How to Eat Well

In a world of endless dietary advice, here’s mine

Mezze spread from my book Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Photo by Matt Russell

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to eat. 

Charred aubergines, sweet and smoky, pounded with garlic and lemon. Sautéed chard, smothered in tahini and sprinkled with pine nuts and chilli. Fresh fava beans, popped from their pods and tossed with fragrant dill and fresh mint. Taking pleasure in food has always been a central part of my life, not just as a form of connection, but because of how my family approached growing, cooking and eating food.

My mother trained as a nutritionist in Iran, working in hospitals and community organisations and later as a public health professor at a British university. From a young age, she instilled in me a core philosophy around eating, including principles around the importance of consuming whole foods, the value of home cooked meals, and the psychological and social benefits of taking time to enjoy the food you eat. My grandparents, and later my uncles and aunts, were small-scale farmers in northern Iran, growing rice and vegetables for sale in local markets. Food was a topic frequently discussed at our dining table and opinions on issues such as organic farming, global trade rules, climate change and seasonality weren’t amorphous concepts but directly related to how my family’s livelihood would (or wouldn’t) flourish.

The impact of all of this was that I grew up fascinated by food and the rituals behind how to eat well. I was inspired by my maternal grandfather, Ahmed Rabiee, a man who had an unparalleled obsession with quality produce. He was the kind of person who would happily take a four-hour round trip to a regional town when his favourite oranges were in season. Or go hiking deep into the dense forests of Gilan to buy honey from who believed to be the best supplier there. On his first trip to the UK, in 1987, he brought in his luggage a 5-kilo bag of rice from his farm in Northern Iran as he was unsure if the quality of rice in the UK would be good enough to eat.

One of my favourite stories about him is from the year before he died, when one day he called all his children and told them they had to attend his house immediately. My uncles and aunts arrived, feeling worried and sombre, expecting to talk about his will, his death and the last chapter of his life.  So they found it quite amusing when they were finally assembled and he solemnly began his speech… he actually wanted to chastise them about how fed up he was with being given food that was low in salt and low in fat, or without meat and any of the treats he enjoyed, and that as he only had a limited time left on earth, for goodness sake, why couldn’t they just let him enjoy the food he loved so he could see out his days happily!

Images from The Saffron Tales: Recipes from the Persian Kitchen. Photos by Shahrzad Darafseh

With that influence in my life, it’s not been surprising that food also has been significant for me too, namely through the three cookbooks I’ve written that use recipes as a vehicle for exploring people, places and cultures that are typically misrepresented in Western media. The most interesting part of the culinary journeys I’ve undertaken for the books has been cooking in people’s home kitchens and learning about traditional food cultures from the Mediterranean and Middle East, which have long been associated with improved health outcomes.

All of which is to say, I’ve got a lot of thoughts about eating well! And I also have some personal food habits, or principles I should say, that I feel have enabled me to enjoy the food I love, maintain a healthy weight, sleep well, feel good and have a lot of fun along the way.

So, for what it’s worth, here are my hot takes on how to eat.

1. Eat the food you love

Have you ever eaten peanut butter on a rice cake? That’s too bad, it sucks. No good comes from eating food that tastes like cardboard, devoid of the sensory pleasure that makes eating so life affirming. Too often, in today’s diet/wellness/body fascist society, where capitalism has stripped us of the time, energy or money to cook for ourselves, food has been reduced to mere subsistence, a fuel to keep us going. For me, a central premise of eating well is to ensure I’m making the time to eat the food I love. This doesn’t take long, or involve fuss, grandeur or expense. It could be simply sitting down with a big bowl of juicy, sweet, seasonal fruit. Or spooning up some spiced dal from a bed of soft white rice. Or devouring a crumpet, toasted and dripping in salted butter, whilst standing over the kitchen sink.

I don’t tend to think of food groups as good or bad. Which means I never feel deprived and need to indulge and similarly never feel guilty if I enjoy something that is high fat or high sugar. It’s all about balance at the end of the day and the more you get into the habit of eating the foods you love, irrespective of what you think the health benefits are, the more pleasure you will get from your food and your life. 

2. Eat intuitively and listen to your cravings

This is something my mum installed in me early on - your body often knows what it needs and also what it doesn’t. The more you are able to tap into that, the more likely it is you will make better food choices. I get very strong and very specific food cravings. Sometimes for something acidic and rich in vitamin C, sometimes for something salty which makes me think I’m probably missing some B12, and sometimes, as someone who has anaemia, an intense urge to eat offal or red meat. If you are craving sugar, that’s telling you something too and you don’t need to judge yourself for it - there are probably some imbalances in your blood sugar or your emotional state and you can see the craving as simply an invitation to notice and reflect on that.

