You're listening to Well Now Slate's podcast on health and wellness. I'm Kavita Patel.

And I'm Maya Fowler. Discussions about food and nutrition often focus on diet and what a person should omit or like the things they can't eat.

And this is all in order to attain and maintain

optimal health. Rarely does the discussion center around pleasure-filled eating patterns that

are supportive of whole body and mental health. There is a well-researched relationship between

human brains and food perception that shapes not only our food choices,

but how we respond to food stimuli, as well as emotion and environment. Maya, I know you cook most

of your meals, and you're a big proponent of communal and family dining. Tell me about that.

Yeah, absolutely, Kavita. You're right. I cook probably 90%, maybe even more of my meals. I mean, I make breakfast for sure

for everyone. I make lunch for myself and my husband on the days that I'm eating from home,

and I'm a huge believer in family meals. I really like to be able to think about the ingredients

that I'm using, how I'm putting them together, and it actually gives

me a lot of pleasure. I have to tell you, Kavita, though, that in my practice and working with

people, many of them do not get as much pleasure as I do from cooking. So I understand that,

you know, for the majority of folks, like there's not that intimate relationship with their kitchen anymore.

They don't get that great feeling and they don't enjoy making the food.

And sometimes they don't enjoy eating the foods that they've made.

And I feel like, Kavita, I don't know if this is your experience when you've talked to patients,

but people say it's so much easier to just

pick something up and not spend time in the kitchen. You know, Kavita, I want to hear from you.

How have family meals shown up in your life now and in the past? Yeah, it's a good question.

In the past, I would say that my family meals show, like they really were what they are

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