Although it is mostly agreed that the context surely does truly matter, getting around family meals in a typical Nigerian home often involves by default the hand-to-mouth relationship, which is widely guaranteed to help get the best experience out of food.

It is beyond sentiment that this is the case. Every bite of food birth a distinct experience that ought to be learned with all the core human senses, including tactile analytics which the right hand makes possible.

When a person having a meal uses their left hand to eat, that is regarded as an oddity and it is unimaginable and will only be overlooked for a physically challenged prospect.

Eating with cutlery, be it a silver spoon, the dull edge of a table knife juxtaposed with a fork that is good for stabbing dishes only have standing-in roles because when the window curtains have drawn to their edges as it is time for the family to sit down for dinner, all the members would have been initiating the slope of their meals into their throats through their bare hands. So, what are the benefits?

1. Forces hygienic hand washing

Hand health is important and recently became the focus when the COVID-19 pandemic spread its virus across several Nigerian cities. And then hand sanitiser became part of the ritual at various entry points after rinsing the wrist down to the fingers at a washing basin nearby. Eating with one’s hand equally promotes hygienic behaviours that cater to keeping germs away since washing before eating is a standard practice.

2. 360° foodie romance

Beyond the taste of a satisfying veggie soup lies the texture that a meal communicates to its handler. Rolling fufu into a ball before soaking the wrap into the soup is a different scene gravitating into the final experience. People who like their meals served hot have one of these feelings. They are motivated by the challenge of finishing their meal while it is still burning. The sting on their fingertips as they grub up with their hands is greatly satisfying because of transmission through touch.

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3. Control slimming soup

A spoon, no matter how wide, cannot win against the hand when consuming some type of food. The slithery ones like okra soup or ogbono. It should be known that these two types of delicacy are slimy in their character and only a firm hand folding to gather a scoop into the mouth would suffice. Using any type of cutlery wouldn’t help. It only portends a great deal of stress to those who attempt such a tool during their meals. This is why it is advisable to adapt one’s meal choices to the tool that is most comfortable.

4. Faster way to eat

No cutlery compares to the efficiency of the hands in terms of speed if you think about it. One fold of the hand while grabbing food is up to three times the stretch of a spoon and five to six times a fork. This is why those who do not want to be seen as drooling over their meals would vote for their hands over any type of cutlery. One positive of this dependency by Nigerians on using their hands when feeding is that there is an age-long culture that hasn’t lost potency for one moment even though the wind of change currently sweeps through the country.

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