In this series about healthy eating in recovery, we have written a lot about the kinds of foods that best support your well-being and your efforts to stay away from drugs or alcohol. In this entry, we want to shift the focus from what you should eat to a couple of activities that are related to how you might make your diet healthier.
If you are new to the series, you can read the earlier entries:
- Part One: An Overview of Healthy Food
- Part Two: Hydration and Breakfast
- Part Three: Lunch and Afternoon Snacks
- Part Four: Dinner and Late-Night Snacks
The activities we think support healthy eating in recovery are gardening and cooking. Taking up either one—or both—is a great way to improve the healthfulness of the food you eat while also providing additional support to your ongoing recovery.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these activities.
Getting Into the Garden
Given the abundance of food available in supermarkets and elsewhere, the idea of growing your own produce might seem quaint or simply unnecessary. But the fact is that gardening is a wonderful way to support your recovery while ensuring that you have ongoing access to healthy food options even when you have not been to the store in a bit.
What you can grow will, of course, depend on where you live and how much space you have (participating in a community garden can be a good way to address issues of space). Still, any veggie or fruit you grow will support your health—and those items will have more nutrients and taste better out of your garden than they do out of the produce section of the local grocery store.
Other benefits of gardening include:
- Gardening is exercise that supports your overall health
- Getting out in the sunlight supports your mental health
- Gardening can serve as an engaging hobby, helping you relax and recharge
- Engaging your creativity as you decide what to grow and where is a positive practice
- Gardening can lead to beauty in the form of flowers or other plants in addition to producing food
- Cultivating your garden can be a group activity, helping you build and sustain positive relationships
It is, of course, true that gardening takes some work—and that frustrations might sometimes arise. But overall, deciding to cultivate food, flowers, and more is a great way to support your recovery journey.
Once you have grown some food, the next logical step is to get into the kitchen to see what delicious creations you might whip up.
Creating in the Kitchen
When you eat takeout or use your microwave to heat up some heavily processed food, you are not really in control of the ingredients, the calories, or anything else about what you are eating. And while it is certainly possible to make healthy (or at least healthier) choices around such things, the fact is that you could lean into healthy eating by cooking your own meals.
If you are not in the habit of doing so, that might seem like a daunting task. And we will be honest: Cooking does involve a fair amount of effort—including shopping, prep time, the actual cook time, and cleanup. All of that might seem like more effort than it is worth.
We get it, but we would also argue that cooking has a lot in common with gardening. That is to say, the time you spend in the kitchen has benefits beyond just amping up the healthfulness of your diet (though that is, of course, a major benefit). Those benefits include:
- Cooking can serve as an engaging hobby, helping you relax and recharge
- Cooking can help you engage your creativity as you decide what to make and how to make it
- Cooking can lead to exploration of your family’s recipes, the recipes of other cultures, and more—connecting you to your family history or new ideas and tastes from elsewhere
- Cooking (and, of course, eating!) can be a group activity, helping you build and sustain positive relationships. And the people who help you cook (and eat!) can help you clean up, too
Not sure where to start? We would recommend finding two or three recipes that seem fairly easy—and then just give it a go. It might take some time to get the hang of even easy dishes, but it will get easier over time, and as it does, you can expand your repertoire. Be patient with yourself. Also, be sure to remind yourself of the benefits of cooking for your health and for your recovery.
We Have Something Cooking at Wooded Glen
Located in Henryville, Indiana, Wooded Glen Recovery Center helps individuals overcome substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders. If you are struggling with drugs or alcohol, you can count on us to provide a personalized treatment plan grounded in evidence-based practices. We are consistently recognized as one of the top substance use disorder recovery centers in the nation, and we are eager to employ our expertise, experience, and empathy to helping you reclaim your life.