The Shared-Meal Revolution
How to Reclaim Balance and Connection in a Fragmented World through Sharing Meals with Family and Friends
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Once upon a time in America, sharing meals with others was the norm. Families routinely ate together, inviting relatives, friends, and neighbors to break bread with them. Allowing someone to eat alone was viewed as downright uncivilized. Today, practicing a shared-meal routine is subject to fierce competition from many influences that challenge our good intentions: • We are overscheduled and exhausted, be it from too much work or too many activities. • Mealtime has become another chore on our to-do list. • We are depreciating our meal experiences with fast, cheap food in order to save time. • We are often too busy to stop and think about what really matters; our values lack definition and focus. • We are overdependent on technology to help us stay connected. We’re lacking the type of intimate connection people get when they are face-to-face. As a casualty of our hyperactive lives, we are neglecting a proven relationship-building activity: sharing meals. We want to feel connection with those we love and have the satisfaction that we are taking care of ourselves and our families. Workable for all, regardless of family structure or domestic situation, sharing meals is a positive strategy to revive wholeness in what is a sadly fragmented American lifestyle. A revolutionary plan for sharing meals addresses what we can do to become a more intact American society, engaged in the daily welfare of our loved ones. I strongly believe we can again find the treasure of life balance by sharing meals with our families, spouses, friends, and members of our community, allowing us to reclaim something essential to our long-term well-being—interpersonal connection. Sharing meals is a powerful step we can all take to cultivate a stronger and more positive American culture. Benefits of shared meals explored in this book include nurturing social skills, developing the art of communication, building positive self-esteem and identity, feeling stable and secure, living in the moment, finding sanctuary in spiritual unity, exploring our creativity, understanding the link between food and nature, and bonding with ancestral history and traditions. I’m inviting you to join The Shared-Meal Revolution. Embrace the spirit you’ll find in this guided journey of important insights, examples, and exercises. Enriching your life through the daily practice of shared meals is my promise—a more fulfilled life is your reward.
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About the Book
Does your current mealtime routine consist of eating on the run, picking up fast food at the drive-through, or grabbing food “cafeteria style”? Do the members of your household dash away from the kitchen each night and gobble a microwave meal alone in their rooms? Are you too overwhelmed at the end of your day to make a meal with your family or loved ones happen? The Shared-Meal Revolution: How to Reclaim Balance and Connection in a Fragmented World through Sharing Meals with Family and Friends by popular blogger and writer Carol Archambeault offers the help we need. The book takes the reader through the steps of understanding, planning, implementing, and sustaining a shared-meal practice. It contains valuable research about the many benefits of sharing meals, helpful resources, and easy-to-use post-chapter exercises, allowing readers to develop a shared-meal plan to fit their lives. In this eye-opening examination of a vital, yet neglected, American ritual, Archambeault proposes that when we abandon the shared-meal experience, we starve ourselves of the connection that is as necessary to our survival as the actual food we eat. Through Archambeault’s collection of research of the many developmental benefits sharing meals affects (social, psychological, physical, cultural, spiritual, academic, and creative) and her relatable personal experiences, readers are provided with the tools they need to create their own shared-meal plan. We are desperate to feel closeness with our children, spouses, family, and friends and would welcome a strategy that will help us address a host of distractions that deter us from gathering together for a meal. The Shared-Meal Revolution explains how we can help reverse the forces of modern culture that promote alienation and rebuild meaningful connection through sharing meals. The book is for everyone—parents, families, couples, and single people—to learn how to reclaim mealtimes, leading to a more joyful and balanced life.
About the Author
In The Shared-Meal Revolution: How to Reclaim Balance and Connection in a Fragmented World through Sharing Meals with Family and Friends, Carol Archambeault explains how sharing meals is fundamental to achieving life balance and creating meaningful interpersonal connection with those we love. Carol was born in Connecticut as the youngest sibling in a family of four sisters and six brothers (including her twin brother). She was raised by loving parents in a household where food and family intertwined. When she became a mother, she continued the shared-meal ritual as a way to foster development of her own daughter and son. When Carol planned the research for her graduate thesis, she landed on her own family as the perfect source for a multigenerational study. This effort revealed a deeper understanding of how the shared-meal ritual impacts family members from early childhood through late adulthood. The Shared-Meal Revolution is the result of both research and inspiration. After receiving her MA in human development in 2007 from Pacific Oaks College (California), Carol became motivated to continue her work on shared meals to promote a universal understanding of how a shared-meal ritual can enhance the lives of individuals, families, communities … and American society. Currently residing in Los Angeles, California, Carol shares ideas and stories about creating rich meal and lifestyle experiences in her blog Shared Meals Matter on her website www.shared-meals.com, as well as through articles in online and print media. Carol enjoys dual citizenship in Italy and is working on her next book, which explores shared-meal practices in other countries. The working title is Sharing Meals—Global to Local.