Sometimes I play a chill playlist that lets me zone out a bit. Other times, I want something upbeat that I can sing along to and raises my energy.

Before you rush straight into prep, take a moment to prepare yourself and make the process more enjoyable. Review your recipe, get out the ingredients, and pour yourself something to drink. As you move through the act of preparing a meal, chopping, slicing, stirring, or tasting, be aware of how the ingredients taste, smell, and look.

That glass of wine is transformed into a ceremony as you take in the flavor profile and appreciate the many layers of flavors and scents bottled up in one sip. When we mindlessly go through the motions of eating, we miss out on the fullest experience of what it could be.

Beauty can be discovered in the simplest of things when we choose to create an experience out of the ordinary. Notice the ingredients and feel grateful for the way they nourish your body. My challenge for you: As you head into the weekend, try setting aside one meal to practice mindful cooking.

Skip to content Cooking is one of my great passions… with a few caveats. Hand-Thrown Ceramic Serving Spoons ucpueEach of these limited-edition handmade ceramic serving spoons is made in Venice, California, lending a one-of-a-kind wow factor to salads or anything else you set on the center of the table.

Having a healthy relationship with food is crucial, so go ahead and enjoy it without hesitation. The harm of stress during eating is far more damaging to your system than any ingredient ever could be.

Growing Up Herbal I was blessed to be born in a Ukrainian household where herbal [ Uncharted: In the Lines of a Scribble I remember this specific night… grappling with a heartbreak [ None of the information on our videos is a substitute for a diagnosis and treatment by your health professional.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers prior to starting any new diet or treatment and with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem, promptly contact your health care provider.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Remember me Log in. Lost your password? Articles , Mindful Eating , Mindful Kitchen , Mindfulness Mindful Kitchen: The Art of Conscious Connection with Food.

These aromas tell a story, inviting you to explore further, to connect, to create… Then you listen as you chop and stir, feeling the rhythm of the knife, its pressure against the cutting board.

This is the life we call food, waiting for you in every touch, every smell, every sound. So, bring some magic to your kitchen, cook up some tasty goodness, and ignite the energy within! Mindful Eating 🥢. Turning Tables on Temptations with Mindful Substitutions. Driving Through the Maze of Inner Voices and Nutritional Choices.

Slow It Down: Unlocking the Art of the Slow Feast💫 Why Pace Makes the Meal. Food, Fear, and Freedom: Fasting to Feasting. Size Matters! From Conditioning to Food Habits: The Psychology of the Plate. Do you find yourself getting anxious trying to keep all the different things going at once, or confident and in control?

As you observe the mind, use the physical senses as a safe place to come back to when you feel the emotions running off. For example, rather than feeling anxious about feeling anxious, come back to the smell of the food, and instead of getting increasingly frustrated at feeling frustrated, bring your attention back to the sounds of the food cooking.

Throughout this exercise, notice how your mind behaves. Or does it tend to constantly race off to plan things for the future, or drift off to memories of the past? Being aware of the thoughts in this way will help you to get much better at the exercise, which for most people means enjoying an altogether more serene experience in the kitchen.

Want more tips on how to make meditation a part of your day? Headspace is meditation made simple, accessible and relevant to your everyday life. Sign up for free to our Take10 programme to get the basics just right with guided audio programmes and support and get your Headspace, anytime, anywhere on the Headspace app.

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Andy Puddicombe is a Clinical Meditation Consultant and the co-founder of Headspace, which aims to make meditation simple and accessible through its website and app. Andy Puddicombe. Get Some Headspace. Attention A Short Exercise in Mindful Cooking How to be mindful whilst cooking Posted July 23, Share.

Attention Essential Reads. Your Brain Is Bad at Doing Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Seductive Sway of Sound: Why Your Patter Matters. About the Author. More from Andy Puddicombe. More from Psychology Today.

intuitively well. Kristin Cole has combined her passion for food, events, and travel into a distinct cooking and teaching philosophy that infuses her cuisine and classes.

It was during her time spent in Northern Italian kitchens that she embraced a standard of quality ingredients and simple, rustic dishes prepared with amore. This mindful, loving approach to cooking was further reinforced during her holistic path to wellness and through years of yoga practice and training.

Kristin has abandoned precision in the kitchen in favor of using intuition and the sensory experience when handling pure, seasonally driven ingredients.

She spends ample time at local farms, curating yoga farm-to-table experiences in a venture called wild soul. You can reach Kristin through her website, www. kristin-col e. Skip to main content. Gift cards Private parties Volunteer.

Sign in Cart Search Donate. The Joy of Mindful Cooking: Spring Cleaning When:. Tuesday, April 1, pm to pm Add to Calendar. iCalendar Outlook Google Yahoo. San Francisco , CA. Member Price:. com Kristin Cole has combined her passion for food, events, and travel into a distinct cooking and teaching philosophy that infuses her cuisine and classes.

Contact us. Mindfulness cooking, for me, is a way to slow down and focus on the enjoyment of the cooking process, rather than getting caught up in the outcome I had in mind, or the problems I face along the way. But as useful as those principles are, sometimes you need concrete practices that help set the stage for success.

Here are nine strategies that can help you create a more mindful, less stressful cooking experience. Plus, it makes it much easier to focus on one thing at a time. To practice this technique, just clean and chop all your ingredients beforehand, putting them into small bowls so they can be easily tossed into the pan at the right time.

You can even do so with your spices and oils, too, if you want to get extra-precise. See if you can start your cooking process a bit earlier to create more time to linger on your cooking experience, rather than rushing through it. If you plan out your recipes in advance and do the chopping and prep work in bulk ahead of time, mindful cooking gets easier.

You can just grab your pre-cut ingredients from the fridge and from there, pay mindful attention to the process of cooking. This may just be a personal preference of mine. Recipes stress me out. I like to look at them for inspiration, but if I try to follow one to the letter while cooking, the whole process becomes more stressful.

Open yourself up to the outcome, and see what happens. This goes without saying, right? One of the joys of cooking is that you can eat a little bit here and there as you prep.

Make sure to enjoy your creation the whole time, not just once you serve it. But in our case, we can give them a dual purpose: in addition to telling you when portions of your ingredients are done cooking, timers can also serve as a mindfulness reminder.

Timers can help pull you back to the present moment. I also find that using the oven tends to be easier than juggling three or four pans on the stovetop burners, each with oil and ingredients and different cooking times.

When possible, try preheating the oven while you do your mise-en-place, then throwing all your ingredients in there to roast. Check in every minutes to see what needs to be flipped or moved closer to the heating elements.

You end up oversalting everything, or half the ingredients get burnt, or everything falls apart just as you serve it been there. Cooking is all about experimentation and creativity, and each of those experiences get filed away into your brain, building your cooking instincts over time.