Principles of Nutrition
What you eat is a set of instructions for your body on how to live and grow. Much like any mathematical model, garbage in garbage out. So, eating good information will get you a body that works well.
What you eat is a set of instructions for your body on how to live and grow. Much like any mathematical model, garbage in garbage out. So, eating good information will get you a body that works well.
When nutrition is boiled down, it seems easy and simple. Eat a balanced diet of whole foods like fruit, vegetables, and meat. Our bodies thrive on food that closely resembles life. When we heavily process food we remove the life and get food that gives us energy but nothing else.
In practice, this is very hard to do in the western world. It is not common to cook often and when we do cook we start with ingredients that are already processed. Everything around us is telling us to eat lifeless food and we are suffering as a result. When we think of healthy food, we think of boring, tasteless, and hard to finish.
This doesn't have to be the case, though! There are endless possibilities for foods with life! Think of authentic Indian, Chinese, Italian, African, Greek, and Middle Eastern foods to name a few. These foods are full of life and flavor, made from whole foods that are minimally processed. Anyone can eat a diet of these foods and feel like they are living a luxurious life that is not depriving them of any food that they want.
Eating in this way requires forgetting some things we've been told about healthy food in the past. The book Deep Nutrition by Dr. Catherine Shanahan is an excellent resource that mirrors my perspective for a deep dive in this thought change.
While this might seem limiting, most foods can actually be made with exclusively those ingredients. The problem is that most foods available in the west are not made with those ingredients and instead are made with processed and refined products. If we add bread and pasta to the list (which I think are good as long as you are consuming other lively foods), the possibilities are endless.
Knowing how to cook makes all of this possible. We need to stop eating the food that's given to us and start creating the food that we want to eat. By cooking with whole ingredients and reading labels when you can't, you are able to make delicious and healthy foods for very cheap. You can make foods exactly how you like and have better quality, portions, and healthier food than restaurants. However, cooking is a skill that takes time to develop and starts out with a lot of failures. Patience and motivation are necessary but it is very worth it.
The number one overarching piece of advice that I can give for learning how to cook is to cook more. Be patient with yourself and understand that not everything will turn out good, but the average deliciousness of your meals will increase over time. Look at cooking as a creative process much like making music or a painting. Try new things, explore your curiosity, and seek out new techniques that will help you make the food you like. You'll pick up endless tricks to save time, food, and make your meals taste better if you just stay persistent and try to cook more.
With that said, there are a few ideas that I think are essential. These basics will enhance the nutritional value, ease, and taste of your meals as you master them.
Quality equipment that you enjoy using is a key part of cooking regularly. This depends on the person but my list of essentials is as follows:
All you need is practice! Watch some videos, make sure your knife is sharp, and try new things.
Similar to knife skills, all you need is practice. There are lots of videos and resources to learn this, but the important thing to remember is that it takes time and patience to develop. Some tips that help me that I don't hear mentioned much is listening to the sound of the food in the pan, getting to know the stove that you're cooking on (every stove is different), and making sure your pan is well seasoned.
Plan out the order that you do things in to be most efficient and maximize flavor. For example, cook the meat in the pan while you cut the vegetables, add the vegetables to the rendered meat fat after it is done cooking, and as the vegetables are cooking cut the fresh toppings or prepare sauces for your meal. Carbs typically take longer to cook so if you are having those, start cooking those and prep everything else as you are cooking. Don't expect yourself to get this down immediately. Develop a system that works for you and refine it over time.
This makes everything so much easier. I try to have everything cleaned before I start eating. Clean when things are cooking and conserve the amount of dishes you use.
Samin Nosrat did a great job generalizing the idea of cooking in her book and Netflix series Salt Fat Acid Heat. I highly recommend this if you want to be able to cook something out of anything or just make your food taste better with little upfront effort (all you have to do is watch a show or read a book).
Be curious about new ingredients and learn how to use them. The more you know about ingredients, the more you can make and the more comfortable you will feel with unfamiliar ingredients. The bigger your ingredient vocabulary, the easier cooking will be.
Some pre-made products are made from whole foods. Things that are not reasonable to make at home can be purchased at a store and can be the same quality if the ingredients look good. Look for ingredients you can buy from the store yourself and no vegetable/canola/sunflower/safflower oils. You'll be surprised at what things contain processed and refined materials and what things don't!
Know what you can make in advance and do that. I also have an arsenal of quick and easy meals that I eat during the day, and then put most of my effort into cooking a delicious dinner when I have more time. You will figure out a system that works for you; here's mine if you need some ideas.
I like to ferment my own foods. It preserves fresh, nutrient dense foods, allows me to explore different flavors, and I don't mind the upfront effort. Once they're made, I have a stockpile of foods I can add to anything. So, my easy meals for the day usually consist of:
I can make all of these easily and quickly. Then, once dinner rolls around, I can put more time and effort into making something that is more complex. This is how I get variety and satisfy my cravings while saving time and eating well.