Plan, prep, cook, and eat home-made meals with your family. Every day.

Plan, prep, cook, and eat home-made meals with your family. Every day.

I cannot possibly reiterate this sentiment often enough.  This simple act is so intimately tied to our health and wellness as human beings; to our integration into our environments and communities through food sourcing; and to our relationships with those closest to us.

1. Plan = Think about what dinner is going to be.  What will the protein be?  What are your sides or accompaniments?  What recipe are you going to use?  What ingredients do you need to buy in order to pull this off?
2. Prep = Find your ingredients and get them ready to cook with.  This means going to the freezer, the garden, the butcher, grocer, farmer, produce stand or farmer’s market.  Then take that stuff home, clean it, and cut it up.
3. Cook = Use fire or heat to make your food ingredients edible while also imparting flavor and building texture.  If you’re not good at this, start with simple stuff like boiling or roasting.  Cookbooks and YouTube are great learning resources.
4. Eat = This is the part where you sit down and chew your food slowly while talking and laughing with your family.  Happy, relaxed eating aids digestion and absorption of nutrients.  Plus, you get to save the leftovers for breakfast or lunch tomorrow!

I hope you are taking this lockdown as an opportunity to deepen your food hygiene practices at home.  And as you are doing so, remember to keep it simple: Just plan, prep, cook, and eat home-made meals with your family every day.