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What Makes Our Programming Unique
While I refer to our classes as “cooking classes,” it’s only because that is a term everyone can relate to. In fact, they are actually “healthy meal making classes.”
The difference is important. “Meal making” captures the fact that my programming is about cooking + a lot more.
As I often say, “there’s more to cooking than just cooking.” There are actually several parts to making healthy meals. What we think of as “cooking,” i.e., the chopping, mixing, frying and seasoning part, is only about 40% of meal making. “Getting prepared to cook,” is the other 60%. That’s the 60/40 Secret explained in the section on The New Kitchen Way.
In addition, there is a critical mindset piece, i.e., the motivation, inspiration and energy to break free of the convenience food trap, make your own meals and take control of your health. Without a supportive mindset, you can be sure your brain will throw up all sorts of mental barricades to prevent you from transforming the meals you make and eat.
Uniquely, my classes and programs help you develop skills, tools and habits in all three of these areas, so you can be 100% successful making healthy meals on a consistent basis. In other words, you learn the 3 Vital Skills and Habits of Being New in Your Cooking, Being New in Your Kitchen and Being New in Thinking.
Changing the meals we make and eat is, undeniably, a challenge. Over my 30 years in the field, I’ve thought deeply about how I can help others meet that challenge–and I weave that thinking into my classes as much as possible. Let me share a few of these aspects by way of encouragement.
A Fresh Take on Healthy Eating
“Healthy Eating” has become a pretty convoluted and confusing subject. What ordinary person can keep up with which fats are good and which are bad, the dangerous levels of salt in pancake mix and rotisserie chicken, the amount of sugar lurking in your ketchup and which foods have high amounts of Vitamin B, or antioxidants, or flavanoids, or phenols, and on and on?
Maybe food statistics have outlived their usefulness and it’s time to move beyond eating by numbers. Over the years, I’ve discovered that
- eating well is actually easier than you think
- healthy eating is not something we must work at furiously; it can happen very naturally in our lives
- food is a gift to our taste buds, not an enemy or subject of dissection
- eating is one of life’s greatest joys, not something to be feared
- cooking is a fun, creative and grounding pathway to good energy from the inside out.
This fresh perspective on healthy eating permeates my work and will hopefully give you a sense of hope that you can gain mastery and comfort with eating well. You don’t need a nutrition engineer on the household staff!
Practicality
Health and nutrition classes and counseling often focus on what we’re supposed to eat. My classes focus on the practical side of things, i.e., how to actually begin eating that way, day in and day out.
Take the simple admonition to eat more fruits and vegetables. Everybody knows we should eat 5 to 9 servings a day, but only 10% of us actually do! That’s why my work is all about taking the experts’ advice out of our heads and putting it on the table—in the form of deliciously wholesome meals.
Learn As You Do
Speaking of practicality, all our classes are hands-on and action-oriented. Even in the online classes, you’ll cook, organize, do and change as you learn. This form of “learning by doing” is the best way to gain confidence and comfort making healthy meals. It’s also a lot of fun! Re-engaging in the kitchen re-introduces us to the wonderful sense of connection and meaning that awaits us there.
Inspiration
As mentioned above, the desire and motivation to change is a big piece of the healthy meal making equation. Class participants and clients always tell me that my greatest strength lies in sharing the joy of food so that others feel inspired to head to the kitchen and get cooking. I hope you’ll be infected by inspiration, too!
A Bigger Picture
Eating gives us a unique opportunity. Every day, three times a day, we can make choices about the food we eat. Those choices can make a hugely positive impact, not only on our individual health, but on the health of our communities, the earth and our fellow travellers on the planet. My programming shares this exciting potential and how humble food and daily cooking are essential parts of a bigger whole that’s entirely accessible to you. How wonderful to know that you can easily make a difference, just by the food choices you make!
Feeling Your Pain!
I can lay claim to most of the feelings and frustrations a person can have around food. Whether it’s a new food trend, cooking fad, diet plan or eating approach, there is a good chance I’ve dabbled with it.
My cooking and good eating journey has spanned many years, beginning with tinkering in our farm house kitchen, where I discovered ways to prepare all the fruit grown in our valley, as well as the meats from our animals and the vegetables from our wild garden. As far back as the 70s, Diet for a Small Planet opened my eyes to the power of our food choices.
Since then, I’ve blimped out on Southern biscuits and gravy, battled the sugar demons, been a vegetarian, checked out food combining, gone Paleo (or tried to!), run roughshod over the satisfaction meter on countless occasions, threw cooking out the window while pursuing the corporate lawyer life, and stressed myself silly trying to nurse two small children back to health through nutritional therapy.
But every challenge brought good things, like:
- creating a friendly kitchen where feeding kids for wellness became entirely manageable,
- stressless-ly accommodating food allergies,
- raising two vegetable-loving kids,
- experiencing the heady joy of making soul-satisfying foods and the blessed wellness that comes from a wholesome diet,
- having my eyes opened to the Technicolor world of whole and natural foods, and
- catching a glimpse of enlightenment while chopping onions.
I’d love to share all these discoveries with you! Bit by bit, I’d love to see you be amazed at how the healthy, yummy meals of your dreams start coming together, with ease and maybe even a little enjoyment!
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