E118 - Creative Cooking for health and happiness
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Hello, my creative friend. Welcome back to Create Today. I'm Beth Buffington and I've been so excited to share this episode with you. Now, the last time we met, I left you with this. I said The same instincts that pulls you towards beautiful colors in your creativity. Well, it's trying to tell you something at the dinner table too.
So today we are going to go into the kitchen.
because we all have to eat and most of us love to eat.
And oh, so many of us wish we were several to many pounds, lighter and healthier. The list of diets that promise to help us lose the baby weight, the menopause weight, the weight that's going to make you look amazing in your swimming suit or in your [00:01:00] wedding dress, or for that next reunion.
Well, those diets, they're everywhere and they are overwhelming and many of these diets make you feel like you are restricted with your food, and that feels like punishment until you reach your goal weight and then you're just released back into the wild world hardly knowing how to take care of this new weight and hopefully this new health.
Now I have been on a health journey that focused on food and movement and sleep through creativity since the pandemic. And today I am healthier and stronger and happier, and I am sleeping better than I have in years and years and years and years. So today I wanna talk about what works in the kitchen to make you happier and healthier and.
Drop a few pounds, [00:02:00] and you can do this without feeling like you are in food prison with no parole until you lose this many pounds. So stay with me, my friend, because what I'm going to share today is going to change the way you think about how you eat and about your nutrition. Now, here's a question for you.
I want you to think about this as we spend our time together today. What if feeding yourself nutritiously was one of the most creative things you could do during the day? Wouldn't that be amazing? Not following a strict calorie plan
or hitting every macro or eating like a nutritional athlete, you're just feeding yourself with a glass half full attitude about your goals, and you're using the same curiosity, the same joy, and color and [00:03:00] texture and process that you would bring to a creative project that you are passionate about because your brain.
The one that generates ideas, that makes creative connections for you, that brain runs on what you give it. The science on this is extraordinary. So today we're going to talk about color. We're going to talk about cooking as a creative process, and we're gonna talk about what it looks and feels like to create a meal, the way you compose a painting.
Along the way, we're going to look at what the research tells us about how food actually shapes your capacity for creativity and focus and emotional resilience. Sounds pretty good. Okay. Let's start in the studio and then we'll move into the kitchen Now. Think about [00:04:00] the last time you were truly drawn to something exciting in your creative work.
How did that feel? I want you to think about that. Think about the color combinations or the shading techniques that excited you. Maybe it was a new art supply that you could not wait to experiment with. You know, think about that. Pull towards beauty and sensory richness, that new creative projects just bring to the table.
That feeling of excitement and creativity, it doesn't stop at your studio door. It is part of who you are as a creative. And remember, we mention this all the time on the podcast. Everyone is creative. Even if you don't think of yourself as an artist. I think people who are aware of their creativity as a human being are actually wired to [00:05:00] respond to food more richly than most.
So if you allow yourself to say, I am creative, it's going to help you enjoy your life in so many ways, and one of those ways is with your food. But I think that, The reason we don't see creativity in what we eat and how we eat and where we eat, it's because we get busy and we think we don't have time.
So we don't devote enough attention to what and how we are creating our meals. Because here's what I've noticed in my own life and in talking with so many of you. When creative people feel burned out or foggy or creatively blocked, the first things to go are often the most nourishing ones, especially in the kitchen.
We skip meals to meet deadlines. We eat whatever [00:06:00] is fast. When our schedules are crazy, we drink coffee and we call it fuel. If we're running low on energy, and I, understand this because I have done it. But there's a real cost in doing this and doing this for a long time. So, let me tell you about one of my daughters.
I am super lucky that my daughter, Corie, is a registered dietician, and over the years conversations with her have completely reshaped the way I think about not only what I eat. How I choose the foods I decide to eat, and she's helped me make the connection that what I put in my body isn't separate from my creativity.
That the type and quality of food I choose is either going to keep me energized and grounded and [00:07:00] sane, or it's gonna make me sluggish and anxious and stressed out. You see, our brain is a very hungry organ. It uses about 20% of your body's total energy, even though it's only about 2% of your body weight.
Yes, that's true. That's a fact. And the quality of food and the quality of fuel you give your brain directly affects your capacity for the things we need most Focus. Problem solving, emotional regulation, openness to new ideas, and the ability to be emotionally resilient. Sotoday's discussion, it's not about dieting.
It's not about restrictions. It's not about losing weight, it's about seeing about adding quality. It's about choosing food with the intention to create [00:08:00] joy. The best part, we do this using creativity to choose the foods that will help our brain do what it needs to do in order to increase our health and our overall happiness.
