How To Join In The Cooking Revolution
If you’ve been around social media lately, you have seen a huge rise in the homemade and homestead revolution. The return to our grandmothers’ recipes and to the desire of making our food ourselves.
Things such as:
Making our own bread
Growing our own fruit and vegetables
Eating according to the seasons and what is locally accessible
Using most of the animal when eating it
Making meals from scratch with whole ingredients
Etc.
It’s a revolution because it is a direct counteract to so many social statements that are well established and encouraged on a larger scale. Let me give you a few examples of what I am talking about:
Lawn gardens are a direct result of english colonization, with the purpose of showcasing wealth and killing native species (many plants and insects are endangered because of too many grass lawns and their pesticides, overuse of precious water, and lack of biodiversity). We have simply replaced food and plant gardens with grass - and are now confining our gardens to boxes in the corner of our land.
Quick and easy food was made to encourage a mass return to the work field by everyone to keep the country’s economy afloat after the war. The focus was on money, and the cost of it was our bodies. Since that period, we have seen a drastic rise in chronic illnesses and obesity - and a lot of it can be linked back to the sudden extreme loss of nutrients in the food we consume every day. In short, microwavable dinners have as many vitamins as a cardboard box, and yet are made into the cheapest and easiest available solutions.
Mass production of fruit and vegetables is depleting the soil of the nutrients it needs for plants, resulting in a reduction of biodiversity and of plants that contain enough vitamins for our own well-being. We now need to consume an entire box of oranges if we want the amount of vitamins one orange would have given us in the past. The result is an increase in eating, but a decrease in vitamins.
The quick and cheap food production is made possible through a lot of chemicals that have a direct impact on a woman’s reproductive system. Toxins pile up in the body, often looking a lot like our own hormones and throwing our entire system into confusion. As a result, 1 in 4 woman needs fertility treatment if she wants a chance to conceive.
You get the idea.
Many people are returning to the idea of cultivating your own food with methods that feed the soil rather than deplete it, cook food so that it truly nourishes us rather than fills us up with toxins, and works in alignment with our bodies rather than against them.
It’s easy to get on board with such a revolution, but a little harder to put into practice.
We all want a chance to have access to health for ourselves and our families. But when the biggest issues are at a constitutional level, it may feel daunting and even impossible to make a difference.
A lot of women crave a healthier cooking lifestyle, but are stuck by their finances, time, and access to the resources needed to cook in such ways.
Living in an apartment in the city, on a tight budget and busy schedule, makes such a revolution the domain of dreamland rather than a possible reality.
So through this blog, I want to share some of my best tips to join in on the cooking revolution in ways that are possible for everyone, no matter your situation:
Turn dinner making into a ritual filled with pleasure
I have to start here because this is going to open up the world of homemade cooking for you.
If you don’t enjoy making food, you won’t do it.
You don’t need to become a cook. You don’t need to become a homesteading mom that spends 99% of her time in the kitchen. You don’t even need to enjoy cooking all the time. You don’t need to be making fancy food.
Just start with one meal. One meal a day (I suggest making it the same every day) and make it 20% nicer. Not the food, but the making of it.
Here are some ways you can add some pleasure to your food making time:
Play your favorite playlist while cooking
Enlist the help of someone you love
Drink a glass of something you like while cooking
Make it slowly (no rush, no stress)
Do it while calling your best friend
Prepare more so you can share a part of the food with someone outside of your household
Do it while calling your mom
Do it while calling your grandma
Decorate your kitchen
Hang flowers and herbs to dry around
Focus on your 5 senses while you’re making food
Watch an episode of your favorite show
Food is a vital part of life. But the way we make food is an expansion of who we are. How you show up to your food-making time is probably how you show up to 90% of your life.
Can you make it 20% more intentional? More pleasurable?
Add herbs and spices to your food
First, it adds wayyyyyy more nutrients and support to your food. Herbs and spices have specific medicinal properties and are often full of nutrients (send me an email at audreygerber@spotlessgirl.com if you want a cheat sheet of what herbs and spices do what to the body).
