How can we eat intuitively if we can’t cook intuitively?
some rambling thoughts, with love
Over the last however many years of doing quiet work to have a healthier, happier relationship with my own body — and sharing parts of that work with you all in some of my writing (see here, here, and here for some examples)— I’ve noticed a hole in the discourse that’s bothered me.
In all of the talk about eating intuitively (just in general, not specifically capital “I” capital “E” Intuitive Eating, which I’ll talk about in a second!), there’s often a big piece missing: how does the food we’re eating intuitively actually get prepared? Furthermore, how can we possibly eat intuitively if we can’t cook intuitively?
How do we give ourselves the freedom and flexibility to eat what we want when we want it if we don’t have the basic skills to make that food with ease? Especially if we don’t have access to having someone else prepare that food for us every single time we’re hungry (whether that’s eating in a restaurant or having food delivered to you, buying pre-prepared food….or, for a select few, employing a chef).
This question of “…but who’s cooking?” came rushing back to me last week when I listened to Evelyn Tribole on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. Evelyn is the author of 10 books, including co-author of the best-selling Intuitive Eating. If you’ve been with me for a while, you might remember I had the opportunity to talk to Evelyn a few years ago on my own podcast.
I don’t remember the first time I heard about “intuitive eating” as a concept, but I remember reading Jessica Knoll’s brilliant op-ed in the NYT in 2019 “Smash the Wellness Industry” (gift link!) which led me to actually reading Intuitive Eating, the seminal book Evelyn co-authored with Elyse Resch (the first edition came out in 1995, a whopping 30 years ago!).
While the book was immensely helpful to me, I don’t think Intuitive Eating is a totally foolproof key that magically unlocks ease and joy for all of us in our bodies. I’ve really appreciated the way
has articulated some of the nuance around this in these recent posts:I think if there’s any “answer” to all of this stuff — something that applies to and works for us all, a thing we can all work towards — it’s body autonomy. It’s all of us having the agency to make decisions about our own bodies on our own terms. This encompasses not only food and the size and shape of our bodies, but also reproductive rights, trans and queer rights, and so much more. It’s all woven together.
If we all work towards body autonomy — for ourselves and each other — we need a variety of tools. Eating intuitively is one of those tools.
And we cannot talk about eating intuitively without talking about cooking intuitively.
My goal in the work I do — whether it’s in this very newsletter, in my cooking classes, cookbooks, or on my occasional podcast — is to help my fellow home cooks feel more comfortable and confident in the kitchen. To build instincts based on cooking over and over. To understand why it works when it works, and, of course, to understand why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t work. To learn to trust these instincts. Becoming confident home cooks is one way we can learn to trust ourselves.
Why is this so important? This trust? One result of my years (decades!) of trying to make my body smaller through endless dieting and other eating disorder behavior was the erosion of my self-trust. Building it back has not impacted just how I eat, but also how I just move through the world and get through every single day. I carry myself differently now that I trust myself more.
I say all of this to hopefully explain why talking about cooking more intuitively is so important. Sure, it’s about have the ability to throw together a meal with the couple of ingredients you have in your kitchen even though you’re due to go grocery shopping. Sure, it’s about having knowledge that you can absolutely use red wine vinegar even though the recipe calls for sherry vinegar. These types of things save you time, energy and money. Important! But it’s more than that. It’s about having a fluid, easygoing relationship with getting food on the table, with having the ability to make the food you want to eat when you feel like eating it. The ability to eat intuitively is not possible if making food feels overwhelming and anxiety-inducing.
So: how do we do it? How do we learn to cook intuitively so that we can eat the same way?
My entire career has been devoted to attempting to answer this question. To try and show rather than tell you. My latest book WHAT GOES WITH WHAT is probably my best effort in this direction.
I wish I could give you a formula for cooking intuitively. But that is impossible because we all have so many different variables. Cooking encompasses so much more than just following a recipe. It’s grocery shopping, it’s cleaning, it’s organizing your kitchen and managing a budget and clearing out the freezer and remembering details about the people you’re cooking for. Cooking is physical and emotional labor and it’s absolutely relentless. It’s impacted by our social determinants of health, including but not limited to: our income, where we live, the quality of our water, our social support networks, our abilities and disabilities, and so much more.
There is no one size fits all for cooking. I think that’s something to celebrate.
