Self-Love in Aisle 2
“They had broccolini at Trader Joe’s!” I enthusiastically reported on a phone call to my mom. “I’m thinking of roasting it. Maybe I’ll eat it with some pasta … I found some lemon ricotta ravioli, and I want to try making a butter and herb sauce for it …”
I trailed off for twenty minutes just talking about the ingredients I picked up on my latest trip to the grocery store. Since moving into a new apartment, I have dedicated most of my free time to grocery shopping and cooking endeavors. A well-spent Saturday night includes browsing the New York Times Cooking page and crafting handwritten grocery lists. I browse through the aisles of Trader Joe’s on Sunday afternoons and hunch over the produce section with my brow furrowed, looking for the ripest fruit to have with my morning tea. During the week, I waltz into my kitchen after work, turn on my latest podcast obsession, and cook myself dinner.
Before moving into my apartment, I worried about taking full responsibility for feeding myself. I’ve grown up in a world flooded with messages about how my body should look. Advertisements for weight loss strategies and juice cleanses pop up on my Instagram. Clothing sizes vary depending on the brand, forcing me to try on countless pairs of pants that do not fit. When I was younger, distant relatives would comment on my weight. My whole life, thinness has been placed on a pedestal, and a haze of shame surrounds sizing up. Historically, I felt rather confident in my body. However, after twenty years, the cultural messaging about body size started to get to my head.
Food played a huge role in my new self-consciousness. When jokes about “cheat days” and dieting fill the sitcoms I watch and YouTube recommends videos for “recipes to lose weight,” I’m not necessarily surprised that I began to overanalyze the food I ate. In my apartment, away from my college dining hall and my parents’ kitchen, I recognized how easily I could skip meals or undereat. Still, I stocked up on kitchen supplies, compiled a recipe book and hoped that I would take to cooking to keep me fueled, fed and happy.
Luckily, the grocery store became a sort of haven for me. With my list in my left hand and my right hand steering the cart, I weave in between the maze of shoppers and food displays. Staring at the shelves, I come up with ideas for new salads to concoct. I become adventurous and pick up ingredients I’ve never touched before. Sometimes, I glance into the baskets of others. I eavesdrop on their comments to their shopping partners, and if they insist that the ginger chili sauce pairs perfectly with a rice bowl, I take their advice and add the sauce to my list. When I stare at my haul of food for the week in my kitchen, I feel awash with bliss. The feeling is similar to the savasana I take at the end of my yoga practice: rejuvenated and ready for what’s next.
Lately, I’ve tried to embrace body neutrality. Similarly to the body positivity movement, body neutrality aims to recolor the negativity that often paints our perceptions of our bodies due to societal messaging. Unlike body positivity, body neutrality encourages us to not place any values, positive or negative, on our bodies. Instead, the goal is to view your body as just a body, paying minimal attention to how it looks. This idea feels like a more accessible way to view my body in a healthier light. I don’t have to love every part of my body; Instead, I am just grateful it allows me to do the things I love, like hiking, yoga and walking outside on perfect summer days. And in order for my body to do all the things I love, I need to fuel it. This is where food comes back in, as fuel and power, and in alignment with the ideas of body neutrality.
When I cook for myself, I tend to get lost in the art of the whole process. Timing the cooking times for my buffalo cauliflower with the preparation for my corn salsa becomes a puzzle. I sprinkle shredded parmesan on my roasted veggies just to make them sparkle. After spending a few hours in the kitchen every week, cooking has become less about being a way to feed myself. It has become a way to de-stress, express myself and create mini edible works of art. Cooking myself meals infused with care is the ultimate form of self-care, and when I’m doing my dishes, I pay less attention to how my body looks after a meal. Instead, I notice how it feels. Often, this feeling is gratitude for the self-love I season my meals with. ♦