Food is our energy source and it gives us strength, in the physical sense at least. However, the journey to eat, the hunting and gathering we did before living in societies that serves us food 24 hours a day, gave us mental strength as well. That hunt+gather lifestyle made us both mentally and physically stronger and sharper. Today, we may be missing that natural mental strength when it comes to eating.
There are still ways to exercise the mental muscle when it comes to eating on a regular basis in our lives, making us healthier and stronger on all fronts. Check out some of the ways, listed below.
Try a New Recipe Each Week
Checkout few diverse cookbooks or online recipe sites and, once a week, pick a dish from one of them that inspires you. Mindfully, gather all of the ingredients and attempt to make the dish. This trek to find the right ingredients and then the process of actually cooking them together correctly will be great for both your physical and mental senses. You will be working to eat something you worked to create. You will most likely fail a few times and have your gumbo turn to burnt sludge, or your soufflé melt right before your eyes. But fear not and keep cooking—failing only makes you stronger.
Travel for Food, Locally
Go to a neighborhood you would never visit in your everyday life and eat at a well-reviewed restaurant there. Thanks to things like Yelp and Zagat, the information on these off the beaten path restaurants are more available than ever before. Don’t fear the sketchiness of the neighborhood or a type of food you know nothing about—you learn a lot about people and society and ultimately yourself through eating and this is a great way to do it, within the area you live. When you are feeling really bold, take a trip somewhere and try eating the local cuisine, flexing your true foodie strengths. If you have pre-existing food allergies, we recommend researching a bit more about the cuisine in advance.
Make Food a Passion, Variety Over Quantity
As the old saying goes, we are what we eat, so if we’re a little bit of everything, if we’re experimenting and unique, we become that ourselves. Having knowledge of different foods and different experiences through food makes us more well-rounded, passionate and an open-minded individual. So if you are trying something new, the other aspects of your life should follow suit.
Strength comes in and from diverse ways and sources and, as the above examples show, food can certainly be one of them. Use it to help you learn and grow, more about yourself and the diverse world around you.
