WELLNESS
Somewhere along the way, eating became complicated. It turned into something we needed to fix, optimise, restrict, or earn. We counted everything. We googled every ingredient. We replaced the joy of eating with discipline, hacks, and control. Food became a calculation, not a connection.
Eating has become something we micromanage. A function. A rush between tasks, a reward after exhaustion, or worse, something to fear, restrict, or vilify. We've forgotten what it meant to eat with presence, to feel hunger and answer it, to choose food not for what it lacks (calories, carbs, guilt) but for what it gives.
Eating well isn’t about perfection. It’s not a discipline to be mastered or a number to hit. It’s about returning to something older, something simpler. A rhythm. A ritual. A way of caring for yourself that feels intuitive rather than forced.
It's time to come back.
Start with presence. Not a meal plan. Not a detox. Not a promise to be “better” tomorrow. Just presence. Most of us eat distracted, at our desks, in the car, scrolling our phones and answering emails, on the sofa with a screen glowing. Start by clearing a little space. Sit at a table, any table. No phone. Plate your food like it matters, even if it’s just eggs and toast. Especially if it’s just eggs and toast. Not perfect, not macro-counted or algorithm-approved. Just warm. Just real.
When you’re present, food tastes different. More honest. More alive.
So many of us have spent years overriding hunger cues, forcing ourselves into routines that never quite fit. But our body remembers what it needs, we just have to start listening. Eat when we’re hungry, not when the clock says. Stop when we’re full, not when the plate is empty. Don’t panic if we crave something rich, sweet, or heavy. Cravings aren’t failure. They’re feedback. This isn’t about indulging every whim. It’s about learning that we don’t have to fight our body to be healthy, we can actually work with it.
We fall in love with food again by changing our approach. By cooking not to repress ourselves, but to care. By shopping with our hands and not just our eyes, touching fruit, smelling herbs, asking the butcher where the lamb is from. These rituals, once mundane, are now forms of reclamation.
We need to cook more often but cook more simply. We don’t need to become that person who makes sourdough from scratch. But there’s power in feeding yourself food you’ve made with your own hands. Not performance cooking, not the kind that ends up on Instagram, but quiet, grounding meals. Lentils with garlic and lemon. Roast chicken on a weeknight. Pasta with whatever’s in the fridge.
Use your hands. Smell the olive oil. Taste things as you go. Cooking is not a chore, it’s one of the most beautiful ways you can look after yourself and others.
Let dessert be part of dinner. Not after, not later, alongside. Peaches and cream. A spoonful of semifreddo with a hot espresso. Food was never the enemy. It's the thing that kept us alive, the thing we gathered around before we had screens or schedules. The thing that holds memory, mood, meaning.
Food doesn’t need to be revolutionary to be good, it just needs to be yours. A soft-boiled egg with salt and cracked pepper. Fresh bread torn by hand. Olive oil that catches the light. A tomato eaten over the sink.
Eat outside. Eat with your hands. Eat something that reminds you of someone you love.
You don’t need to start a new diet. You need to come home to your body.