Sounds good, right? You bet it does. So let's get started. I wanna first talk about. Color because this is such a fun part of choosing food, When you are creating artwork, color is not a decoration. Color is information. Color carries emotional weight, and it can trigger memories. Color communicates before words do.
It turns out that this is just as true with a plate of food as it is on a canvas, and the reason, my friend, it's remarkable. The nutrients and [00:09:00] flavonoids that give fruits and vegetables, they're vivid colors. Think about the vibrant hues of blueberries, purple cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, red peppers.
These colors are not incidental. The pigments in these fruits and veggies evolved as a plant's own protection system against stress, inflammation, and cellular damage caused by a punishing natural world. And here's the remarkable part, when we. Eat these incredible colors we're protected in the same way the nutrients and flavonoids in these foods cross the blood brain barrier and act as antioxidants to reduce inflammation and science shows.
It also helps our brain process information more efficiently. Who doesn't want that? My hand is up high.so having bright and [00:10:00] plentiful choices in a variety of whole foods in your diet increases the brain's neuroplasticity. Now neuroplasticity is how the brain provides the ability to form new connections, adapt to new ideas, and to learn new things.
This leads to better creative thinking, faster cognitive processing and greater emotional resilience. And this all happens from eating beautiful colors that come naturally in nature. So when you look at a bowl of blueberries and think, wow, that color is extraordinary. Your artist eye is right. It is extraordinary, and your brain knows it.
Your brain wants to eat it. My daughter has said this to me so many times. Eat the rainbow, choose lots of colors straight from nature and do it often. That's it. [00:11:00] Not a complicated formula, not a rigid meal plan. Just look at your plate. The way you look at the color wheel, is there a full spectrum of color?
Is there variety? If your plate is mostly beige, you know, pasta, beige sauces, bread crackers, fried foods, that's a monochromatic food palette, not so good or even worse is your plate mostly neon colored, uh, like Cheetos, processed cheese, blue energy drinks, and brightly colored macaroni and cheese. My friend, those are not colors found in nature.
Build your meals around natural color and consider it an act of creativity, and it doesn't mean that you can't eat anything beige, or you can't eat anything neon, but have more natural vivid colors in your diet than beige or that super [00:12:00] wild, weird, vibrant neon. Okay. So you're composing on a living canvas with your foods and every color you add is quite literally feeding a different part of your brain's capacity
to create to a fuller potential. That's amazing. And here's a fact that genuinely stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it a few years ago, approximately 90 to 95% of the body's serotonin is produced, not in your brain, but in your gut.
Serotonin is the neurotransmitter most associated with mood stability, emotional openness, and the kind of calm, receptive emotions where we can process stress and anxiety easier. When serotonin is well regulated, we tend to feel grounded, curious, and more willing to experiment. When it's [00:13:00] dysregulated, we feel anxious and closed down and blocked.
Our gut produces this goodness in direct response to what we feed it, particularly dietary fiber, fermented foods, and Omega-3 fatty acids. A study in nutritional neuroscience found that eating foods rich in colorful vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fish and olive oil. Well that was associated with a 33% lower risk of depression.
that's an amazing, simple thing to do considering that our world is really struggling with depression these days. So let's unpack this to make it easier to understand, to be more calm and resilient.
Consider what you ate for breakfast. Sometimes having a better day is merely the difference between choosing a bagel with cream cheese, very beige or a veggie [00:14:00] omelet with vibrant berries on the side that's very colorful. You see the path to better health is created through the colors we choose for our nutritional palate.
Understanding this in my life has changed how I think about meal prep. choosing my food stopped feeling like a chore. It started feeling like something fun that actually mattered. How many colors can I eat in a day or a week Game on.
It can be great fun. Now I wanna talk about something that I think doesn't get said enough in the creative wellness space. Cooking is creating. Yeah. Everything you love about your creative projects, the gathering of materials, the decision making, the transformation of raw elements into something whole and finished well, it's
all there in the kitchen, every single part of it. And [00:15:00] when I started paying attention to my meals, the way I pay attention to making art. Something shifted. I stopped thinking about meal preparation as rigid rules I had to follow and things I couldn't, shouldn't have.
and I started thinking about choosing food as part of my creativity, a creative practice that became a chain of success that I didn't want to break. So let's consider how we can think about preparing a meal creatively. First, think about the simple act. Repetition that you encounter in the kitchen.
You know, chopping and kneading. Stirring and rolling these motions activate the same parasympathetic nervous system response as crocheting or repetitive brush work. Your hands are moving rhythmically, and your mind is present [00:16:00] to your work, but it's not pressured. Next, think about the sensory richness of preparing a meal, the amazing smell of garlic in olive oil.
