{"id":1458,"date":"2017-03-17T18:05:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T17:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taoofstefan.com\/blog\/?p=1458"},"modified":"2017-03-30T16:40:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T14:40:39","slug":"food-is-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taoofstefan.com\/blog\/zen\/food-is-information\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food is Information"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part 5\/6 \u00a0Food is Information\u00a0<\/strong>of my The Art of Meditational Cooking<\/strong>\u00a0series. I will publish a new part every week of my personal discovery and creational journey of what\u00a0I first saw as a means to an end <\/em>(cooking)\u00a0but later evolved into my personal meditational practice.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Beginnings<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  2. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food Family<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  3. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Art of Cooking<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  4. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Meditational Roots<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
  5. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Food is Information<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  6. The Art of Meditational Cooking – Rediscovering History<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"The<\/a><\/p>\n

    Food is Information<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    I did this by listening to my body<\/strong> and by listening I don\u2019t mean \u201cI\u2019m hungry\u201d. I mean really<\/strong> listening.\u00a0This goes much deeper<\/strong> and is about tiny changes<\/strong>, positive<\/strong> and negative<\/strong> emotions<\/strong>, thoughts<\/strong>, feelings<\/strong> and things that happened during the day. It\u2019s a process of self-reflection<\/strong> focused on the goal to create a dish that you truly desire<\/strong> and need<\/strong>. Food isn\u2019t just fuel<\/span> and a calorie isn\u2019t just a calorie. Food is information!<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"Food<\/a><\/p>\n

    Yes, it’s fuel but more importantly, it\u2019s your ultimate gateway to nourish body and<\/strong> mind. I always had a good mind-body connection and was really well in tune<\/strong>\u00a0with my surroundings and emotions. Yet people, nowadays maybe more so than ever, are disconnected from their body and their mind<\/strong>. And to make it even worse, their minds and bodies are also completely disconnected from each other.<\/p>\n

    You can already see that this practice of self-reflection is a form of mindfulness or active meditation<\/strong> 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

    Food is Information: Translating Desire<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    But how did I translate this into my cooking practice? That\u2019s 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<\/strong>. This gave me a huge array of recipe possibilities.<\/p>\n

    \"Spices<\/a>

    Spices – Food is Information<\/p><\/div>\n

    I also used what was common sense to me<\/strong>, without having deep knowledge of the effects of macro nutrients, nor micro nutrients and definitely no knowledge of the power of spices<\/strong>. And it\u2019s exactly this power of the spices that I used intuitively.<\/p>\n

    Food is Information: The Power of Spices<\/strong><\/h1>\n

    When I was lacking energy<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

    \"Ginger<\/a>

    Ginger – Food is Information<\/p><\/div>\n

    When I felt drained <\/strong>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 <\/strong>liquids out of something you can \u201crevive<\/strong>\u201d it by simply soaking it in water. So I had soup.<\/p>\n

    On days that I felt very sore<\/strong> 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<\/a><\/strong>. What do my go to ingredients have in common? They all have the potential to reduce inflammation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    \"Anti-Inflammation<\/a>

    Anti-Inflammation – Food is Information<\/p><\/div>\n

    Spices<\/strong> are especially powerful<\/strong> when it comes to healing properties for your body and mind. But there’s also\u00a0another very important aspect<\/strong> to consider for your diet: it has to be diverse and versatile<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Continue with part six\u00a0of the story here:\u00a0<\/strong>The Art of Meditational Cooking – Rediscovering History<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is part 5\/6 \u00a0Food is Information\u00a0of my The Art of Meditational Cooking\u00a0series. I will publish a new part every week of my personal discovery and creational journey of what\u00a0I first saw as a means to an end (cooking)\u00a0but later evolved into my personal meditational practice. 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 Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_3580015876_3580015876":"","facebook_10222714690288203_1473941132908662":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38,27,6,5],"tags":[473,40,11,474,10],"class_list":["post-1458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cooking","category-lifestyle","category-meditation","category-zen","tag-art","tag-cooking","tag-meditation","tag-the-art-of-meditational-cooking","tag-zen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6IZwn-nw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1456,"url":"https:\/\/taoofstefan.com\/blog\/zen\/meditational-roots-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1458,"position":0},"title":"The Art of Meditational Cooking – Meditational Roots","author":"Stefan","date":"March 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is part 4\/6 Meditational Roots\u00a0of my The Art of Meditational Cooking\u00a0series. I will publish a new part every week of my personal discovery and creational journey of what\u00a0I first saw as a means to an end (cooking)\u00a0but later evolved into my personal meditational practice. 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