Feb 26, 2025| Dineships TeamWhat is it that can transcend physical boundaries and unite nations of different dialects? Want a hint? It’s in your home, and it's right down the street. It's food. The universal language is able to bring people together in absolutely extraordinary ways. Generally, we tend to describe the ‘dining experience’ through the lens of emotional experiences. Feeding your lover chocolate-covered strawberries feels romantic, sitting on the floor passing around cartons of Chinese food feels fulfilling and wholesome, and cutting into a juicy ribeye under low light feels classy. But there’s scientific backing behind why we experience these feelings of satisfaction when sitting down for a meal.The Roots of Our Age-Old Social RitualThe seeds for community dining were sown long before humans even existed. Over 3 million years ago, our not-so-distant ancestors invented what we know now as cooking. The discovery of fire, to no one's surprise, altered the trajectory of our species. With the ability to cook food, we no longer spent crazy amounts of time and energy chewing and digesting raw food. It was around this time we were able to focus our attention elsewhere – further evolution – and it was around this time we grew our brain size! But aside from this, the discovery of cooking did one pivotal thing that we have carried with us into the modern age. It made eating social. Preparing and eating a meal necessitated help, someone to gather the food, another to tend to the fire, and another to watch for predators. It was a community affair that forced individuals to come together in the name of food. Because of this, social groups formed around the dining experience. Members of families were delegated tasks in the process and even had designated spaces to eat. Not so different from how we operate now, huh?The Science Behind Why We Do ItFood’s ability to bring people together night after night and meal after meal can be attributed to the release of oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is one of the “feel good” hormones that we get when we cuddle with someone we love or have a hearty laugh. When secreted, we feel an increased sense of closeness and love between humans. And for gassy individuals, dining in community has an added perk, oxytocin aids in the digestion of food too!Along with generally just making us happier, oxytocin affects the regulation of our limbic system - the part of the brain responsible for controlling emotion. The hormones affect the expression of the gene that contributes to empathy and control of aggression. Simply sharing a meal with someone can lower your anger levels and make you more empathetic toward the person you are dining with!The Lack of Full Bellies & Good ConvosBelieve it or not, even though the act of eating as a community is unbelievably good for us, we are not doing it less than ever. An Oxford study looked into the current trends and effects of social eating to find that nearly two-thirds of respondents have never shared a meal with one of their neighbors. And 37 percent have never eaten with a community group. The unfortunate reality is that this isolation is creating rifts in our community and negatively impacting our mental health as an entire population. But it doesn’t have to be this way!Dineships: Not Quite Reinventing the WheelFuture theorists and thinkers may look back fondly on us as notable revolutionaries. The truth is, we’re not trailblazers in social networking or in dining out. We thank our primitive ancestors for that. What we are doing is bringing us, as humans, back to the roots of what makes us human – our community. And we’re doing this with the one singular thing that unites us all – good food. Try it out for yourself by downloading our app on iOS and Android and find your community.