Bringing Joy to the Table
Hi all! Vanessa here.
In your "Back to Basics" discussion this week with Karen, you'll be reminded that part of bringing the basics back to nutrition and food is to find the joy in your food. This might seem radical to some of you, especially if you have a lot of Rules-y voices in your head. You know those voices. The ones that tell you to eat low-fat cheese or not to use butter ever or no food after 7 PM. Are you hanging on to those Rules-y voices? If you are, then no wonder that you are giving me side-eye (albeit maybe only mentally) when I talk about finding the joy in food. This week, I encourage you to try to stop those rules from taking up space in your head and really center pleasure in your food choices. This might mean identifying some of your "not allowed" foods.
If you've got a large list of formerly "not allowed" foods, you might need a recipe refresh in order to feel confident in your new mindset and get a renewed sense of how much oil, salt, cheese etc. to use in order to create joyful meals. I am highlighting the book Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat in the "Stuff We Love" section of the website this week. (If you prefer watching instead of reading, there is also a 4-part series on Netflix.) Honestly, even if you just watched that series on mute, the joyful smile on Nosrat's face when she cooks and eats is infectious and might just make you smile too. I like to recommend this book not as a cookbook (although there are recipes in there), but as a way to learn about the whys and hows (and yes, joys) of food, taste, and cooking. If you are someone who likes to research all_the_things before you make a decision, this book is for you. Don't forget also about the recipes Karen and I have from our respective kitchens on this EatWell website, as well as the recipe website recommendations.
Another way to make food, taste, and cooking easier and more joyful: don't make unrealistic demands on the reality of your time. This might mean that you incorporate frozen, premade, and/or pre-cut ingredients into your meals. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using these options. In some cases, they may be slightly more expensive, but if you are able to budget for it they do help meals done more easily. That can make all the difference between "I got this" and "Are you kidding me". Start by choosing some easy building blocks to combine in different ways. Some of my favorites are Trader Joe's pre-made pizza dough and baked tofu, frozen veggie gyoza from DY Market on Clay's Mill Road, and bagged pre-cut broccoli and cauliflower mix from Kroger. The Lazy Dietitian resource is also a fan favorite when it comes to identifying these easy building blocks as well as how to put those blocks together.
One last tip: if you take the above advice to heart and want to try a new recipe or cooking technique, it’s helpful to do it when you aren’t feeling super hungry or super tired. The best time to cook is when you aren’t at any extreme emotional points—you’ll be able to be more present and enjoy the process more, and you’ll also be more likely to follow through on your intention to cook. Experiment. You may find that you enjoy the process more if you start cooking at the early signs of hunger rather than waiting until you want to eat the table. Of course, you may not always be able to do that because of work or school schedules (or other things) so if you do get to a table-eating place try to have a snack before or during cooking. If a Rules-y voice starts griping that you’re not allowed to snack, you can acknowledge that voice, thank it for its concern (because at some level it is trying to look out for you), and then let it know that You Got This.