Last week the “spoke” we talked about on the Circle of Life was your social life and the importance of having fun and enjoying other people’s company. Were any of my suggestions helpful for expanding your network of people to socialize with? Drop me a note and let me know your thoughts.
This week we are going to look at the area of home cooking. I love and enjoy cooking, so this is an easy area for me. But if you are not one that enjoys cooking, you still can make a paradigm shift in your thinking and begin to enjoy this chore. Especially when I explain why it’s best to “home cook” your meals.
Now mind you I was not always a cook and did not always enjoy it.
There were times when I did feel it was a burden. But for the most part, I have enjoyed cooking from scratch. It started in my early 20’s when I was hospitalized for Typhoid Salmonella poisoning. After being bagged antibiotics for several days, my body became infested with yeast overgrowth. It didn’t manifest immediately and took a while to infect my body. But I developed candida overgrowth so bad that my body ached. Thank God for Dr. Leo Galland, who is an Integrative Medicine Doctor and was able to determine the root cause. Unfortunately, my other doctors just kept prescribing Monistat to get rid of the yeast infection. It would work for a week and then the yeast was back in full force. I went from Doctor to Doctor and all they did was mask the symptom. They never got to the root cause.
Thank God for Dr. Galland
Dr. Galland put me on a yeast free diet and some supplements (probably a probiotic), and I’ve never had a problem again. Ever. Now you think staying away from “yeast” foods would be easy. But it wasn’t. Not only did I need to stay away from yeast, but I couldn’t even drink orange juice from a carton. It could only be fresh squeezed. Because you see a carton of juice will have a top layer of mold that we don’t really see but it’s there and I could not ingest that.
What this diet did for me was teach me to read labels. I began to understand that when a food product has a list of ingredients that are too long to read OR too many words you don’t understand, then perhaps it’s not something we should ingest. Most processed foods and boxed foods truly have ingredients that are not the best nutrition for our body … or should I say they lack nutrition.
I grew up with a lot of processed foods.
I mean that’s what happened after WWII. Men were in battle and many women needed to go to work. So, food manufactures thought they would create products to make it easier to feed families. Unfortunately, in their “ease” of cooking they added unhealthy ingredients as well as lacking nutrition. Oh yes, the box might say “natural,” “healthy,” or “full of nutrition.” Understand that’s just marketing. When you have artificial coloring and flavorings, or BHA as a preservative, that is not natural nor is it healthy. (BTW, those ingredients come from petroleum. You know what we put in our vehicles.)
Cooking From Scratch
So, in my house growing up if we wanted a cake, we opened a box. Or if we wanted muffins, we opened a box. But do you know that making a cake from scratch or muffins from scratch truly take a few minutes more than opening that box. Plus, it’s so much healthier. I have not made a box cake in over 40 years. I’m not saying this to make you think I’m so much better than others. I’m saying this to let you know it’s just not that hard and doesn’t take that much more time.
If I want applesauce, I make my own. It’s so easy. Peel the apples, slice them thin, put a little cinnamon on it, place in a pot, cover it and simmer until they are mush. I then put it through the food processor because I prefer non chunky applesauce. But you don’t have to do that. I only use organic apples because conventional apples are high in pesticides. But it’s truly just apples and cinnamon. You don’t need sugar because the apples are sweet in themselves. You can mix the apples you use. They don’t need to be one type. Mixing different apples makes it tastier and sweeter. I then put the applesauce in pint size mason jars and freeze them. I can have apple sauce any time. (NOTE: Just be aware that if you want to put the applesauce in mason jars to freeze, don’t fill to the top. The jar will crack if you do.)
Some people feel cooking from scratch can be more costly.
Not necessarily. With some good menu planning and smart shopping, you can create healthy, tasty, and enjoyable meals.
I’ve created individual 3-ring binders with categories like, Meals, Soup, Appetizers, Desserts, Snacks, Smoothies, etc. When I find a recipe I like, I print it off and place it in the appropriate binder in a pocket folder. When I try the recipe and like it, it goes in a page protector inside the appropriate 3-ring binder. This way I build my recipe files and always have something new and fun to make. I also love a new cookbook and you will find me paging through these books every Thursday night as I create my meal plan for the following week.
I live alone but I cook for myself every day. Sometimes it’s leftovers, but I always have a homemade meal. I feel I owe it to myself to eat healthy. To me the cost of being sick and full of dis-ease is more costly and time consuming down the road than taking the time to do “home cooking.”
Don’t you owe it to yourself and your family to incorporate this “spoke of the wheel” into your family life. Get the whole family involved in cooking. It doesn’t have to just fall on one person. Take turns cooking or do it as a whole family project. It can be fun and a great way to have some good quality family time together.
If you would like to talk this issue through, feel paralyzed in getting started, or would like some coaching in this area, click here and Let’s get you cooking!. Remember, I’m here for you.
Your Spiritual Life and Health Coach … believing in you!