Sakina: But I think um with all of that, so I think we we have some benefits of eating with other people, but you, when we first started talking about that, you were saying, but I love eating alone.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Sakina: And so I think maybe some of the benefits of eating with other people, like slowing down and creating a nice environment and um taking the time to eat, could maybe translate into eating alone as well.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I I think so. And I'm glad you brought this up because I was going to forget about that because I don't want it to seem like all like every single time we have breakfast, lunch, dinner, we're sat around the table and we're eating slow and we've got laughter and we're like, you know, we have memories of everything uh that we we've we've made. Um sometimes I absolutely love having my breakfast on my own with a bit of uh like um uh light music in the background or shock horror in front of my computer watching Saturday Kitchen reruns because and and that for me is my happy place. And I probably eat a bit too fast. I probably don't chew my food enough. But there is something about that experience for me that is pleasurable. Um if I was just like mindlessly scrolling on my phone and being distracted from the meal in a big way, then I think that there is there is probably a balance there that um that that we should be striking. But yeah, sometimes I think, you know, it can be a healthy experience to eat on your own. That's my opinion anyway.
Sakina: No, I think so too. There's a moment of peace as well where you can just appreciate a moment for yourself. But maybe it's about that balance, like consciously making the effort of meeting other people and um organizing meals with family or friends or co-workers or neighbors or um sometimes, you know, a few times a week or a few times a month or every couple of months, whatever is good for you. And then making the time to eat by yourself and making that a pleasant experience as well when you when you are eating alone.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Actually, a lot a lot of my friends are mothers and fathers and they they tell me they look forward to the time where they don't have any like chaos at the table because it can be a really stressful experience with kids. So you can imagine like, you know, just having a bowl of soup in the corner, you know, on your own is a magical experience as well. That is peace. Yeah. That might be a good memory for them as well. Another memory of food.
Sakina: Um in terms of practice, I was thinking to ask you if you had any tips for making meals with other people because I think it can be a stressful experience sometimes, either to cook for other people or to cook with other people. Even if you're trying to share the task or make it doing a potluck or anything, it can be a bit stressful and some people don't know, I don't always know how to do it so it goes well. Do you have any tips for that or any preferred dishes?
Ola: Oh, yeah, definitely. I think just like don't try to show off because then you're going to be stressed. People are going to feel guilty because you're stressed over trying to cook for them. Just keep it simple. Don't show off. Um if I ever have people over, I'll always do or most of the time I'll do something like lasagna. So all of the work is done beforehand and you just have to put it in the oven and serve it. Um because you don't want to be that host that's like fussing over everyone. Yeah. And also, I'm thinking of Julia Child now because her big thing was never apologize. So if you're the one cooking and you don't think it's your best, don't mention it. Because then people are going to have to feel like they have to reassure you. Like just don't say anything.
Dr Rupy: That's a really good point, actually. And now you say that, every time I've been to someone's house where they've fussed over their own food and they said, oh, it's not perfect on this. It's like, I I just want to enjoy it because I think it's brilliant. I think it's great. And it's more about the act of love uh that you, you know, someone is serving you uh more than like the taste. I'm not going to be going all Jay Rayner. And actually, I get this a lot because obviously someone having written four cookbooks and people get really like like they get really scared when I come around for dinner. I'm like, guys, honestly. I'm not that Homer Simpson's episode. Um do you know when he becomes a health food critic? I don't even watch.
Ola: I can't remember that episode.
Dr Rupy: He becomes a, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. And pizza is his favourite thing. It's so funny. He he uh he becomes a food critic and um he's overly nice about everything. And one of the lines is, the worst thing you uh rated was a piece of pizza you found behind the sofa that was a week old and you gave it two thumbs up. Yeah, I'm basically like that. Uh maybe not to that extreme. But um another thing that I make whenever I'm hosting is definitely like prep ahead meals like a lasagna. So you can do all the prep work before and then just bang it in. Um last week we had some friends round for like a little Christmas celebration thing and we did the celebration salmon, spice salmon that's actually on the app. Um again, marinated it, whacked it in the oven, only takes 20 minutes and then I served that with a side salad and some roasted veggies. And that was it. Just roasted veggies. Um but one pan dishes are my go-to. I'm not going to be doing like a Gordon Ramsay five, six course. Have you seen that masterclass of Gordon Ramsay? He literally goes through like a dining experience and like, oh, you can do this for starters and this for main and then this for dessert. No way am I doing that. It's not happening, Gordon.
Ola: No way. No, no, no.
Dr Rupy: What about having people bring dishes? So if someone brings the starter and then someone brings the dessert and the, yeah, whatever, like side dishes or something like that. Would you do you do that? Potlucks?
Ola: Yeah, I do that. Yeah, yeah. I think um uh I I like to be the coordinator and just choose the recipes that people will be doing so I can sort of like put everything together and it's all going to be sort of cohesive. So you're not going to get like a Korean meal and an Indian dish and all this kind of stuff.
Dr Rupy: So you tell people what to bring.
Sakina: Rather than everyone can bring something and then there's less pressure as well on your dish.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because your dish has got to be like really good. Yeah. I did the last time I did it, it was um sort of my comfort zone, which is Indian cooking. So I basically told people, okay, you're going to make that dal, you're going to make these like roasted sort of um spiced veggies, you're going to bring the yogurt. The yogurt is the easiest one. Just grate some cucumber in it and a bit of masala on top and that's like great. I usually give that one to someone who's not into it. Adept in the kitchen or into it. Yeah. Um but that works really well because everyone comes and you share and again, it's sort of that that magical share. And the fact is, the last time I did that, honestly, Sakina, that was probably seven years ago now because we've had COVID in between and the sharing sort of meals. And I still remember exactly who was there, what dishes. So I and we haven't rehearsed this at all. That's literally like what what's my memory that's like burned into my memory. Isn't that fascinating?
Sakina: It is cool. Yeah. It is really cool. Um I think as well like uh when when you were saying put it, make it, don't over apologize for your food. It's all about creating a nice experience around the food as well, like putting music when you're preparing the food or playing cards after eating and stuff like that. That also people remember that more than the food often. The whole the things you did around it, the conversation, the laughter, the cards, the games, the all these things are quite cool that we can bring into those moments.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Well, I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think, you know, Doctor's Kitchen doesn't necessarily need to be about the, you know, the nutrient density of the ingredients. It doesn't necessarily need to be about like having a particular macronutrient ratio. It can be about the pleasure of food. And as some of these small studies, which obviously have confounders, um demonstrate is that there can be a healthful element to it by just eating around a table and sharing conversation and memories and stuff. And hopefully we're going to have a lot more of those in the studio as well.
Sakina: Yeah, Christmas dinner.
Dr Rupy: Christmas dinner. It's coming. Well, thank you so much, guys. This has been awesome.
Sakina: Thanks.
Dr Rupy: Awesome.
