Practice the power of your intention. Our intentions are so important. Prepare food from a positive space. Food is sacred; you should feel honored to be able to prepare food and eat it. Feeling thankful for what you have and sharing what you have with others will not only make you feel good, it will make your food good. Play music. Think positive thoughts. Get your family involved in the process. You may want to set up a kitchen altar. It can be a small shelf with enough space for a small vase or incense holder, perhaps a picture of an ancestor. When you prepare to cook, light a candle or some incense and be present.
Cook with others. If cooking is new for you and you experience some trepidation in kitchen, then invite a few friends over to help you execute your menu. It will make the process fun, and time will fly by. You can serve each other and share in the burden of cleaning up the mess afterward as well. You can also host a pantry party where everyone brings ingredients to make a dish, snack, or condiment, along with containers to store the excess.
Engage in sensual food preparation. Use all your senses in food preparation. The culinary arts are the only art form whereby you experience the materials on all sensory levels— while creating it and then in the finished work! Be mindful of how you are engaging your senses. Smell the ingredients while you cook, taste the dish every step of the way, and listen to the sizzle of the infused oil.
Cook today, eat tomorrow. Batch cooking, or planning your meals for the week and cooking a surplus ahead, makes certain that you always have something healthy on hand.
On a day when your schedule is light, plan out the meals for the following week and make your grocery list. Go shopping that day, and when you get home, start prepping your meals for the week ahead, whether that’s peeling veggies and cutting them up so they are ready for a stir-fry, making a batch of quinoa to last the week, or preparing your own salad dressings and making snacks.
Practice intuitive cooking. Allow creativity to flow in the kitchen. It’s not all about recipes; it’s about sensing what is right for you, your palate, and your mood. Try preparing something without a recipe and see what happens. If you engage your senses while eating, you will develop wisdom that tells you what is in the food. You won’t need to follow so many steps, giving you more space to celebrate food.
Top Foods to Avoid
Certain foods just aren’t good for us. Your glow power comes from taking care of yourself and feeding your body what it needs to thrive so you can maintain a vibrant lifestyle. Examine your current diet to see how much of the following it includes and start to adjust your intake accordingly.
Coffee
I know you don’t want to hear this, but America’s most widely used drug is coffee. It’s highly disruptive to the nervous system and extremely acidifying. Coffee wreaks havoc on your blood-sugar levels and increases stress on the body.
Try instead: green tea, matcha, or herbal-tea blends
Dairy
Hold up, wait—don’t eat that mac and cheese! You should be weaned by now, girlfriend. Dairy interferes with our hormonal signals and a multitude of disorders have been attributed to it—reproductive and otherwise. Plus, it causes weight gain. How do you think a 70-pound calf gets to weigh 500 pounds at a year old? By drinking its mother’s milk.
Try instead: almond milk, vegan cheeses, or vegan patés
Alcohol. You may like your margarita or gin and tonic during a night out on the town, but over time, alcohol acts as a depressant and depletes the feel-good hormone serotonin. Most of my clients who eliminate it see a dramatic shift in their weight. This isn’t a death sentence—you can still go out at night. But choose how often you drink. You’ll get used to how good it feels to rise up in the morning with clarity, without the haze of the liquid fire from the night before.
Try instead: wine spritzers, sparkling mineral water with a little lime and mint, or a virgin drink option
Artificial sweeteners. Poison alert! Steer clear of artificial sweeteners, including those in gum and mints. Healthier alternatives include low-glycemic sweeteners. If you need to chew gum, try xylitol gum.
Try instead: maple syrup, stevia, or honey
White sugar. Sugar depresses the immune system for up to six hours after consumption. It creates a dependency on sweets and erodes the body from within.
Try instead: dates, fruits, maple syrup, honey, or sweet potato
Processed foods. It’s best to start eliminating processed foods like chips, breads and pastries now. Whatever your go-to food is, ask yourself if there is a healthier version.
Try instead: flax crackers, nut bars, fruit, or smoothies
Learn to Cook for You!
They say a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. And, sure, it’s nice when you can show off your culinary expertise to impress others. But do it for yourself first—not because it makes you a more attractive mate or looks good on your resume! And certainly not simply because it will make your mother happy. Cook for you because it will increase your sense of self-satisfaction and self-reliance.
We’ve become a culture obsessed by convenience. The time it takes to do something as simple as cutting up fruit is seen as an inconvenience. It’s become widely acceptable to order out all the time.
I don’t know when it became cool to rely solely on others for your nourishment. There are only two instances where that is acceptable: when you are sick and when you’re an infant. Once you get to an age where you can start banging some pots and pans in the kitchen, it’s time for you to learn how to cook! I started to teach my son the value of nutrition through cooking exercises when he was two years old. Using age-appropriate methods and tasks, he learned to cut up his bananas, how to peel an orange, how to make ratatouille, and more. But if you didn’t learn when you were younger, now is a great time to enroll in a cooking academy and take some classes. I highly recommend a knife-skills class followed by basic meal prep to start.
With new “health food” restaurants springing up everywhere, it’s easy to eat out and assume you’re getting healthier options on your plate and in your belly. But you need to be able to nourish
yourself first and know what’s going into your body. You can’t monitor that through takeout or eating out, no matter how clean you think it is. I’m not saying you can’t order in your favorite sushi or Indian fare every now and again, but to know the menu by heart and have the number in your speed dial is a little excessive. When you prepare a meal from scratch, you will feel connected to it and want to savor it and share it.
Your Glow Bowl
I love one-bowl meals because they are simple to make, nourishing, and delicious. Although I enjoy sharing recipes, this is more of a glow-bowl-guide, providing you with some suggestions for how to build a great bowl and experiment with what works best for you.
PROTEIN:
Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, quinoa, chili, hummus, tempeh
VEGETABLES (Raw/Cooked):
Beets, arugula, spinach, pumpkin, squashes, radishes, sprouts, dan- delion, watercress, raddichio, mizuna, mache, tomatoes
PSEUDO GRAINS:
Amaranth, wild rice, buckwheat, quinoa
FATS:
Avocado, nuts, seeds, cold-pressed oils
PROBIOTIC (Fermented) FOODS:
Kimchi, sauerkraut, pickled vegetables