Cooking Matters: What I Learnt About My Kitchen and Nutrition

A woman talks about her journey with food, how she learnt about nutrition and finally fell in love with her kitchen.

Do you love your body? Are you eating the right food? Do you stop when you are full?

Is spending time in the kitchen a waste of time and a useless activity?

As a young woman, I had always associated any form of food with becoming fat. My notion was – if I eat, I would become fat. For me, food didn’t mean nutrition. It didn’t mean something which I could enjoy. Indulgence was a sin. Food was equal to a monster. All my life I wanted to lose weight. Right now too, if someone asks me, unintentionally my answer to the questions above will be YES!

In the past, I had done crash diets and undoubtedly had lost unwanted weight. But in the long run, I did not manage to maintain the desired weight. In one of the crash diets, I remember I had completely stopped the intake of milk to lose weight, without thinking as to where my body would get that lost calcium and protein from. My knowledge about nutrition science was almost zero. The result of not getting proper nutrition was my deteriorating health, frequent headaches, lifeless hair and weakness.

Moreover, I would associate the kitchen with people who were not educated and I thought that they uselessly spent time cooking and eating and putting on extra kilos. I thought instead, they should spend their time in reading or learning any new skill.

Lately, as I am aging I can see my body change. It needs balanced diet, proper nutrition, which is only possible by – firstly awareness and then by eating healthy timely meals.

Lately, as I am aging I can see my body change. My stomach can no more digest heavy, oily curries with papad followed by sweets at night. It needs a balanced diet, proper nutrition, which is only possible by – firstly, awareness and then by eating healthy timely meals. Now, I have realized the value of healthy food that gives us nutrition. Gradually, I have understood my body and its reaction towards certain foods.

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Before, I would just call the nearby departmental store and order a few veggies (we are vegetarians). Without much effort, I would simply cook anything and finish off my kitchen duty. The worst scenario was when I would without guilt, order ‘take out’ from a nearby restaurant so that I could invest my time in reading or watching movies or something (I thought) more productive.

I spend my time intelligently in the kitchen I get ample time to indulge in my hobbies and other activities.

Now, my new perspective towards cooking is to do smart grocery shopping and spend quality (yet short) time in the kitchen. Now I enjoy buying veggies from the local farm market and systematically storing them in the fridge. Every week I plan my family’s meal that includes a lot of veggies, fruits, milk, nuts, grains etc. Just because I spend my time intelligently in the kitchen, I get ample time to indulge in my hobbies and other activities. The lesson I learnt was to sit and plan my meals and think before I enter my kitchen.

In short, now I have learnt:

• Loads of healthy food options and invented my short cuts in the kitchen.
• To indulge and at the same time stop eating when I think I am full.
• To enjoy cooking in my kitchen and try new recipes.
• To respect and love my body.

Finally, the last step I took was to educate myself about food and nutrition. I am pursuing two online courses now –

• Nutrition and Health Part 1, Macronutrients and Overnutrition. 
• Child Nutrition and Cooking on coursera.com.

Woman in kitchen image via Shutterstock

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