When it comes to food, human beings don’t play around. We love our food. We eat it at every life event, share it with others, pass down recipes from our family members, and invent fad diets. We’re vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, and self-professed carnivores.

We eat cake to celebrate birthdays and ice cream while we cry over broken relationships. We attach superstitions to peas and beans and eat them on New Year’s Eve. And if you’ve ever been to a party where there wasn’t any food, you’ll know that it wasn’t a fun party.

Yes, there’s no doubt about it: the human race loves to eat. That’s why we binge-watch cooking shows on Netflix even if there’s not a chance we will ever cook ourselves. We also attach a lot of meaning to food. We put together meal trains for families with new babies and those who have lost a loved one. We cook one another our favorite meals and make special dishes for different holidays. We may eat to survive, but it’s so much more than that.

So, the next time you’re eating a block of cheese in the kitchen at 3 a.m., think these deep thoughts about food and enjoy.