Benefits of Eating Outdoors

Improvement in food taste and smell

Exercise 5 Read the following article about eating outdoors. On the opposite page, write a summary about the benefits of eating outdoors. Your summary should be about 100 words long (and no more than 120 words long). You should use your own words as far as possible. You will receive up to 6 marks for the content of your summary, and up to 5 marks for the style and accuracy of your language. 

As soon as someone says “let’s eat outdoors”, most people feel happy. There is the promise of feeling at one with nature. The reality, however, is all too often very different from the experience you had hoped for. You are often too hot or too cold, there’s a fly in your drink, and all of your energy goes into avoiding the wasps and ants. 

The taste of food can improve in the warmth of the sun because of chemical reactions that occur in the food. If you’ve ever made ice cream, for instance, you’ll know it tastes best just before it’s completely frozen. This is because the sucrose molecules in the mixture change when heated, which makes it seem sweeter. Heat also increases the concentration of volatiles gaseous molecules that give food its smell and smell plays a vital role in our enjoyment of eating. One chef even recommends putting salad dressing in the sun for a few minutes to improve the flavour. This works really well, as long as the breeze does not blow away the volatiles. 

We actually experience smell in two ways. Firstly, through the nose, and secondly, when the molecules from the food that we are chewing go up the nose from the back of the throat. Unlike animals, which rely almost exclusively on their sense of smell, we expect food to appeal to us in other ways as well touch, temperature and sight. As a species, we love a fire because it connects with something deep within us, providing protection, warmth and an opportunity to cook. Preparing food on a barbecue often makes it look more appealing. If you compare a piece of boiled chicken with the same piece grilled on a barbecue, most of us would prefer our meat with charred stripes. 

People’s attitude to eating outside depends upon their previous experiences. For some, the activity reminds them of holidays, but it is not the same for everyone. It depends on what seems special to you and what your childhood experiences were. Eating outside  or at least the idea of it seems to bring out the child in us. It feels more playful than eating indoors. Although in some parts of the world barbecues and picnics might only take place at weekends, other people eat outside every day when they go to a café. Pavement tables have become far more common in the past decade, even in countries with unpredictable weather.

Jenny Wilson, the food historian and journalist, points out, “People in certain parts of the world still only eat outside occasionally. The food seems to taste better when they do because their senses are stimulated. Throughout history, most people have eaten outside, not through choice but because they had to. Farm workers have always carried their lunch to the fields. I’m not sure if they would have preferred to eat their food under the comfort of a roof, rather than in the middle of a field.”

 If our experience of eating outside is affected by all these things smell, anticipation, environment, childhood memories whether or not it really tastes better is a matter of opinion. The truth is that although the prospect of an outdoor feast is clearly part of the fun, eating outside works best when it hasn’t been planned. The best food I’ve ever eaten was all eaten indoors. Some of the best experiences I’ve ever had, however, involved eating outdoors.