The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food is Information

This is part 5/6  Food is Information of my The Art of Meditational Cooking series. I will publish a new part every week of my personal discovery and creational journey of what I first saw as a means to an end (cooking) but later evolved into my personal meditational practice.

  1. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Beginnings
  2. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food Family
  3. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Art of Cooking
  4. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Meditational Roots
  5. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food is Information
  6. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Rediscovering History

The Art of Meditational Cooking - Beginnings The Art of Meditational Cooking - Food Family The Art of Meditational Cooking - Art of Cooking The Art of Meditational Cooking - Meditational Roots The Art of Meditational Cooking - Food is Information The Art of Meditational Cooking - Rediscovering History

Food is Information

I did this by listening to my body and by listening I don’t mean “I’m hungry”. I mean really listening. This goes much deeper and is about tiny changes, positive and negative emotions, thoughts, feelings and things that happened during the day. It’s a process of self-reflection focused on the goal to create a dish that you truly desire and need. Food isn’t just fuel and a calorie isn’t just a calorie. Food is information!

Food is Information

Yes, it’s fuel but more importantly, it’s your ultimate gateway to nourish body and mind. I always had a good mind-body connection and was really well in tune with my surroundings and emotions. Yet people, nowadays maybe more so than ever, are disconnected from their body and their mind. And to make it even worse, their minds and bodies are also completely disconnected from each other.

You can already see that this practice of self-reflection is a form of mindfulness or active meditation that I integrated into my days. I did this without any real knowledge of meditation nor mindfulness. The topic of mindfulness only popped up into my life a solid decade after I started this process. Yet it formed and transformed me. I think because I didn’t know of any specific meditational or mindfulness techniques my mind was looking for a way of channelling this need of a practice into cooking. As this was the most flexible, intimate and creative part of my daily routine back then.

Food is Information: Translating Desire

But how did I translate this into my cooking practice? That’s the hard part and I only worked on my intuition back then. I had experimented a lot over the years, with different vegetables, meats, fats, carbohydrates, but also with many different spices and flavours. This gave me a huge array of recipe possibilities.

Spices - Food is Information

Spices – Food is Information

I also used what was common sense to me, without having deep knowledge of the effects of macro nutrients, nor micro nutrients and definitely no knowledge of the power of spices. And it’s exactly this power of the spices that I used intuitively.

Food is Information: The Power of Spices

When I was lacking energy and was really tired, I added plenty of ginger (powdered or fresh), black pepper, and cayenne pepper to my recipes. Now I know that those ingredients can actually raise your energy and metabolism levels.

Ginger - Food is Information

Ginger – Food is Information

When I felt drained I was very likely to make a soup or a stew. This increased water intake was often what I needed. Sometimes wording is making it very clear. The moment you drain liquids out of something you can “revive” it by simply soaking it in water. So I had soup.

On days that I felt very sore I ended up having a bowl of stew or a plate full of chicken and vegetables with lots of spices. The stew often was a curry with a pre-mixed curry powder. The spices for my chicken were usually a mix of black and cayenne pepper, ginger, garlic, cloves, cumin and turmeric. What do my go to ingredients have in common? They all have the potential to reduce inflammation.

Anti-Inflammation - Food is Information

Anti-Inflammation – Food is Information

Spices are especially powerful when it comes to healing properties for your body and mind. But there’s also another very important aspect to consider for your diet: it has to be diverse and versatile.

Continue with part six of the story here: The Art of Meditational Cooking – Rediscovering History

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