Second, it makes everything taste better. If you’re cooking something and are adding spices, the color of the food you’re making should change. At least a little. And you probably need more salt than you’re putting in. If you’re making something that tastes bland (looking at you, steamed green beans), it’s time to add spices.
I made people love a lot more vegetables than they said they did, just because I added spices to them.
Third, it doesn’t cost a lot. One container of spice will last hundreds of meals, all the while upgrading it to a healthier and tastier version.
Focus on protein, especially for breakfast
As a menstruating woman, you need more protein. That’s just the way it is.
Most of us are depleted in proteins, which are the building blocks of our hormones. A fertility diet is a diet with more Omega-3s and more protein, and that’s not for nothing.
Having a protein with every meal will significantly increase your overall health (hello shiny hair and blemish-free skin).
Protein for breakfast increases your energy level for the day, helps balance blood sugar, and promotes healthy digestion. It starts your day much much better than without any protein. In the long run, it also increases your fertility and overall hormonal balance.
Choose local foods when you can
In herbalism, we say that a plant that grows where you live has had to adapt to the same conditions as you, and therefore has developed the support system you also need.
Local food causes less pollution, and contains more of what YOU need. Plus, it supports local economy. It’s one of the most sustainable options.
And for that alone, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself.
Learn basic recipes
You don’t need to become an incredible chef.
But if you know some of the basics, you’ll be able to craft a recipe from whatever you have in your fridge in no time. Like your grandmother did.
It’s not about relying on recipes; it’s about understanding some of the principles behind the recipes that give you more freedom and control over what you are doing.
Here are some principles that could be great to learn and adapt to your preferences:
How to make a good sauce
How to prepare different types of meat
The different ways to cook vegetables (steamed, on the pan, grilled, mashed, oven, etc)
Ways to cook eggs
Some food pairings you like
How to make healthy bread
Etc.
(If this is something that resonates with you, I’m considering setting a resources to help women learn some grandma skills like these, so please let me know if that is something that would be of interest to you.)
Start with one, practice, and start playing with it. You’ll have created your recipes in no time and will feel much more confident in the kitchen.
Offer homemade gifts
When we create something for others, we put in more joy and more effort. This will connect you with healthy cooking in new ways, and you’ll be able to bless someone with that gift.
Homemade gifts can be made cheaply, and still be immensely precious.
They encourage community and humanity over perfection, they showcase care and intention, and often have a bigger impact than a store-bought object.
It’s the perfect opportunity to create a personal recipe, sort of like a personal brand, and fine-tune it until everyone asks for it for Christmas.
Ask grandma
Yours, or anyone else’s.
In the age of artificial intelligence, the type of knowledge that is passed down from generation to generation, from kitchen to kitchen, and mouth to ear, is getting lost.
It’s an invaluable treasure we might not be able to get back.
It’s knowledge AI does not have, and might never have.
And it WILL make you fall in love with being in your kitchen.
When I lived in Quebec, I joined a group of elderly ladies that knit together every Friday afternoon. I couldn’t go every Friday, but I don’t think I have ever been in contact with so much knowledge in one room. I learned about knitting, cooking, embroidery, and life skills.
They were excited to share their knowledge with me, had the patience to show me everything, and enriched me much more than I could have ever imagined.
My husband’s grandmother is capable of basically everything. It doesn’t cost me to visit her once in a while and ask her to teach me things. So far, I’ve learned to make bobbing lace, some knitting tricks, some Danish recipes, and how to sew.
I’ve written my grandmother’s favorite recipes in my own recipe book. Making them makes me feel connected to her, and I get to use her knowledge.
And they are some of the best recipes I’ve ever made.
Recipes taught from one generation to the next are often the best.
My grandmother taught my mother her own salad sauce recipe. My mom fine-tuned it and shared it with me. I now also fine-tuned it, and added some of my knowledge of herbalism to upgrade the sauce to another health level.
I have every intention of teaching this recipe to the next generation.
This is part of the revolution.
It doesn’t need to go with a bang.
One step at a time is enough.
If you’re interested in resources, such as videos and other blogs around cooking and other healthy skills, please let me know! You can email me at audreygerber@spotlessgirl.com!
Stay radiant!
