One Essential Skill

What do you think would be an essential skill you would need to create better health?

Cooking.

“The typical American adult gets one of every five calories from a restaurant.” What? I found this statistic staggering.  But worse news is this:

At fast-food restaurants, 70 percent of the meals Americans consumed were of poor dietary quality.

At full-service restaurants, about 50 percent were of poor nutritional quality. The remainder were of intermediate nutritional quality.

Notably, the authors found that less than 0.1 percent — almost none — of all the restaurant meals consumed over the study period were of ideal quality.

The article and the study go on to say we need to improve our restaurants.  I kept reading thinking I would see them recommending some eating at home, some advice about those other 4 calories. But no–unfortunately that was not the case.

Although the authors did admit this: “Our food is the number one cause of poor health in the country, representing a tremendous opportunity to reduce diet-related illness and associated healthcare spending.”

The obvious solution here to me is cooking.

We must develop the skill of cooking from home in order to increase the quality of our food. If food is the number one cause of poor health in our country, then we must address the food we are eating 80% of the time (and hopefully more if you start cooking at home more!).

Mark Hyman said “Cooking is fun, freeing, and essential to achieving health and happiness  Unfortunately, w have handed the act of cooking, this unique task that makes us human, over to the food industry.”

Basically making food at home is the #1 thing you can do to improve your health.  I encourage you to develop this essential skill.

How to begin:

1. GET RECIPES: Purchase an introductory level cookbook or ask for some of your favorite recipes from your parents, siblings or friends.  A quick Amazon search for “easy cookbooks” brought up a number that I would consider ordering!
2. MAKE IT A PRIORITY: Meal plan on Sunday evenings and schedule a time to go to the grocery store.  Make cooking at home a priority instead of an after thought, or a “well if I have time” last resort sort of thing.  Planning is the key to making it a priority. Keep those meal plans and repeat favorite meals.  Stop reinventing the wheel!
3. GOOD TOOLS: Purchase some good quality cooking tools.  Get a large cutting board, a good chef’s knife, paring knife and serrated knife, and some decent cookware.  This does not have to be expensive! Check Amazon or Costco. Add one tool per month. You can do it and you will enjoy your time in the kitchen so much more when you aren’t frustrated with crappy tools!
4. YOU GOT THIS: Do not strive for perfection. Do not worry if the recipe you are making has butter or pasta or honey or whatever you’ve previously told yourself is “fattening.” I promise food made at home will be better than food made in a factory/restaurant and have a higher nutritional profile.  Just start cooking and you can alter recipes as you go along.
5. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GREEN: Focus on the vegetables. When you are looking to start cooking more at home, sometimes we first look at what meat the recipe has. Is it chicken or beef? I encourage you to make sure it has vegetables.  Start with broccoli or brussels sprouts or carrots and decide what protein you want on the side.

Does this sound overwhelming? Book a free strategy session with me and we’ll work together on making this happen for you!