After observing my appetite for a few days, a former colleague once nicknamed me Cookie Monster after the omnivorous muppet whose famous phrases include: "Me want cookie!"; "Me eat cookie!" and "Om nom nom nom". I've only met one person who eats more quickly than I do, and he's related to me. I'm the guy who inhales Pringles as if the tube were a straw, and for whom no bag of chocolate treats (caramel nibbles, please) is too big to be swallowed like a pelican on a sardine bender.

There is another way, and it's called mindful eating, a meditative approach to consumption with roots in Buddhist teachings and a growing following among those who give more thought to food. I'm about to try it by taking 10 minutes to eat a single raisin. I'm a big raisin fan. As a packed-lunching schoolboy, I used to treat those mini red Sun-Maid boxes as a teenager would a shot glass.

"Letting the raisin rest on your palm, become aware of its pattern, colour and shape." I follow the instructions at my desk, the site of much of my daily face-stuffing, holding my phone with my other hand. On the end of the line is Michael Chaskalson, aka Kulananda, a Buddhist based in Cambridge and a mindfulness trainer with more than 35 years of experience. His focus is not eating – he teaches people to be more in tune with themselves and their surroundings – but he uses the raisin exercise to start his courses.