Cooking: Better Form Of Mindfulness Than Any Other Option
With self-help twisting mindfulness for mass consumption, true mindfulness can pass as something more simplistic.
I first started to learn baking about a decade ago while I was living with 10 other people in a home. We weren’t allowed to buy anything pre-made — aside from pasta noodles — so we had to make things from scratch.
Considering the size of the group, we were given a pass on fruits and veggies. But one thing we all had to learn to make was bread.
It was a process that would take a good chunk of the morning but going through the steps for me was enjoyable. And for someone who didn’t know how to cook, the bread I made was pretty good.
All of this sparked my desire to cook as well as to bake.
Baking bread is something I haven’t done since then, but I’ve been delving more into baking banana bread these days. On top of cooking, I’m pretty thankful that I’ve learned these skills, even if these days I stick to some simple dishes.
But it’s especially my exploration into baking that has done some wonders for me.
For one it’s a breath of fresh air into a skill that is second nature to me — cooking. And it’s spurred me to at least try different things in my own life.
This is on top of the mental soothingness that this hobby of mine brings.
In a world where mindfulness is often categorized with meditation, journaling, crystals, reiki, yoga, scented candles, and bath bombs, you’d think things like cooking or playing a soothing video game would be unusual in this space.
But through my experiences with baking — and how that’s spurring me to try and make different dishes once in a while — I can see how even something like this can do wonders to a person’s psyche. Especially these days.
There are all kinds of anti-anxiety methods that people talk about and there is far more support for mental illnesses and mental awareness now more than ever. But the problem with a lot of it is that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t quite fit into a person’s lifestyle.
And the self-help industry doesn’t always help that matter either.
If breathing exercises don’t work it’s you that is the problem. If you’ve been journalling for weeks or months and nothing is changing, perhaps you’re not manifesting enough.
Go and buy some more candles or bath bombs. Treat yourself.
With self-help twisting mindfulness for mass consumption, true mindfulness can pass as something more simplistic. Something that hasn’t been brought up all that much and there is a very good reason to bring it up now.
Cooking — and by extension baking.
It’s An Undervalued Skill
Out of the fours years in high school it wasn’t until near the end of my time there did I realize we had a kitchen area where students cooked. I only saw it briefly.
The school didn’t mandate that we take cooking classes at all. In grades 9 and 10, our “arts” class could be actual art class or music. By grade 11 and 12, we were given some flexibility with our classes but obviously it was encouraged to focus on getting the courses you need to get into whatever school you wanted to go in.
I don’t even remember seeing a cooking class being offered as an option. My fun course beyond all the business classes I took was writing.
In America, cooking is even more obscure or non-existent since those kinds of life skills don’t fit people’s idea of “being prepared for the real world”. Of course these decisions and ideas have achieved a predictable result.
Cooking is a relic of the past and is one of the most undervalued skills out there. That much is clear from that but also just how much food simply goes to waste on a regular basis.
But as depressing as that may be, I think the undervalued nature and the obscurity of it can be a bit of a boon in many ways. For one the uncommon nature of it makes it more redeeming in people’s eyes. Knowing how to cook can be seen as a more redeeming quality than one who doesn’t.
It Creates Further Acts Of Kindness
Mindfulness at its core is more about being at peace with yourself and confronting problems. It’s meant to relieve stress from a world and life situation that is otherwise draining you.
Even though things like meditation and yoga are highly researched and offer a lot of benefits, these activities are more self-centered activities. You can meditate or take yoga classes as a group, but there isn’t much connection beyond that.
When you cook or bake, you do so for yourself, but you can always cook more for someone else. Your kids, your parents, a relative, a neighbour, a local shelter.
Food has a way of bringing people together and it can spur a lot of good and change in the world. For one it can be a viable solution to a lot of the food waste that we’re dealing with.
Imagine the nearly third of bought food actually went towards creative, colourful, and nutritious dishes. All that would need to be done is to make a decision to not buy fast food or other convenient food and simply use the food that we bought already.
