Holidays and celebrations often involve eating together with family and friends. But what does it mean to eat well together? How can food allergies, restricted diets and even certain medications make sharing a meal more challenging for guests as well as hosts?

Megan Dean, assistant professor of philosophy at Michigan State University, explores the ethics of eating and brings to light expectations and assumptions around food and eating that we often take for granted. Her current research looks at hospitality and what things can affect people’s full participation in shared meals.

In addition to her research, Dean teaches courses on health care ethics, the philosophy of food and feminist bioethics. She’s also the North American coordinator of the Culinary Mind: Center for the Philosophy of Food, an international organization that brings together philosophers and researchers to promote deeper thinking and discussions about food.

Here, Dean provides practical considerations to help us eat in ways that enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.

Why is eating together important, especially as part of holidays and celebrations?

We use eating to do so many things that matter to us and that are important for our ability to live good lives. More than just keeping us alive, it’s a way to care for our bodies, express our values and interests, and comfort ourselves.

Eating with others allows us to do even more. It can help us reinforce family connections or build a sense of belonging with a community. It can be a way to express or cultivate shared religious or cultural identities and mark important life events. It can also be a way to care for others, to share nourishment and spend quality time.

Living through the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this importance for a lot of people. Losing shared meals with others, and particularly holiday meals, was a significant loss, and it wasn’t always easy to replace that with different activities.

Why can eating with others be harder for people with allergies or restricted diets?

Eating with others, whether it’s for a holiday or just in general, can also be a site of judgment, shame, and exclusion for some people. A lot of times when people eat differently — whether it’s for medical, ethical or religious reasons — the things they need to do to eat well can clash with expectations and assumptions about how people should act at shared meals.

Megan Dean, MSU assistant professor of philosophy, researches the ethics of eating, including ways to make shared meals more welcoming and inclusive for people with food allergies or restricted diets. Credit: Ryan Frederick, Michigan State University.

My work focuses on food- or diet-related reasons for being excluded from shared meals. What are the expectations and assumptions that make it difficult for people who eat differently to participate? Do these things actually need to be in place to achieve the good things a shared meal can offer? Are there expectations or assumptions that we can ditch that would make it more welcoming to all guests, regardless of how they eat?

When you have a restricted diet and you’re constantly bumping up against these expectations, it can be stressful to participate in things. Some people just don’t go to shared meals anymore because this process is so exhausting for them emotionally and socially.

How can people be good hosts and guests when sharing meals?

One thing hosts can do to be more inclusive of their guests is to reflect on their expectations for how a meal will go and how guests will behave. Two common expectations are that everyone is going to share the same food and will eat all the food that’s served to them, but these things might not be possible for guests with dietary restrictions. So, can you achieve what you want for the meal by shifting expectations and arranging things in a different way?

If you want a more formal event, could you serve the food family-style so everyone can take what they want and how much they want? That way there’s no pressure on a guest to eat everything that somebody else serves them. Or if you don’t care so much about formality, a potluck could offer more flexibility and allow guests to bring food that is safe and appropriate for them to share with everyone.

Hospitality and the way people eat together is part of Megan Dean’s research. Credit: Ryan Frederick, Michigan State University.

One thing guests can do is make sure they let hosts know about their dietary needs. I say that recognizing that many people with restricted diets may be reluctant to do so because they’ve had bad experiences. But if you do value shared meals with this host or group of people, it’s important to give the host a chance to make sure that the meal works for you. Hosts can help facilitate this by asking about dietary needs in advance.

If you’re someone who doesn’t value eating with others, that’s OK. But for many people, eating with others is an important part of eating well and living a good life. It’s worth thinking through how we can help ourselves and others fully participate in this valuable activity.

What does the popularity of weight-loss drugs that suppress appetite reveal about eating in our culture?

There are a lot of different ethical concerns about appetite-suppressing drugs used for diabetes and weight loss. In addition to some significant side effects and problems of access and availability, these drugs can reinforce the idea that being in a larger body is unhealthy and if you just become thin, you will suddenly be healthy. That’s greatly oversimplified.

In the context of shared meals, one common expectation is that everyone will eat. But when your appetite is severely suppressed — and if you’re experiencing some of the common side effects of these drugs like nausea, vomiting and gastrointestinal distress — you might not be able to eat much if at all. You might not even be able to drink anything. Considering this expectation, not eating can seem like bad guest behavior.

Here’s where rethinking expectations becomes important. Can we all adjust our expectations so we don’t judge those who are unable to eat as “bad guests?” If the goal of our gathering is to build community, can it be re-centered around another activity to take pressure off guests to eat? Hosting a shared meal can be a great way to connect, celebrate or show care, but it’s not the only way to do that.

We make a lot of assumptions about people’s identities and their characters from how they eat or how we think they eat, and many of those assumptions are unjustified. We should be more cautious about how we judge others in this way. These judgments can negatively impact people and not just by making them feel ashamed or unwelcome at shared meals.

Many of us should also be more cautious about how we judge our own eating. There’s no perfect way to eat, and sometimes eating well in one respect — like avoiding allergens or living up to your ethical commitments — clashes with another — like being a good guest. A bit more compassion for ourselves and others would help us all eat better.