Food for Thought

‘Live Life Yummie: A Delicious Rebellion’, the newly published book by Rani Sheilagh

In an age of endless scrolling, incessant pop-up notifications and growing digital fatigue, Irish author and cyberpsychologist Rani Sheilagh believes the answer to living well may be hiding in plain sight.

It might be found at the back of the fridge, or around a kitchen table.

It might be a cup of tea or coffee enjoyed without distraction and that niggling ‘bing’ sound. Or it might just be in the simple act of slowing down long enough to savour a good meal.

Whatever the ritual, these ideas and more sit at the very heart of ‘Live Life Yummie: A Delicious Rebellion’, the newly published book by Rani whose work explores what it means to be human in this hyperconnected world.

While Rani’s career has taken her from New York’s tech sector to the study of cyberpsychology and digital culture, some of the roots of her philosophy lie much closer to home - right here in rural Cavan.

DEEP ROOTS

Rani’s connection to the Breffni County stretches back generations, through her mother’s family, the Faris’, whose history is closely tied to Cloggy House, a historic estate between Ballinagh and Arva.

“My grandparents were both from Cavan,” she says. “My grandfather’s family owned Cloggy House and my mother spent every summer there.”

Those childhood stories became part of family folklore. Later, Rani and her brother would create their own memories during long summers spent on family farms between Arva and Blacklion.

Her great-aunt Bella, a traditional farmer from Arva, played a particularly important role.

“My mum wanted us to experience that way of life,” she recalls. “Bella was one of those wonderful old-style farmers. We spent months every summer there.”

That familial connection still remains strong today.

“We’ve always kept that link to Cavan. In fact, as my mother gets older, she talks about Cavan more than ever. She probably romanticises, but she loved spending time there.”

For Rani, those summers offered something increasingly rare in modern life: a sense of time, presence and most importantly connection with one’s self and those around. Without realising it, Rani was quickly absorbing lessons, assignments in life, that would later become central themes in her latest work.

BRIDGING TWO WORLDS

Born into a family whose story spans Belfast, New York, India and Ireland, Rani grew up navigating different cultures and a myriad of perspectives.

She was born in New York, a melting pot of world beliefs, to where her parents had emigrated, and later studied Art, Interactive Technology and Media there during the nascent stages of digital innovation.

While many of her peers were focused on building technology, she found herself equally fascinated by the people using it and how they interacted.

“I’ve always been interested in the human side of technology,” she explains to the Celt.

At the same time, she was exploring yoga, mindfulness and wellness practices that would also become lifelong interests.

Years later, that curiosity led Rani back to academia, when she completed a Master’s degree in Cyberpsychology, examining how technology influences human behaviour, relationships and well-being.

Today, her work sits at the intersection of food, lifestyle, digital culture and psychology. It’s an interesting crossroads.

Rather than rejecting technology and its influences outright however, Rani is keenly interested in helping people to design a healthier relationship with it.

“Technology isn’t separate from life anymore,” she observes. “It’s part of how we live. The question isn’t whether we use it. It’s how we use it.”

Cyberpsychology, she explains, helps designers and developers understand how digital environments influence attention, emotion and behaviour. Applied thoughtfully, it can help create technologies that support human flourishing rather than simply competing for attention. If it’s is applied with ill intent in mind, it can be hugely detrimental.

TIREDNESS

The inspiration for ‘Live Life Yummie’ emerged gradually.

Over years of conversations with friends, colleagues and clients, Rani noticed a recurring theme. People who appeared successful, healthy and outwardly thriving often shared a similar feeling of fatigue beneath the surface.

“There was this undercurrent,” she says. “Not necessarily dramatic burnout, but a quiet tiredness.”

Many described feeling overwhelmed despite an idea they were trying to do everything “right”.

Social media presents endless opportunities for comparison, determines Rani. Productivity culture tells people they should always be optimising. Even wellness itself can become another source of pressure.

“The expectation isn’t just to succeed anymore,” she states. “It’s to succeed visibly.”

Whether it’s the pressure to answer “instantly”, or to “maintain” an active online presence, join the 5am club or document every workout, she says modern life often leaves “little room to simply be”.

Rather than adding more rules, Rani wants to offer something different.

She wants people to begin to give themselves permission.

Permission to slow down.

Permission to enjoy life.

Permission to find pleasure in ordinary moments. Quiet times.

FOOD MATTERS

A central idea running through ‘Live Life Yummie’ is the belief that food acts as what Rani describes as a “golden thread” that intrinsically connects people to themselves, and to one another too.

Food, she argues, is one of humanity’s oldest “pieces of tech”.

Food is memory. It is culture. Food is comfort. It can be a celebration. It can bring communities together.

Unlike many modern experiences, food and the process of eating remains deeply sensory. It is intimate and it is personal. “It invites presence,” says Rani.

“When we’re eating, we’re tasting, smelling, experiencing,” she adds. “Food brings us into the moment.”

Research in cyberpsychology and behavioural science increasingly supports the value of rituals, especially surrounding food. Even something as simple as pausing to acknowledge a meal before eating can sometimes increase enjoyment and mindfulness.

Though for some it is a curse of the modern age to see someone grab their phone in a restaurant and lean over a plate arching for that perfect Insta snap, interestingly Rani points out that some studies suggest people who photograph their meals often report greater appreciation afterwards. Not because of the image itself, but because the act of photographing creates a brief pause, one that encourages attention.

For Rani that insight “reflects a broader truth”.

Technology is not always inherently “harmful”. In many cases it can “enrich life”.

But the challenge is “balance”.

PLEASURE AS INTELLIGENCE

At the heart of the ‘Live Life Yummie’ philosophy is an idea that challenges conventional thinking about modern wellness especially.

“Pleasure is intelligence,” she says.

The phrase has become a cornerstone of what Rani has trademarked as the ‘Yummietarian’ mindset- an approach that encourages people to move away from the constant strive for impossible perfectionism, the burden of self-judgement, and relentless ache of unacknowledged optimisation.

Instead, it asks a simple question: What genuinely makes life feel good? What makes you feel good?

The answer may be movement, conversation, creativity, gardening, travel, cooking, or in Rani’s case, sitting with a morning coffee.

The point is not about performance.

The point is entirely about “connection”.

Rani believes adults often lose sight of the “playfulness” children naturally embrace.

“We don’t need another list of rules,” she says. “But sometimes we need permission. That’s why children are so great. They have a playfulness that they embrace naturally.”

That mindset forms the basis of Rani’s “delicious rebellion” against an uncontrolled culture that is perceived to measure worth through productivity alone.

As artificial intelligence, social media and digital technologies continue to reshape daily life, Rani sees a growing need for a more human-centred approach to progress.

Hers is not an argument for abandoning technology. Far from it. Instead, it is a call to design both our digital tools and our daily habits around human needs.

And perhaps it is no coincidence that some of the lessons she now shares can be traced back to those childhood summers in Cavan, long before digital well-being became a global conversation.

As Rani puts it: “We don’t have to just survive life. We have to put ourselves in a position so that we can savour it.”