by Melanie A. Albert, Intuitive Cooking Expert, Author, Speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
It is my pleasure to share with you the next few philosophies of A New View of Healthy Eating, which are the foundation for my new book.
Enjoy Intuitive Shopping. When we shop for our food, it’s important first to pause and listen to our bodies. What are we craving right now? When shopping, mindfully pay attention to the foods, colors, textures, and even aromas you are intuitively attracted to. Sometimes you might be drawn to lots of greens, while other times it may be citrus or tomatoes. It’s especially fun to shop at different farmers’ markets and notice our choices in food during various seasons of the year.
“Intuitive shopping is fun. Listen to your cravings and shop with all your senses.”
Cook with Intuition. With intuitive cooking, we use recipes as guides. We first learn simple, basic culinary methods and techniques (such as raw, steaming, or roasting) to prepare real whole foods with recipes as our guide. Naturally, over time, we learn to trust our own intuition to cook foods we desire using cooking techniques we’ve learned. Over time, you will not need to rely on recipes; you’ll trust yourself and your culinary skills to create your own healthy dishes with local, seasonal food.
For instance, we learn the culinary technique to steam carrots in a bamboo steamer and use our recipe to finish the carrots with walnut oil, toasted cumin seeds, fresh lemon juice, parsley, and a pinch of sea salt. After learning the bamboo steamer technique to quickly steam veggies, we cook other steamed vegetables (such as asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and peapods) and finish them with different oils, spices, and fresh herbs.
“With intuitive cooking we also naturally cook more mindfully, meditatively enjoying the rhythm of chopping veggies or the mindfulness of massaging kale or grating fresh spices.”
This week, I invite you to visit a farmers’ market in your area and have fun exploring new-to-you veggies. Then, come on over to our Facebook page and share photos: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating
