@Roberta,
I am thinking you need to found a religion.
As for ritualized eating, yeah, it tends to be a part of dieting, at least for me. There was a while where I was eating a package of soy nuts while at work. One. Eat slowly, taking the cover off with my teeth (it's edible, it's just a different texture so it was something to, well, fetishize), slowly eat that, then the soy nut. Then the next one, etc.
This would take hours (hey, I had time to fill and not a lotta calories to do that with) and half the time I'd end up with a handful at the end of the day, that I would then proceed to eat all at once as I raced out the door to the bus.