Hate the sound of people eating when I am not eating.

Isha: Yes, I don't like the 'snack culture'. I believe we should eat at set times: breakfast, lunch, dinner, unless of course someone really HAS to eat outside of these times, for example if they have diabetes or another health complaint. But for most healthy people, we don't actually need to eat all the time. A little bit of 'hunger' in the Western world (i.e , not REAL hunger) is not going to hurt most people, and may in fact be healthy to feel a grumbly tummy now and again. Constant eating means we never experience  real desire for food, and so we meet the point of satiation where food can no longer be really enjoyed as something special and really satisfying. There is, of course, a difference between feeling ravenous (never a good thing) and feeling slightly 'hungry'. It is possible that eating all the time, or very often, disrupts our metabolism, leading to very high insulin levels and not enough breakdown of fat: there have been studies examining this.

But health issues with snacking , if there are indeed any (a point of contention), I think are less important here than the erosion of etiquette and social structure/norms.

I never snack, really look forward to food at the set times, and like to eat with NO distractions.

Darth Reagon: I do not have many sensory complaints, but I do have issues with intrusive noise, such as people eating conspicuously, sniffing, blowing their nose, those sorts of things. And sometimes small background sounds, particularly people talking, distract me and/or irritate me a little, but usually only when I am deep in thought or trying to work out something in my head. If I am not deep in thought, the same noises do not usually irritate me!. And, like yourself, I can't stand it when people walk too close to me or I can hear them walking behind me on a public walkway. For me, however, I think it is more because I feel very self-conscious and they intrude upon my space.

Isha: Yes, I don't like the 'snack culture'. I believe we should eat at set times: breakfast, lunch, dinner, unless of course someone really HAS to eat outside of these times, for example if they have diabetes or another health complaint. But for most healthy people, we don't actually need to eat all the time. A little bit of 'hunger' in the Western world (i.e , not REAL hunger) is not going to hurt most people, and may in fact be healthy to feel a grumbly tummy now and again. Constant eating means we never experience  real desire for food, and so we meet the point of satiation where food can no longer be really enjoyed as something special and really satisfying. There is, of course, a difference between feeling ravenous (never a good thing) and feeling slightly 'hungry'. It is possible that eating all the time, or very often, disrupts our metabolism, leading to very high insulin levels and not enough breakdown of fat: there have been studies examining this.

But health issues with snacking , if there are indeed any (a point of contention), I think are less important here than the erosion of etiquette and social structure/norms.

I never snack, really look forward to food at the set times, and like to eat with NO distractions.

Darth Reagon: I do not have many sensory complaints, but I do have issues with intrusive noise, such as people eating conspicuously, sniffing, blowing their nose, those sorts of things. And sometimes small background sounds, particularly people talking, distract me and/or irritate me a little, but usually only when I am deep in thought or trying to work out something in my head. If I am not deep in thought, the same noises do not usually irritate me!. And, like yourself, I can't stand it when people walk too close to me or I can hear them walking behind me on a public walkway. For me, however, I think it is more because I feel very self-conscious and they intrude upon my space.