There is no doubt in my mind that family and community add nutrition to food. Now, I have no idea how this works. I don’t have any data to back me up, but my own experience is that you can eat a greasy fatty meal by yourself and feel terrible, and you can eat the same greasy fatty meal in a group of people that you care about, and that care for you, and feel great.
When you think about it, most ethnic food is not the healthiest. Usually, there are elements of simple carbohydrates, greasy meat or oil, and some kind of overcooking. For my family this is perogies, but every family and culture has a meal like this. There is a substance to such meals eaten in a community setting, however, that can’t be seen or measured but that does a body good.
Can you measure the dietary benefit of love and acceptance–of belonging. What about laughter–that has been shown to be good for digestion. How about peace? Has to be good for nutrient absorption. I bet there have been experiments and tests measuring this. I will have to look them up and see if I am right.