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Eating is often made into a social occasion.

Soldiers having lunch during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In general terms, eating (formally, ingestion) is the process of consuming nutrition, i.e. food, for the purpose of providing for the nutritional needs of an animal, particularly their energy requirements and to grow. All animals must eat other organisms in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, and omnivores consume a mixture of both. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... A meal is an instance of eating, specifically one that takes place at a specific time and includes specific, prepared foodstuffs. ... Image File history File links 20051129-MelbMeetup-Dining. ... Image File history File links 20051129-MelbMeetup-Dining. ... The Nutrition Facts table indicates the amounts of nutrients which experts recommend you limit or consume in adequate amounts. ... For other uses, see Animal (disambiguation). ... Growth can mean increase in spatial number or complexity for concrete entities in time or increase in some other dimension for abstract or hard-to-measure entities. ... Domains and Kingdoms Nanobes Acytota Cytota Bacteria Neomura Archaea Eukaryota Bikonta Apusozoa Rhizaria Excavata Archaeplastida Rhodophyta Glaucophyta Plantae Heterokontophyta Haptophyta Cryptophyta Alveolata Unikonta Amoebozoa Opisthokonta Choanozoa Fungi Animalia An ericoid mycorrhizal fungus Life on Earth redirects here. ... Carnivorism redirects here. ... A deer and two fawns feeding on some foliage A herbivore is often defined as any organism that eats only plants[1]. By that definition, many fungi, some bacteria, many animals, about 1% of flowering plants and some protists can be considered herbivores. ... For other uses, see Plant (disambiguation). ... Crows are omnivores. ...

While the process of eating varies from species to species, in humans eating is performed by placing food in the mouth, chewing and then swallowing it. Eaten food is then digested. This article is about modern humans. ... For other uses, see Mouth (disambiguation). ... Mastication or chewing is the process by which food is mashed and crushed by teeth. ... For the Bush song, see Swallowed (song). ... For the industrial process, see anaerobic digestion. ...

Manners are an important aspect of social eating in almost all human societies. // In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which show the actor to be cultured, polite, and refined. ...

Eating practices

Many homes have a separate kitchen room or outside (in the tropics) kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food, and many also have a dining room or another designated area for eating. Dishware, silverware, drinkware for eating and cookware and other implements for cooking come in an almost infinite array of forms and sizes. Most societies also have restaurants and food vendors, so that people may eat when away from home, lack the time to prepare food, or wish to use eating as a social occasion. Occasionally, such as at potlucks and food festivals, eating is in fact the primary purpose of the social gathering. A kitchen is a room used for food preparation and sometimes entertainment. ... For the coarsely ground flour, see flour. ... The dining room at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England A dining room is a room for consuming food. ... Some dishware Dishware is a general term for objects—dishes—from which people eat or serve food, such as plates and bowls. ... Starch-polyester disposable cutlery Cutlery refers to any hand utensil used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food. ... Glass stemware Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Drinkware Drinkware or Beverageware is a general term for the class of vessels from which people drink. ... cast-iron iron enamel stainless steel The cooking pan is a type of food preparation utensil commonly found in the kitchen which includes many more specific cooking vessels such as saucepans and frying pans (or fry pans). ... For other uses, see Restaurant (disambiguation). ... An assortment of food dishes at a church potluck. ... A food festival is a festival, usually held annually, that uses food, often produce, as its central theme. ...

Most individuals have fairly regular meals, formally known as daily patterns of eating, and commonly most eating occurs during two to three meals per day, with snacks consisting of smaller amounts of food being consumed in between. The issue of healthy eating has long been an important concern to individuals and cultures. Among other practices, fasting, dieting, and vegetarianism are all techniques employed by individuals and encouraged by societies to increase longevity and health. Some religions promote vegetarianism, considering it wrong to consume animals. Leading nutritionists believe that instead of indulging oneself in three large meals each day, it is much healthier and easier on the metabolism to eat five smaller meals each day (e.g. better digestion, easier on the lower intestine to deposit wastes; whereas larger meals are tougher on the digestive tract and may call for the use of laxatives)^{[citation needed]}. However, psychiatrists with Yale Medical School have found that people who suffer from Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and consume three meals per day weigh less than those who have more frequent meals. Eating can also be a way of making money (see competitive eating). Pie and sometimes cheese eating contests are one of these competitions. Sometimes people eat on picnics with family or friends. A snack food is seen in Western culture as a type of food that is not meant to be eaten as part of one of the main meals of the day (breakfast, lunch, supper). ... A healthy diet is the practice of making choices about what to eat with the intent of improving or maintaining good health. ... Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. ... Measuring body weight on a scale Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve a particular objective. ... A variety of vegetarian food ingredients Vegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes all animal flesh, including poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, and slaughter by-products. ... A laxative is a preparation used for the purpose of encouraging defecation, or the elimination of feces. ... Sonya Thomas and Tim Janus at the 2005 Midway Slots Crabcake Eating Competition Competitive eating involves the consumption of large quantities of food in a short time period – typically 15 minutes or less. ... In contemporary usage, picnic can be defined simply as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors, ideally, taking place in a beautiful landscape. ...