The sound of a sharp knife through a crisp bell pepper. the color of fresh herbs scattered across the dish. The different textures of veggies and fruits and let's not forget the best part, the taste. When you prepare a meal, your senses are fully engaged in a way that pulls you away from your worries and your anxieties and into the present moment.
That is exactly the mental state where creativity increases and anxiety decreases. And next, let's discuss creative problem solving. See, when you prepare a meal, you have to think, uh, what do I have? What can I make? What goes [00:17:00] with what? How should I pair a this with a, that? What can I use instead of this to make that?
This type of brain work is associative thinking that fuels artistic improvisation. You're not following a formula you are composing, and what is more creative than that? And last but not least, my friend, the transformation.
Watching raw, separate ingredients become something unified, something nourishing, something tasty. That is the fundamental satisfaction of all creative work. You made something from nothing. Yeah. You brought order and beauty and intention to a collection of ingredients and that is a beautiful thing. And science agrees.
Studies show that cooking significantly increases feelings of flourishing [00:18:00] and positive emotions. Cooking scores particularly high on what the researchers call expressive creativity. They discovered that this type of everyday creative expression that's found in the kitchen was just as productive for psychological wellbeing.
As more traditional art forms. So this means some days the most nourishing creative act of the day happens at your stove. I love that the stove is studio, the cutting board as a canvas, the herb garden as your supply cabinet. and here's another amazing tidbit about thinking creatively about preparing your meals.
You don't need to be an accomplished cook. You don't need to be a chef. You just need to be curious. You just need to bring creative attention to your kitchen and to what and how you are choosing to eat. [00:19:00] I'm not the best cook in my family by far, but I love considering what I should eat and collecting interesting recipes and ingredients.
When I need to feed myself, because we all need to eat and not all of us can have someone always feeding us. So when I need to feed myself, the knowledge I have about how to be healthy and creative in the kitchen helps me make wise choices. Even though I am not the queen of cuisine, I love to choose healthy food.
That I love to put my simple creations on really pretty dishes, and that makes me look like a better cook than I really am. And that brings me to plating, which I think is the most underrated creative practice in the kitchen in most people's daily lives. Professional chefs have known forever what artists know that
[00:20:00] Presentation is not vanity. Presentation is communication, and it changes how we experience what we are receiving. Whether it's a painting or a bowl of food. and there is actual science behind why a beautifully plated meal tastes. Better, and I don't mean that metaphorically.
A study led at the University of Oxford has demonstrated repeatedly that the visual presentation of food directly influences how we perceive. Its taste, aroma, and satisfaction value. In this study, participants rated the same salad ingredients as significantly more flavorful and satisfying when the food was arranged in a visually appealing artful composition as compared to the same ingredients that were just mixed tossed together casually, it was the same food.
[00:21:00] Completely different visual experience. The brain, it turns out, doesn't process taste in isolation. not only does the brain consider taste, it also includes what the food looks like and how, and on what. The food is arranged when the visual experience is rich and intentional.
The entire sensory experience is elevated and the food tastes better. And I live by this study because I love, love, love pretty dishes, and science says this is important. The studies show that your brain and your stomach, they both love beauty, and science says beauty makes food taste better. So what does creative plating look like in a normal, everyday kitchen?
It doesn't require any special equipment or training. Here's a few ideas that are simple and fast for you to do [00:22:00] even this week, but in order for them to work and be successful, you must remember to do them, and you must give yourself permission to do them often. Number one, color contrast. Choose those colors.
Deep purple beets, bright orange carrots, dark leafy greens, brightly colored berries, purple and orange sweet potatoes, and then contrast them against the beige nest of chicken or pork or pasta. and be more vibrant than beige with your choices. And do this as often.
As possible, and then increase those color choices as you get used to adding them.
Number two, negative space. Don't fill and mound every inch of the plate you're using. Leave some room white space on a plate that is, that negative space, just like in design. Gives the eye somewhere to rest and
Makes what there is on the plate [00:23:00] feel more intentional and beautiful. number three, texture, variety. And this means. For example, putting something crunchy next to something creamy.
This is the same principle as mixed media. Variation in texture creates visual and sensory interest. And number four, a finishing detail. So fresh herbs, a drizzle of oil, a pinch of flaked salt, a scattering of seeds.
This is your signature detail. It's the equivalent of a final glaze on a painting or the last stitch that pulls everything together on a sewing project. It tells the eye this was made with intention.
And you know what? Anyone can do this. It doesn't take a practice chef to sprinkle a little something extra on the top just to bring a little sizzle, a little extra decoration to your [00:24:00] food And number five, framing is fundamental. What do I mean by that?
