Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.
~Harriet Van Horne

You already know about the advantages of eating healthy— a stronger immune system, reduced risk of many diseases, physical fitness, and so much more. But did you know you were born with an inner guidance system for preparing life-enriching foods? The world’s best chefs already know this. When you build a connection with food and trust your inner guidance system, the process of healthy cooking will naturally fall into place.

Here a some tips for bonding with your food and strengthening your intuition to create delicious, healthy meals:

1. Experiment.

Organic food is delicious all on its own. The simple process of steaming some organic carrots can really bring out their flavor. However, if you are entertaining or just in the mood for something different, flex your creative muscles and change a dish up. You can use additional ingredients- like sauces, herbs, spices, and condiments— to enhance the food’s natural flavors. Condiments can also help to balance a dish, enhancing flavors and boosting the energy.

2. Use all of your assets.

You may want to try time-honored family recipes to get in touch with your cultural roots. However, don’t get locked into just following those recipes over and over. As your creativity expands, you can create new dishes centered around your family’s culinary heritage.

By making some mistakes along the way, you’ll learn to balance ingredients in a meal and how to make substitutions. This is an empowering process, and it allows you to make more informed decisions instead of just following someone else’s advice or instructions. You might prefer the dish to be more spicy, less spicy, or seasoned differently. When you cook without a recipe, you can adjust the seasonings and ingredients to make it your own. You can infuse a meal with your unique flair by trusting your energy and intuition.

3. Start a love affair.

One of the easiest ways to incorporate healthy cooking into your life is to develop an intimate relationship with food. Really make it a love affair— get truly passionate about healthy food. For example, incorporate one new vegetable or whole grain into your meal plan each week.

It’s sort of like getting to know someone you’ve just met. At first, it’s a little scary, because you don’t know how to behave around each other. And then after you spend some more time with them and you get to know each other, you start to build a mutual trust and feel safe around them. Eventually, you can’t imagine life without them. The same concept can be applied to your relationship with food. In the beginning, it will be a little scary, but after a while, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without your vegetables and whole grains.

As you build a love affair with food, you’ll not only make better tasting dishes, you’ll also develop an all-encompassing confidence that you can take with you out into the real world— your job, your relationships, and anything else that requires truth and intuition.