Intuitive eating is essentially about trusting your instincts. I often use this principle when ordering at restaurants, checking in with the simple question, “what does my body really need at this moment?”. It can help determine whether you order a salmon, soup or a pasta dish and if you get lost in long menus (which I frequently do!) it also offers an easy and quick way to make a decision.

Photo by Agnieszka Stankiewicz on Unsplash

3. Find out what works for you and stick to it

The philosophy that has influenced my eating the most in the last decade is Ayurveda, a hugely detailed ancient health system originating in the Indian subcontinent. My Dad, who grew up in the Punjab state of Pakistan, didn't actually see a Western medic until he went to medical school in Lahore in the late 1960s but rather his Mum would take him to visit the local Ayurvedic doctor for any ailments. I would go so far as to say that out of all the health advice I’ve implemented over my life, incorporating Ayurvedic principles and eating according to my body type has positively impacted on my sleep, energy and physical and mental health the most.

A core principle of Ayurveda is that each of us has a unique physical constitution and is affected by different foods in different ways. To quote a key tenet of its philosophy, “one person’s medicine is another person’s poison”. Increasingly, western nutritional advice is gravitating towards this too and observing that we all react very differently to similar food groups (see, for example, the hugely successful ZOE app) but we can all easily observe this by comparing our eating habits to those around us. My partner can chug back coffee like there is no tomorrow, knocking back four or five a day and happily have a double espresso after dinner and be asleep within the hour. I on the other hand am so sensitive to caffeine, I can barely have more than two cups of tea a day, have to have my last one by around midday and get heart palpitations after coffee. This isn’t unusual. We are all different in how we digest not just caffeine, but also grains, proteins, fats and sugars. The best advice I have is to find out what works for you. Years ago, I did an elimination diet and realised that I’m intolerant to nightshade vegetables. I am also not great at digesting dairy, or cold and raw foods so I tend to go easy on those food groups and only have them occasionally. Warming foods like curries, stews, soups work best for my digestion, mood and energy levels so I tend to eat more of those.

If you are interested in Ayurveda, there are plenty of books and specialists out there and whilst the recommendations you get for your body type might seem strange at first and probably at odds with what you like, I highly recommend trying them for two weeks and see what a difference it can make. The best thing about this particular dietary advice is that food is never proscribed against, it’s more of a suggestion of leaning towards types of food that work better for you.

4. Get the basics rights

I’m sure you all know these fundamentals but they are foundational for a reason. Drink lots of water, eat a variety of fruit and veg, prioritise whole foods, avoid ultra-processed foods, enjoy healthy fats such as from olive oils, nuts, avocados, try and balance your glycemic index by combining fats, proteins and carbs. The best way you can do this? Learn how to cook. We have lost the art of cooking in so much of Western society, in part due to increased work demands, leaving individuals and families with far less time, but also in part due to industrial food production and food advertising that promotes hugely unhealthy and damaging food products to people under the guise of accessibility and affordability, when actually we now know how hugely damaging they can be.

It can be hard to find the time to cook when you’re busy but having a few quick go-to meals can help. These are meals that you don’t have to think about and for me they include a tempeh, veg and rice noodle stir fry, a mung bean dal with rice, and grilled fish with za’atar roasted vegetables. I probably eat those three meals every week, which means I always have the ingredients in the fridge, freezer or store cupboard and when I’m tired or short on time it just makes cooking so much easier.

Tucking into some Calamari and watermelon in Cypus, from Ripe Figs, photos Matt Russell

5. How you eat is just as important as what you eat 

I feel very passionate about this one and feel it often gets overlooked in health and nutrition advice. Eating in a relaxed way, when you are breathing well and chewing your food properly has a huge impact on how your body digests food. Eating in a rushed, stressed out state, when your body has elevated adrenaline and cortisol literally changes the way your body processes and digests food because, when it is in ‘flight or flight’ mode, everything is affected — from how it deals with blood sugar to the slowing down of digestive muscles to producing fewer digestive juices. Last year, I made a really enjoyable series of videos and audio for the LIGHT app teaching people how to eat in a more mindful manner by introducing a few rituals around eating. It’s pretty straightforward really. At a basic level, it’s about taking a few deep breaths if you sit down to eat when you are flustered (or better still, give it 10-15 minutes for your nervous system to calm down) and practicing being mindful whilst eating is very enjoyable - it’s all about engaging your senses! It can be really fun to take a moment to notice what you can smell when a plate of food is in front of you, what you can see, the texture of something when it hits the roof of your mouth, its temperature, the sound it makes as you break it open. Connecting on a sensory level with what you are eating completely transforms your experience of it. As does lighting candles, putting on some music and maybe even taking a second or two to silently express thanks in your head that you are one of the lucky ones who has the privilege of being able to enjoy a good meal in this moment.

I feel like I’ve only just begun but that’s probably enough for this newsletter! Do you have any principles around eating well? Did any of my suggestions resonate? Do let me know in the comments

Yasmin xx