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Food has a unique ability to bring people together in large groups, sharing in a common goal. Similar to food, a sustenance that we cannot live without, we also need companionship and love to adequately survive. Combining the two activities is a great way to strengthen families, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The family mealtime represents a chance to have open communication and dialogue between all members, no matter the circumstances.

When gathering informally around the dinner table, conversations flow freely, and often it is one of the only times when families actually interact together. Mealtime represents something more tangible than just nutritional value, it harmonizes the family unit and creates bonds that are forever unbreakable.

It appears as though mealtime has become more of an antiquated notion, with teenagers working part-time jobs during evenings and weekends, parents both working outside of the home, and children scheduled for activities several nights per week. This is slowly tearing apart the family unit, leaving but a few chances per week to catch up and engage in lively conversation. Mealtime needs to be resurrected as a necessary function of daily life in order to forge healthy family units.

Many facets of learning underscore the representation of the mealtime gathering. The mealtime offers the chance for families to congregate together informally, and discuss life at varying levels, all the while fulfilling our own basic needs of eating. The family meal embodies elements of togetherness, social awareness, spirituality and oneness.

Gathering informally around the dinner table to share a meal involves more than just the process of chewing, it involves chewing the fat. The dinner table serves as a modern day Algonquin Round Table, where ideas flow mellifluously and of their own accord. Life can be examined through the sensitive, yet biased eyes of one's kith and kin. The mealtime ritual affords families the prospect of tuning out the rest of the outside world and focusing on improving their respective lives, through introspection, togetherness, and a chance to reconnect with those closest to us under the subterfuge of a simple meal.

The mealtime represents myriad things to all families, transcending ethnicity, age, socio-economic status or gender. During the ritualistic course of action that is mealtime, relationships become strengthened, bonds are forged tighter than a snare drum, and the complexities and duality of life

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