Could Food Be Our Medicine? The Therapeutic Benefits of Cooking
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Therapist Charlotte Hastings changed her health by engaging in Ayurvedic principles around food and cooking – here's what she learned
Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, suggested that food is medicine, poignantly believing that all disease begins in the gut. Hundreds of years previously, a practice known as Ayurveda was being developed in the Indian subcontinent. Possibly the mother of medicine, it focuses its attention on the digestive fires, or ‘agni’, which cook (metabolise) on our behalf. It was my personal experience with Ayurveda that ignited my Kitchen Therapy practice in which we use cooking as an arena for therapy. Here’s how it all began.
Since birth I had suffered from eczema and a range of allergic conditions which tended to erupt under stress. With a growing family, demanding job teaching drama with neurodiverse teenagers and complex range of mental health issues, my allergies were running rampant.
At this point my addictions to various substances – futile attempts at self-medication – were also causing internal conflict and chaos. When I first met the white robes of local Ayurvedic doctors by chance at a friend’s party, their calm, reasonable voices triggered my irritable defences. However, I just kept bumping into these local doctors, so finally I listened to the Universe’s suggestion and arranged a consultation.
In that meeting, I came to understand how I was mistreating my body. Overfeeding a demanding appetite had led to an exhausted, depleted and angry digestive system! Today, I explain to clients that our bodies run like a company, where their inner canteen staff could be feeling stressed – over worked and underpaid – and that this can trigger autonomic anxiety, issuing from the gut.
The unconditional, loving guidance in Ayurvedic medicine arises from the wisdom within Mother Nature, tapping into our ancestral knowledge. I needed to give my digestive system the rest and respect it deserves, to parent my ‘child inside’ with appropriate care. I understood. My gut was relieved.
Today we are learning what every baby, and every Ayurvedic practitioner, has always known – the brain matrix begins in the gut’s neurological centre, travels through the heart up into the mind. An infant feeding locks their parents’ eyes into what we call the ‘maternal gaze’, which connects this brain-matrix. Whilst milk fills their belly, this look wires the brain. Love acts as the quantum mechanic.
Polyvagal theory has recently drawn our attention to the vagus nerve. Traversing the spinal cord from the tip of our neck to the base of our spine, it sends alarm signals to the autonomic system (flight, fright, freeze or fawn) or safety (rest, digest, relate). In ‘good enough’ parenting, the infant is able to ingest food with love, amid the pleasure of secure attachment conveyed through the ‘maternal gaze’. Beautiful. But this process is so often disrupted by modern life and that affects the quality of both the food and love we take in.
In my case, my early days were marked by absence and aggression. My system developed a sense of hyper vigilance. I saw everything as an attack (even the gentle voices of wise doctors). My allergies, of course, reflected this. It was my job, with therapeutic help, to reset the alarms ready for recovery.
The Ayervedic mung bean detox, reimagined the parent to child feeding scenario, nourishing and nurturing mind and body at once. Mung beans for 10 days, except the day of fasting, sounds tough. Until you consider that many people, including infants, eat the same every day of their lives, if they are lucky. Mung beans, along with the pre and probiotic curry paste of onions, ginger, garlic, herbs and spices, provide everything a body needs (rather like breast milk for an infant). No one, including myself, could believe how easily I let go of my addictive coping mechanisms. The dahl’s spices help cleanse the blood and also support, soothe and calm the nervous system. But the main shift was in my mental attitude around true self-care:
1. I developed a renewed sense of responsible, conscious care for my child inside
Choosing how to feed myself and appreciating the nature and combination of the ingredients I was using. I started listening to the deep wisdom from my gut, the digestive brain we share with every other living thing. Mother Nature’s gift to humans is our ability to cook, it is here we humans have most to learn and gain.
2. I learned to love cooking
The ‘Learn to Love Cooking’ course that I taught a few years from this initial detox worked from the premise that if you enjoy cooking, the food will taste of pleasure! Making these mung beans replete with loving attention helped activate their cleansing support, recalling the ‘maternal gaze’ where food and love join forces.
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During this time, I saw my body change shape as the water retention from excess caffeine and alcohol was released. I was letting go. The guidance I felt from within, coupled with understanding more about the detox ingredients and Ayurvedic care, helped to develop an internal relationship between my nature and Mother Nature. I never need feel alone again.
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Cooking is the place where humans begin, as creatures of the flame. The feeding scenario is of course where babies begin too. The way we feed ourselves is how we become ourselves. Food nourishes our physical and metaphysical body, psyche and soma at once.
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Cooking mung bean dahl with conscious care locates the source of healing transformation is at our own fingertips in this relational approach. The power to change lies in our interaction with the world and the choices we make, not an external, disembodied medicine. .
My book, Kitchen Therapy, combines the range of personal and professional experience that have made me who I am, constellating around this Ayurvedic detox. It taught me the key difference between need and want and how to reparent, refresh and rewild myself.
An Indian teacher gave me the image of yoghurt making to describe how our childhood stories might live on: the ‘mother’ heats up the milk for fermentation, but she gets busy and distracted. The milk froths and spills over, ruined from lack of attention. The foamy puddles that form from left milk reflect an infant pattern of unmet needs bubbling out of control and screaming.
For an infant being left is endless and annihilating, not knowing when or if attention will return. The addict or allergic self might be in a frantic state of overblown, infant anxiety. By resuming a basic feeding scenario – the same meal at regular times – with conscious care, this cleanse added essential attachment nutrition into the pan. This helped formulate the ‘cooking cure’ I share in Kitchen Therapy: letting food be our medicine and medicine be our food.
Charlotte Hastings is a verified Welldoing therapist in Brighton and the author of Kitchen Therapy