On a smaller scale, it can encourage people to make food for others. Those who have the time can make various dishes they can share with others. Free food is a way to also meet new people. There’s a reason why in older shows, new neighbours were often gifted with pies as a house warming gift.
Ritz even instills that idea a bit with their latest ads. A little kid offering up a box of crackers to what I can only presume is a family that just moved into a neighbourhood.
And while crackers are by no means pies, imagine the food would be something more substantial. A large salad, homemade bread, a casserole.
Food can do a lot of good.
It Can Make The Time Fly By While Instilling Emotions
Mindfulness is a way to decompress, it’s allowing yourself to be present with your current thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Whether your kitchen is a small part of a compact apartment or something with more movement space, you can still find yourself getting lost in your kitchen while you’re cooking.
A kitchen is very simple in design with tools and ingredients being where you placed them. There isn’t much to think about when you’re cooking beyond figuring out what to cook and following the instructions on the recipe itself.
It creates the perfect environment where you are paying attention to what you are doing but the movements being mindless enough that you don’t need to think too hard about every thing. Ultimately, you are being present with yourself whenever you are cooking.
It’s for this reason that when we cook or bake, we don’t often realize how much time we actually spend doing it. Sure recipes give rough estimates of time. But so often we don’t realize how long that actually takes.
An hour and a half of baking feels like a lot when we read it. But when you’re getting into it, you don’t realize how much time has passed until you put your creation in the oven.
And for those who struggle to make time for cooking, there is always the option of having a devoted “cooking day”. A time where you take an afternoon or evening to prepare several dishes that will keep you for the week.
Beyond that, cooking itself instills various emotions in you.
Working on a familiar recipe builds confidence in your ability to cook.
Trying something new creates an element of surprise and a desire to experiment.
A completed meal brings a sense of satisfaction and pride to it.
This is on top of cooking can be physically demanding too. Feeling tired after it can be a great feeling on top of feeling mentally refreshed.
It Creates Play Time In An Otherwise Adult World
Adult’s form of entertainment is very different from that of a child's. While we can immerse ourselves in video games, driving cars, or some other hobby, cooking offers a sense of fun that is more unique.
For one, cooking is something that encourages you to use all of your senses.
You use taste to see how your dish is progressing. You use smell to pick up the aroma of the spices and raw ingredients mixing together. You use sight to look at your creation and to make it visually appealing with colours or placement. You use touch to feel the texture of ingredients. You use hearing to soothe yourself.
These sorts of things can’t easily be done through traditional mindfulness practices.
But beyond that is that entertainment and it comes in various forms.
When I was doing apartment hunting, one of the key things I was looking for is what the kitchen was like. How big was it? How much movement space do I have?
For me, the biggest thing is having a kitchen where I’m forced to move around and pivot. It’s not quite a dance, but enough where I can do basically stretches.
For us as adults, we don’t need a whole lot to find something entertaining and cooking can offer a lot of those simple things. For you it might be less moving and it might be more on slicing vegetables or fruit. Others it can be sticking your hands into some dough and kneading it.
Or maybe you like to taste test a lot or munch on some raw fruit or veggies when cooking.
Either way it creates a lot of entertainment for us.
It’s understandable why cooking isn’t a common practice in people’s lives. Cooking takes up time and for people’s circumstances they may not have much time to work with. Products like food box subscriptions or even the frozen and pre-made foods at grocery stores do fill that gap and are appealing in those particular circumstances.
But despite these fulfilling that need, I do believe learning how to cook can make a world of difference for people. For those who haven’t cooked, it’s an opportunity to change your life around. To figure out how to carve out time to learn to cook for yourself.
And for those of us with the skills, it’s an opportunity to delve into something different. To expand our skills using different tools or making new dishes.
But there is also a case to be made about the mindfulness aspect too. After all, the current model encourages you to simply buy or do more. More products that make you feel good for a moment but don’t really do much. More time devoted to something that you might not be feeling all that much.
At least with cooking you walk away with something tangible and nourishing.
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