There are many people who have questioned my claim that you would be able to eat healthy by only eating what you enjoy. I would first like to point out that I do not work with diets or helping people lose weight or build bigger muscles. I see health from a larger perspective and for me it is just as important to feel good mentally as physically. To achieve that, I work more with the attitude to food, which I think leads to you eating better food over time. There are times however when my claim can be completely wrong, that is if you only like one type of food or that you are only focused on food as a fuel for your body. At those times, however, it becomes even more important to listen to what I more have to say. It's basically just caring about what you eat and getting to know your own body.
Many people see food only as nutrition and focus on how we can affect our body with food from a chemical perspective. I also find it very exciting and love to delve into how different things taste and why, which is basically mainly about chemistry. But that part becomes quite unimportant if I don't first have a language to understand the taste itself. You first need to understand what taste is, how it works, what exactly you like and how you can influence the taste in order to finally be able to enjoy everything you eat. This is what I go through in my coming course.
Understand what taste is
To be able to enjoy flavors, you first need to know what we are talking about when we talk about flavors... which is quite complicated as I have mentioned earlier. We usually don't just mean what we experience with the sense of taste when we talk about taste but rather the whole taste experience that we perceives with all our senses. At the same time, we try to explain it either purely subjective; whether it is good or disgusting or with our words for our basic tastes. Which is limited and is something you need to get past to be able to understand what taste really is.
Explain flavors
To explain something, we need words for it. As long as we try to explain taste with the five basic tastes as a frame of reference, we are very limited. The taste experience is often greater than what we have words to describe it with. But the more you practice finding words and learning about the flavors and trying to put them into words, the easier it will be for you to be able to understand the flavors and learn what the food actually taste.
Understand what you like
Once we understand taste in itself, then you can begin to gain insight into what you really like and not. To get there, you need to taste. Dare to taste new things and things you did not like before with new cooking. Then you do not have to exclude everything with something you do not like. For example, I don't really like lingonberries for their bitterness. But with the right combinations that reduce the bitterness, I today can appreciate it.
Understand how to influence the flavor
When you have learnt about flavors and what you like, then the fun begins. Then you can start looking at how you can influence the flavors and find new combinations that you like. This is where you start to really explore flavors. You get an understanding of what taste is really about and that you can influence the flavors of food in so many ways that you never before realized.
Learn to enjoy everything you eat
With this understanding, you will see that it is possible to enjoy everything you eat. If you like to, you can let those insights influence the rest of your life, to enjoy more of your whole life. My belief is that when you start exploring flavors, you will want more tasty food and more varied food. I do not want to talk about what is healthy and not, as it depends on so many factors. But if you think about what you eat and then eat tasty and varied food, it will most likely also be healthy.
However, I do not eat it because it is healthy, I eat it because it taste good. Which makes me live by the concept of: only eat what you enjoy and enjoy all you eat. If you think this sounds exciting and want to learn more. Keep posted for my coming online course: Explore flavors and enjoy all you eat!
/Ann
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