The fact that you can strengthen your defenses by cooking for yourself is nothing new. But how can you motivate yourself to cook something delicious from fresh and healthy ingredients and thereby keep your immune system in top shape?
Perhaps you know the feeling: you buy a crisp kohlrabi and put it in the fridge. A few weeks later, you take out the shriveled vegetable and throw it away. Popping a pizza into the oven, heating up a can, or throwing a ready-made meal into the pan – for many people, this is much more tempting than preparing fresh vegetables. This no longer has much to do with a balanced diet.
It is convenient and even provides a kind of comfort due to the high sugar content and the many empty calories. Especially if we have trained ourselves to do so. After all, your gut flora is always craving the exact nutrients that keep it alive. This means: if you eat a lot of meat, you often signal to your body a real craving for quickly available animal protein. However, a wholesome diet of fresh ingredients with plenty of fruits and vegetables is good for your defenses.
Four motivation tips for those who dislike cooking
Everyone is a little different. By experimenting, you will best find out what motivates you to cook for yourself and what does not. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Cook together. With a little chat, many find it much more fun to cook a hearty lentil stew, a lush spring salad, tasty broccoli patties, or a rich vegetable curry.
2. Inspiration from cookbooks and the internet. Take your time and search for healthy dishes that really appeal to you. Create a list of great recipes and cook them one by one. Reward yourself for every home-cooked meal. It doesn't have to be a bag of chips.
3. Pre-cooking. Definitely cook larger portions, because then the effort is worth it twice or three times over. Once reheated, a minestrone made from fresh ingredients often tastes even better, and asparagus salad, Frankfurt green sauce, or crispy filled wraps also taste great the next day.
4. Easy does it. Start by choosing easy recipes that you can prepare quickly. Once you have had a few successes, your ambition will likely grow.
In the name of your defenses – three more tips
5. Keep healthy ingredients in stock. You can make a healthy muesli very quickly if you have the right ingredients ready. For example: oatmeal, blueberries, hazelnuts, granola, chia or flax seeds, and apples. Such supplies also have the advantage that you can spice up salads or other dishes in just a few simple steps and thus support your defenses. Put together your personal arsenal, for example, linseed oil, couscous, sprouts, whole-grain cornflakes, cranberries, goji berries, and quinoa.
6. Feel free to show off a little. If it motivates you, feel free to photograph your culinary creations and post the pictures on social media. Especially when everything is full of political and socially critical debates, some people are happy to see a little food post once in a while.
7. Invest time in planning. When you are already hungry, it is usually too late to deal with preparing healthy food. Home-cooked meals are then quickly sacrificed for a ready-made meal again. Therefore, you should think ahead, i.e., find recipes, set cooking days, and buy the right supplies in good time. Over time, you will get better at planning. This not only has positive effects on your defenses but actually also on other areas of your life where smart organization is required.
You can find a detailed article on the topic of "immune food" here. And you can listen to or read a motivating podcast interview with nutrition expert Anne Fleck, Doc Fleck, here.
• Would you like to know more about the immune system? You can find out more here!