And what I mean is choose those beautiful plates and bowls. Don't just reach for those everyday dishes for every meal. Treat yourself and use those dishes that you've saved for special occasions. I mean, who's more special than you? Also, for at least one meal each day or each week to start, turn off all the screens and dim the lights, light a candle, and eat in a space that is set for your meal.
And then relax. Take a moment to actually realize and look at what you are eating, and then enjoy it. Take time to be thankful. For the food you are lucky enough to have today. And here's what happens when you are creative in the kitchen. First [00:25:00] you spend more time making your own food. Studies show that making food at home can,
If you're choosing those beautiful colors, well, it can make food more nutritional and it's great for rocketing your health needs. And number two, when you make more of your food at home, it is easier to be mindful of your portions. You'll learn what are the go-to foods that you can eat more of, and you'll understand the slow down foods you need to eat less of.
Understanding portions, my friend, is a key to weight loss. Number three, when you create that warm environment of beautiful and beautifully plated food with cozy lighting and candles, studies show that you eat slower and you spend more time enjoying what you've created.
So you literally slow down your consumption. And this is another great way [00:26:00] to eat less because it gives your stomach time to realize when it is actually full. And here's the best part, being creative in your kitchen, it takes some extra thought, but none of this takes extra time.
None of it requires crazy kitchen skills, and what it gives back to you is so beautiful. It's realization that you are caring for yourself intentionally. That's worth the learning curve to seek out those new colors of Whole Foods into your daily and weekly menu. And here's a small challenge for you sometime this week, maybe start tomorrow before you eat a meal, take 30 seconds to look at your plate as a composition.
Don't judge it, but review it. Actually look at it and see it. Notice what's working on [00:27:00] your plate, what could be improved? Decide if you want to add more color. and think about where those pretty plates are that are tucked away in a cabinet.
Get 'em out, and then think about the atmosphere that you're eating in. How can you make it more meaningful? And then no matter what your choices are for that meal, my friend, just enjoy it slowly enough to actually taste your food. The practice of seeing, tasting and enjoying food, those three things, that is a creative act and a wellness practice all by itself.
Now let's pause for a moment to talk about how you can join me personally to grow your creative wellness. [00:28:00] Everything we have been talking about today is part of a much bigger conversation that I am deeply passionate about, and that is why the Silva experiences were created. Creative wellness isn't just about what happens in your studio,
It is about how you sleep, how you move, how you rest, how you eat, how you stay connected with the world. It's a whole life practice, and that's exactly what you'll explore at any of the Sylva experiences that I host with Health Coach Lisa Murphy. If you want a dedicated immersive space where you'll explore deeply into your creative wellness.
I'm inviting you to come and see me at the Sylva Synergy Retreat This May in Atchison, Kansas. This is an in-person gathering with real people, real conversations about how to strengthen your health, your happiness, and your [00:29:00] emotional resilience. Now, spots are genuinely limited, so if something in you is saying yes, don't wait.
To secure your spot, see the show notes for more information and registration. And if you're looking for ongoing community and accountability as you increase your creative wellness. Sylva Sessions is our monthly online membership, so each month you'll come together with Lisa and I to monitor your happiness and your wellbeing
Through focus on care for your core, your creativity with a nurturing community who will encourage you every step of the way. and if today's conversation ignited, a desire to be more nourished and more creatively alive. Join me.
Please join me at either Sylva Synergy this May, or through the Sylva Sessions membership each [00:30:00] month. Both are a beautiful way to go deeper and discover more about you and your creative wellness information. My friend is in the show notes, or you can go to my [email protected].
So my friend, here's what I want to leave you with today. You already know how important nutrition is to your health and your happiness, and I'm sure you understand the importance of a consistent creative practice. So all I'm asking is that you bring your love of creativity into your kitchen because feeding yourself nutritiously isn't separate from creativity.
It is part of your creative life. It's another form of creating another way of saying to yourself, I [00:31:00] matter the quality of food. I serve myself and my family matters. The quality of my brain's fuel matters. And if today's episode resonated with you, my friend, please share it with someone else who could use it.
Someone who's been running on empty, who's been skipping meals, who is treating nourishment as an afterthought. Sometimes the most generous creative act you can do is pointing a person towards a treasure you've discovered. Thank you so much for bringing your creative, curious, wonderful self to our conversation today.
Now, I'll be back with you next week with more surprises, and I've got a good one about creativity and how to use it as a tool to make you healthier and happier in heart, mind, body, and soul. Until then, eat something colorful. See how many [00:32:00] colors you can enjoy this week. I'm Beth Buffington. This is Create Today, and my wish for you as always is to stay creative, my friend.
