“Cooking is love made edible.”
I came across this quote this week and thought it an appropriate topic for a blog post during Valentine’s week! Cooking as an expression of love and connection and health. Also, as I was thinking about the Valentine’s meal I would prepare for my own family this week, this was on my mind. I’ve written about this before, but it matters to me, so I’ll keep writing about it.
Because the table is the place where we get nourished, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
It’s a time of connection to others, to come together, share about the day, slow down. A time to disconnect from the distractions and noise that surround us all day. On a very practical level, the nutrition we get from a meal is the very force that sustains us and gives us actual life! And cooking is what gets us to the table. Amazing things happen when you put a home cooked meal out on the table and actually sit down to eat it. It goes beyond nutrition for the body to nourishing the soul by engaging with those closest to you. When we stop cooking, it starts to fall apart. We eat on the run. We eat separately. And typically we don’t eat well.
Cooking and eating (nourishing) are at the very core of our existence as humans, but they’re no longer a priority for many people. The priority is whatever can get you out the door the quickest, fill you up cheaply, take on the go, squeeze into a busy schedule. There is a stigma associated with cooking: a TIME stigma. So we look to the food industry, which has come up with so many fast, convenient options for us, seemingly making home cooking irrelevant. But it’s more relevant and necessary than ever.
Convenience, whether borne from necessity or not, comes with a cost.
When cooking at home started taking a back seat to processed and prepared foods, take out and fast food, it kick started an epidemic of illness that is unprecedented in the history of time. The cost is our health and the cost is trillions of dollars spent on health care. I know we are all time strapped, but this is too big a price to pay.
Cooking nourishes us on a variety of levels. It’s not wasted energy. Yes, it slows us down and consumes our time, but in a good way.
There is hope if you are struggling with your diet, and it’s called cooking.
Author Michael Pollan, who writes extensively about food culture says “Cooking is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your diet. What matters most is not one particular nutrient, or even one particular food. It’s the act of cooking itself. People who cook eat a healthier diet without even giving it a thought.” Simply stated, home cooked food is the healthiest food!
Embracing cooking as a necessity is a mindset shift and behavioral leap for many people, but it’s possible. Too often it’s viewed as a chore that is just getting in the way of life. But it is life! Such an important part! It’s what universally connect us.
What better thing to be doing than creating the very thing that sustains your life?
Once you learn how to cook, the simple steps, you become more comfortable, and it doesn’t seem like the end of the world to have to make dinner. It’s my hope that we’ll all come back to the table for nourishment, if not initially for connection, as an act of survival! That we’ll get to the point where cooking becomes pleasure, not drudgery, and get away from the fake and the fast food that is the natural go-to as a result of our fast paced lives.
Cooking doesn’t have to be gourmet or costly or ultra-healthy, but simple food, made with love, nourishes better.
Cooking draws us toward community and people and family and nature. The food industry doesn’t nourish us, nature does. Food from the earth. Plants, animals.
If we’re going to get back to a love of cooking, it’s going to be because it is important enough to us, joyful enough, and necessary enough to our health and happiness.
We’ll appreciate what cooking has to offer, and see it as a smart investment of time and energy.
We’ll begin to understand the holistic benefits of cooking: how it calms the mind, soothes the soul and improves our health. We’ll learn that cooking can be easy and also highly empowering. We’ll become more aware and connected.
Ironically, cooking shows and recipe blogs seem to be more popular than ever, so instead of just reading and watching. let’s start doing! Cook what you love to eat. Cook what’s easy for you. And every once in a while try something new, that pushes you! (Cooking shows are highly entertaining and I love watching them too, but they do perpetuate the myth that cooking is difficult and highly stressful, when it doesn’t need to be that way! Cooking can actually be quite simple.)
Cooking isn’t about finding the perfect recipes. It’s about understanding the very basics and why it is so important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and supporting a healthy environment all around. An environment of love and connection. It’s about more than eating. It’s about sustaining. Sustaining yourself, your family, your community. Love goes into the preparation of a meal, then gets served up on dishes to those around the table. The labor that goes into it makes the meal more special, worth more. The process of creating to nourish, and the community it inspires is significant. And it’s an appreciation of both the soul and stomach!
What challenges do you face when it comes to cooking? Leave me a comment below!
Want to cook something quick, easy and healthy tonight that covers all your nutritional bases? Try THIS.