It is an urban legend that eating fast will make you fat. Studies has disproved the theory that the body cannot keep up with the pace of the food going into the digestive tract, and thus will store the food that it cannot process as fats or energy stores. This is unscientific, as all food that enters via the mouth must pass through the entire digestive system and be broken down into simpler, usable forms that the body can make use of. However, since it takes time (up to 30 minutes) for the brain to get a signal from stomach that it is full, eating fast may cause someone to eat more thereby consuming more calories than if they ate slower, leading to weight gain. An urban legend or urban myth is similar to a modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them. ...

Disorders

Main article: Eating disorder

Physiologically, eating is generally triggered by hunger, but there are numerous physical and psychological conditions that can affect appetite and disrupt normal eating patterns. These include depression, food allergies, ingestion of certain chemicals, bulimia, anorexia nervosa, pituitary gland misfunction and other endocrine problems, and numerous other illnesses and eating disorders. Hunger is a feeling experienced when the glycogen level of the liver falls below a threshold, usually followed by a desire to eat. ... The appetite is the desire to eat food, felt as hunger. ... On the Threshold of Eternity. ... Allergy is an abnormal reaction to a substance foreign to the body that is acquired, predictable and rapid. ... Bulimia nervosa, more commonly known as bulimia, is a psychological condition in which the subject engages in recurrent binge eating followed by intentionally doing one or more of the following in order to compensate for the intake of the food and prevent weight gain: vomiting inappropriate use of laxatives, enemas... For other uses, see Anorexia. ... | Latin = hypophysis, glandula pituitaria | GraySubject = 275 | GrayPage = 1275 | Image = Gray1180. ... The endocrine system is a control system of ductless endocrine glands that secrete chemical messengers called hormones that circulate within the body via the bloodstream to affect distant organs. ... Illness (sometimes referred to as ill-health) can be defined as a state of poor health. ...

A chronic lack of nutritious food can cause various illnesses, and will eventually lead to starvation. When this happens in a locality on a massive scale it is considered a famine. The Nutrition Facts table indicates the amounts of nutrients which experts recommend you limit or consume in adequate amounts. ... This article is about extreme malnutrition. ... <nowiki>Insert non-formatted text hereBold text</nowiki>A famine is a social and economic crisis that is commonly accompanied by widespread malnutrition, starvation, epidemic and increased mortality. ...

If eating and drinking is not possible, as is often the case when recovering from surgery, alternatives are enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition. A Canada goose drinking A lion drinking Drinking is the act of consuming a liquid through the mouth. ... “Surgeon” redirects here. ... In pharmacology and toxicology, a route of administration is the path by which a drug, fluid, poison or other substance is brought into contact with the body. ... Total parenteral nutrition (TPN), also called hyperalimentation, is the practice of feeding a person without using the gut. ...

See also

Look up Eating in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Aphagia
• Competitive eating
• Dietary supplement
• Dieting
• Food
• Nutrition

Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... Dysphagia is a medical term defined as difficulty swallowing. ... Sonya Thomas and Tim Janus at the 2005 Midway Slots Crabcake Eating Competition Competitive eating involves the consumption of large quantities of food in a short time period – typically 15 minutes or less. ... A dietary supplement is intended to supply nutrients, (vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or amino acids) that are missing or not consumed in sufficient quantity in a persons diet. ... Measuring body weight on a scale Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve a particular objective. ... The Nutrition Facts table indicates the amounts of nutrients which experts recommend you limit or consume in adequate amounts. ...

References