In their new book, Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life (HarperOne, 2010), Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and nutritionist Lilian Cheung, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, apply ancient Buddhist mindfulness techniques to eating in the modern world. “It is not just what we consume, but how we eat, when we eat, why we eat, and whom we eat with that makes a difference,” says Cheung, who grew up in a Buddhist home in Hong Kong. A longtime student of Hanh’s work, Cheung years ago saw an opportunity to weave together Buddhist wisdom with modern nutritional science, and suggested that she and Hanh collaborate on a book. “We nutritionists can talk all we want about the best diets,” she says, but until people understand the physical, psychological, cultural, and environmental factors that make us binge, “they will almost always continue to overeat.”