Key difference: Eating is the simple act of putting food in our mouths, chewing and swallowing the food. Dining is the art of eating, the experience of eating.

Eating is the simple act of putting food in our mouths, chewing and swallowing the food. Eating is also known as consuming. Eating is required for sustenance. All creatures eat in order to get nutrients from the food, especially for energy and growth.

Dining, however, refers to the cultural aspect of eating. It may also be said that dining is the art of eating. Eating, only refers to the act of eating, whereas dining is the experience of eating.

Let us look at some examples:

• I eat my lunch between meetings.
• Every morning I don’t have time to eat breakfast.
• I usually eat my dinner in front of the T.V.
• Today, I dined at the Majestic.
• The restaurant has a great dining atmosphere.
• I loved the entire dining experience at Hotel Le Blue.

We all eat, we must eat; however, dining is to take our time and to eat properly, by savoring the food and enjoying the experience. Today, dining has often become associated with fine dining at high-end restaurants, with linen napkins, china, fine crystal and expensive fancy food. However, just sitting at a dinner table at home and enjoying a proper meal also counts as dinner.

The word ‘dining’ comes from ‘to dine’, which essentially means to take dinner. We eat the food presented at dinner, but the act of sitting down to eat, with family or friends and enjoying the food, the company and the conversation is ‘dining.’

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