Taking your health into your own hands is one of the most empowering decisions you can make! For many people, this is better in theory than in practice especially if you’re not a skilled chef or used to cooking your own meals. Embracing the new habit of preparing your own food can be made much easier with these simple tips for food preparation and easy cooking.
TAKE YOUR TIME
If you don’t have the time to you need to cook what you’d like to cook, pick something you have time for so you don’t have to stress about making the food you need. Trying to make food quickly enough to fit into a time frame can cause unnecessary frustration especially if these are new recipes or cooking methods you still need practice with. The discouragement can make you feel like this new lifestyle isn’t worth it so to avoid all of this frustration– try to cook when you know you have time and energy.
KEEP SNACKS AROUND
When you get caught off guard with recipes. No joke, you’ll get caught off guard food wise and be starving with nothing to eat but celery and some half-eaten almond butter. Well lucky you, that’s a really bomb combination. Have those cheap and easy snacks on hand always so you aren’t as enticed to give in and eat food you aren’t keen on consuming!
CLEAN YOUR FOODS
Organic and farmer’s market foods sound like they’d be clean and good because they come from a more natural environment. Even so, it’s good practice to wash your foods especially those bought at the store. Many foods have traveled long distances to get to you and been handled by many different people. If you’re somewhat forgetful, try pre-washed greens and packaged vegetables and fruits for the convenience without the washing.
KISS!
Keep it Simple Silly! You might not have all the tools you need to make the foods you want– no high speed blender, no juicer, no cleaver or coffee grinder– so why stress about making foods that you don’t have the tools for? If you can’t make some gluten-free raw vegan apple pie, just dip apple slices in maple syrup and apple pie spice for the same effect! Changing your diet is supposed to be fun and healing and if it’s not, the stress and frustration is just as bad as eating junk. Simplify so you can enjoy your food until you feel ready to take recipes and preparation techniques to task.
SHOP FARMER’S MARKETS
Shopping locally with farmers near by gets you the freshest, ripest, and most delicious foods at a cheaper price in a quantity that’s more suited for your needs. Look for a listing of farmer’s markets online– in major cities there are markets every day during certain (or all) times of the year. If there aren’t farmer’s markets easily accessible for you, do your best to eat seasonally grown foods like squash in the fall, citrus in the winter, etc. The foods will have likely traveled over shorter distances and are grown in conditions most similar to small farms.
MAKE A DAY FOR FOOD
If you’re really busy, it can be incredibly helpful to pick a day to prepare food in advance. You can either prepare meals for the week or do all the preparation work for the meals you’d like to eat for the week. For example, you can dice all the vegetables, peel all the garlic, and put everything in a container ready to be fried for fried rice. If you like salads, put the raw greens in a container with whatever dry goods (dried berries, chocolate nibs, etc) and put the other “wet” stuff in a separate container (berries, tomatoes) to grab when you’re ready. This saves you so much time and helps you to make better choices for meals.
STAY GOAL ORIENTED
Remember why you’re making all these efforts and choices. It’s really easy to get caught up in recipes and forget why you started down this path in the first place. If you make it easy on yourself by taking time when you have it and starting some of these tips as regular habits, you can definitely stay on track with less grief. When you stay goal-oriented and remember why it is that you’ve been venturing outside your comfort zone, you can keep yourself on track much easier.
Even though chopping vegetables takes some practice, these tips will help you create a routine in the kitchen and when you’re shopping to help you become the most effective and efficient at healthy food choices and long term success.
