Valentine’s Day is a great time to think about your loved ones and cherish your relationship. It’s not just about romantic love but also about the connection you have with your family and friends. Love is food for the soul. Healthy relationships and love are something that I call primary food—the aspects of life that nourish your spirit, mind, and body. And when primary food is well-balanced, satisfying and strong, the experience of your life feeds you; hence what you eat becomes secondary.
Although primary and secondary, both foods are essential and the things needed for survival. Surprisingly, you can use your secondary food to make your primary food stronger. Love and food are inexorably connected because of the complex hormonal reaction that affects our need for food and our emotional attachments to loved ones. Food is not just what is on one’s plate; it’s not just something that one needs to put into their body in order to get energy, “it is much more than this.” It is the great connector, the tie that defines friendships, expresses love, and binds families. You can use the power of food to build and strengthen your relationship with loved ones and similar new connections.
Strengthening Relationships through Food
So are you wondering how you can harness the power of food to strengthen the network of bonds shared by your loved ones? Read on!
Love in the Kitchen
It’s a known fact that people who share activities together have stronger bonds. Of course, you don’t always need to go out to do things together. You both have to eat, right? So why not make a great bonding experience out of it? The kitchen is a beautiful place to grow your relationship. So, in those terms, cooking together is one of the great things. In many relationships, the cooking duties fall to only one person. Of course, that’s not bad if both are in agreement. However, preparing a meal together can be a fun, joyful, and enlightening experience for both of you.
Even as it stretches your abilities to try something new, you can teach each other. And cooking at home is not only a cheaper alternative to dining out, but it’s also a way to spend quality time with one another while cooking. If you cook together, you have more time to connect and interact with each other, which can help strengthen your bond. You can even join the cooking classes together and try those foods at home, and that will definitely go to help you in making your relationship strong.
Sharing Food with Loved Ones
They say,” the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Why? Don’t women need food? Or don’t they like it? I think the statement is itself a wrong one; it should be “the way to a heart is through the stomach.”
Most relationships begin with a conversation shared over food. Coffee shops and restaurants are popular dating spots. But you don’t always need to go to those places to share your food. You can do it at your home. And this is not just for the couples, but for the family too. Of course, most of us eat together as a normal part of our daily lives, but not all people worldwide do that. So just start it because if you have meals sitting at the table with your partner/family members, that provide an important occasion to wind down and communicate with each other. Introduce your partner/family to new foods, share thoughts or simply discuss your day. Do everything you can to make dining an enjoyable experience.
Nourishing Love
Watching your dear ones enjoying food is a pleasurable moment. When it comes to couples, watching your partner enjoying the taste of something can be sensual! Taste can enrich other sensual pleasures between the pair, and this tends to have a positive effect on the relationship. Studies have even found that sharing the same foods can help you to build trust. If you are going on a date, meeting a business client or even finding a way to impress the boss, eating/sharing a similar food tends to increase the odds of a positive outcome.
Food also means comfort to a lot of people, especially when it is connected to the memory of a person or place that’s been loved dearly. My friend Nilima Ramteke Jaware shares her story:
We were in a long-distance relationship before our marriage, and you might know how it feels to be in a long-distance relationship. It’s such a great feeling when your beloved comes to meet you after a long time. One day Rahul (my husband now) came to meet me, we had a great time together, he stayed two days in my city and then he had to leave for his place because he had to join the office. He had his train in the morning at 6.00 a.m. so he left for the station early morning to catch the train. At 7 o’clock, I received a call from him saying that someone had stolen his money and due to that he missed his train too. He did not have money to even come back home from the station. I didn’t understand anything. Things that were going on in my mind were the tiredness of the two days of roaming and hangouts, waking up early morning to take the train, and then this trouble of missing the train and losing money. So the first thing that came to my mind was “Maggi” because I first only thought that he must be hungry now and I wasn’t sure if any shop will be open in the morning. So I cooked two minutes Maggi noodles, then I realized that it takes more than two minutes, so in that time, I cooked an omelet too that had become bhurji (scrambled) because of my hurry. I packed it in hurry and called a friend just to let me reach the station, and I reached in 15 minutes there. Eventually, we met; I opened my tiffin there only and fed him. He said, “I had not thought that you would think so much at such a time and come by arranging these” he appreciated me and said, “you are too caring.” I just smiled. And it was the incident where food played an amazing role to strengthen our relationship. And the funny or maybe a silly thing is that the tiffin, fork, and the water bottle that I bought there for him, I packed that whole and never used because that was very different and a special moment for me, I had cooked for Rahul for the very first time.
Isn’t it lovely? It is such a great example of how food can bind you together.
A Surprise Meal
Surprise your partner by cooking their favorite meal for no reason at all. And do it when they least expect it. Drop by the office with a plate of that homemade dish that you know he or she loves. And you could even stop by the store and pick up his/her favorite cheesecake, ice cream, chocolate, etc. and surprise them with that. They will love your efforts, and your action of surprising them with food will bring you closer together and hence strengthen your bond.
Nilima shares her experience:
It was my birthday. Rahul woke up early in the morning before me, and he made tea and bread omelet; in addition to that, he cut a few fruits (as he knows I eat that too), i.e., apple, grapes, and papaya, very well placed in a tray. He woke me up by cuddling up to me, and then he said “surprise” by pointing to the tray. That was a saccharine moment. At that point in time, I noticed I broke into tears because I had no words. The person who needs someone to wake him up, that person woke up by himself and made something for me for the first time in life. He cut onions and chilies, too, for the first time in his life. I loved his efforts. That moment has a great touch on my heart.
Nourishing Long-Distance Relationships
What if you are in a long-distance relationship? You might think you can’t do any of these, right? But you are wrong! If you are in an LDR, you can still do all of these things and can create that feeling of togetherness. You can have a video call and make the same dish together. You can teach each other how to cook. Want to share the food? You can cook the same food at your respective places, then actually call your other half and have your own slices of food, which will give you a feel as if you are eating it from the same plate. And if this is not your thing, then just text your other half and have your meal, be it lunch or dinner, at the same time. Surprise them pleasantly by ordering their favorite foods at their doorsteps. Distance matters only to the mind but not to the heart.
Tasting the World Together
By the way, do you have adventurous taste buds? What? Did you say yes? Well, that’s great! So even if you don’t have travel in your budget, you can still have it on your plates! So, never underestimate the power of food because you can cultivate your relationship with your loved ones through food.
I wish you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day. Shower your love onto your loved ones!
About the Author
My name is Preeti Gaur. I have studied dietetics and beauty culture, but that is not my profession though. I am a Medical Language Specialist by profession. I consider myself a lifelong learner, a career woman, and a dreamer. Along with that, I am the author and editor of Scenario of Life, an award-winning personal/lifestyle blog in which I write about all things beauty, relationship, family, health, experiences, hacks and tips, and DIY recipes.