While I can’t write us all a recipe to cook intuitively, I can continue to show you how I do it with hopes that some of what I share — recipes, classes, ideas, etc. — might be helpful as you figure out your way. I can continue to root for all of us.
So thank you for being here and supporting this work I love to do. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that it helps you figure out not only what to make for dinner, but also to trust yourself.
So much is possible when we don’t waste our time doubting ourselves — even eating with as much intuition as we cook with. That’s something I thought was impossible for me for so long. I’m glad I was wrong.
And because I’m a cookbook author who thinks in charts and lists, I can’t just leave you on an emotional note. I want to offer you a list of some of the things that make cooking intuitively possible in my life on a daily basis:
I love my air fryer
I keep parchment liners for our air fryer in the drawer closest to it
I try to keep my kitchen organized to allow for this exact kind-of flow as often as possible (the parchment air fryer liners near the air fryer itself, the espresso pods near the espresso machine, etc.)
I have a recurring note in my calendar for the days the good bread gets delivered to our local market so I’m reminded if I want to get a loaf because good bread = good life
My knives live on a magnet on the wall right above my kitchen counter so they’re always in reach
I embrace ingredients like Better Than Bouillon that make cooking easier
I cook SIMPLY!
I’ve said this a thousand times but it’s always worth repeating: I remind myself often that not every meal I eat has to be the best meal I’ve ever had
I try to keep my freezer stocked with things that making throwing together a meal easy — frozen vegetables (either ones I buy frozen or ones I blanch and freeze myself), frozen fish (I’ve been getting a box every two months from Wild Alaskan Company), etc.
Same goes for my pantry — there’s always at least a few cans of beans, pasta, Rao’s tomato sauce, etc. And this stuff doesn’t just appear out of nowhere! When I run out of one of these commonly-consumed-in-our-house items, I add them to my Target order or jot a note down for myself either in my calendar or in my notes app.
Speaking of, I try to work groceries into the flow of my week. For example, I see my powerlifting coach every Friday at 11 and his gym is around the corner from Target and a short drive to my favorite grocery store (Adams!). So I usually do an online Target order before I go to the gym, pick it up right after, and swing to Adams before I go home. It’s nice knowing I have this routine rather than trying to fit these things in at separate times.
I think the biggest key of all of this is giving myself grace and permission to be flexible about all of this and know that there will never be a PERFECT system because life is constantly changing. The joy is in the dance of it all. I’m always tweaking where I store things in my kitchen, how I procure groceries, and more. That doesn’t mean I’ve gotten anything wrong. It means I’m living with elasticity…just like my favorite waistbands!
If you want to hear me talk about some of this stuff, this conversation I got to have a few months ago with the one and only
went over so much of it:
A COUPLE OF HELPFUL CLASSES + POSTS I’VE SHARED BEFORE
Want a recording of the class I offered where I gave a full tour of my kitchen? It includes an incredibly thorough companion document that details all of the tools, ingredients + more in my kitchen (it's over 20 pages long! I got really into it!!!)? Just head here.
I also did another class about grocery shopping + how I organize my pantry available right here (this one includes a 10 page document with lists of ingredients, my notes on grocery shopping, links to just about EVERYTHING, and even a helpful grocery list page you can print off and use to hopefully make your life in your kitchen a little easier).
Sooooo many charts!!! And if you love these you’ll love What Goes with What!
okay y’all….today was a big one! xooxoxo julia
I've been working towards greater body autonomy and self trust for the last four years after 40 years of disordered eating and these posts are so meaningful to me so, firstly, thank you. This one was a special gift this morning as it connected one of my strengths- complete confidence in my ability to cook- to this journey of building trust with my body. I had never considered this a tool that I could deploy to my advantage here. If I am confident in my skills to cook whatever I feel like eating- and I can do that with ease and joy- then how can I naturally extend that same grace and joy to how I feed my body and beyond. Trust begets trust...something like that. This work is so challenging and so nuanced and so personal and every insight like this is such a treasure. Thank you thank you!
I loved this newsletter as a chef and an online educator, so packed with great links to your valuable posts, and I also loved it for the intuitive piece-how can people eat intuitively if they don´t know how to cook intuitively? I´ve asked myslef that question many times myself, which I why I designed my online cooking course in Spanish called Conquista la Cocina-literally, Conquer the Kitchen by understanding the principles of salt, fat, acid, heat. It´s sooooo valuable for beign healthy and organized and not wasteful and for eating deliciously...anyways, thanks for the post today! Very inspiring!