Taste a piece of chocolate at the same time as someone else, and you’re likely to enjoy it more than if you tasted it alone.
This phenomenon was shown in a 2014 study published in Psychological Science. “Sharing amplifies our experiences,” Erica Boothby, the study author and a clinical professor of organizational behavior at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, told The Epoch Times.
The study highlights the power of shared meals. Whether for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, eating together offers more than simply a way to refuel.
Historically, communal eating was more common. The contrast with modern habits is stark. Today, meals often get squeezed in between packed schedules. We might eat in a hurry, alone at a desk or standing at the kitchen counter. Yet, recent research suggests that frequent shared meals support happiness and even contribute to steadier blood sugar.
Why Shared Meals Are Good for Us
The scientific term for eating and drinking together is “commensality.” It is a practice that helps build social bonds and a sense of belonging.
Robin Dunbar, a psychologist and anthropologist at the University of Oxford in England, has spent his career studying ties between social eating and friendship. In his 2017 study, “Breaking Bread: The Functions of Social Eating,” he noted that eating together—from feasts to everyday meals—is a human universal. Drawing on a cross-sectional survey of 2,000 UK adults, he found that people who ate together more often reported greater happiness and life satisfaction, and stronger community connections.
Dunbar’s explanation starts with the brain. Eating with others triggers the release of endorphins, often described as the body’s natural painkillers and “feel-good” chemicals, which raise our mood and build social bonds.
The laughter, storytelling, singing, and other shared rituals that often accompany meals work in tandem to signal that endorphin release, he said. Close friendships, he added, are among the strongest predictors of mental and physical health, including longevity, and shared meals are one way to build and maintain them.
The conversation around the table doesn’t have to be profound, either. “The content of the conversation doesn’t matter so much as the fact of conversation,” Dunbar told The Epoch Times. Making time for someone shows that you value their company.
The Tangible Benefits of Eating Together
Part of the appeal of a shared meal is that it makes us slow down.
When we eat alone, our attention often drifts to our cell phones or “to-do” lists, and we barely notice the taste or texture of food. Company brings the senses back: the look of the served food, the smell of something freshly cooked, the flavors, the clink of cutlery, even the touch of a welcoming hug.
“During meals with friends and family, we naturally eat at a slower rate,” Ciarán Forde, a professor and chair of sensory science and eating behavior at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, told The Epoch Times.
Forde studies how food texture and eating speed affect our metabolic health. His research has consistently found that when people eat quickly, they tend to eat more calories. Eating faster leads to eating more because your brain takes about 20 minutes to register fullness.
Faster eating is associated with feeling less full per calorie, higher body mass index, more body fat, and a wide range of cardiometabolic risk factors, such as those behind diabetes and heart disease.
Sharing a meal may help the body process food in another way, too.
In a study published in Science Advances, participants had smaller blood glucose spikes and returned to baseline faster after eating a standardized carbohydrate meal with others than after eating the same meal alone.
The researchers call this principle “social physiology”—the idea that the body regulates itself more efficiently in the presence of others. Being near a trusted partner triggers oxytocin release, drops cortisol levels, and calms the nervous system.
Making Room at the Table
A growing movement is trying to bring that experience to neighborhoods. The Longest Table, co-founded by Maryam Banikarim in New York City, was born out of the pandemic. Staying home made Banikarim realize she didn’t know her neighbors as well as she would have liked, and after the pandemic ended, she wanted to change that.
The group now holds community-led events in cities and small towns across the United States and abroad, with gatherings in public spaces drawing hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand, people.
The model is simple. Local organizers provide tables and chairs for free community potlucks, and participants bring their own food.
“[The event] empowers neighbors to show up, connect, and rebuild trust block by block,” Banikarim told The Epoch Times.
The need is real, she said. Preliminary research by Eric Klinenberg, a professor of social sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, found that more than 85 percent of people rarely or never sit down to eat with their next-door neighbors.
Many people simply lack an invitation.
The Power of An Invitation
Every year, Cri Campbell Schine and her family look forward to hosting a “Friendsgiving” open-house dinner.
Schine, a California-based psychologist and mental health advocate, points out that we live in a culture that rewards achievement, efficiency, and constant activity. People almost need an excuse to slow down and connect.
She decided to invite friends and relatives together on a mutually agreed-upon date outside the hectic holiday season. “Friendsgiving is a reminder that belonging is something we can actively create,” she told The Epoch Times. “As conversations move beyond schedules and errands, we have time to listen, notice one another, and enjoy simply being together.”
The invitation itself carries weight, she added, especially for people who feel lonely or disconnected, because it tells them someone thought of them and made room for them. “We don’t always know what someone is carrying, and we don’t need to know their entire story to extend kindness.”
Regular family dinners help too. According to a 2022 American Heart Association survey, 91 percent of parents said their families were noticeably less stressed when they ate together, and 54 percent of respondents said sharing a meal reminded them to slow down and take a break.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect
Shared meals don’t always require much planning. Sylvia Farinati, an Italian-American, recalls a last-minute dinner in Venice, when friends and family tied their boats together on the Grand Canal, dropped anchor, and cooked freshly caught fish in makeshift kitchens. “No one had an agenda, a set menu, takeout, or an official name for the dinner,” she told The Epoch Times.
That, Schine told The Epoch Times, is the point.
“Shared meals can reinforce our sense of belonging,” she said. “Not every conversation needs to be profound, and not every meal needs to be perfect.”
