plate Anxiety in the kitchen: Why crisps and toast days are OK
Food writer talks mental health
Whyisitthat when we say “comfort food”, we think of “treats” to indulge in every once in a while or, worse, attach feelings of guilt or shame to comforting ourselves with food?
Some days, you might have the energy and inclination to prepare an elaborate or seriously nutritious dish, but on others you might think the only thing that’s going to make you feel better is a stack of toast or a piece of cake – and that’s OK, says Jack Monroe.
“I have days where all I eat are salt and vinegar crisps and white buttered bread. Sometimes even I don’t want to get in the kitchen,” says the author.
It’s an admission you won’t hear much among chefs and cookbook writers, but it’s the reality for many.and for people living with mental health issues, the relationship with cooking and nurturing ourselves with food can be especially complex.
“No one really tackles it, what to cook for yourself when you really don’t feel like cooking, or what to eat when you really don’t feel like eating,” says Jack, 32. Having been open about living with depression, anxiety, PTSD and ADHD for years, the food writer and poverty activist has used her own, very raw experience to put together her latest collection of recipes in Good Food For Bad Days. “The irony was halfway through writing this book I suddenly fell into a massive depressive state. I stopped writing. I stopped wanting to look after myself. I ground to a halt,” says Jack.
She wasn’t cooking, either. “The people who know and love me the most know when I stop posting pictures of my meals on Instagram to drop me a text and ask if I’m OK, because I’ve obviously stepped out of the kitchen,” she says.
While she knows it won’t work for everybody, work helps her overcome her problems.
“One of the easiest ways for me to start to take steps back towards emerging from whatever dark hole I find myself in, is to get into the kitchen and to stir something or just to throw something together out of whatever’s in the cupboard,” adds Jack.“it’s that first step towards acknowledging you matter, and nurturing yourself matters, and taking a moment to just look after yourself.”
She’s an advocate for not beating yourself up about what you’re eating, though. And Monroe says that sometimes the purpose of food is simply to make you feel good in that moment, or to get some fuel inside you – and we need to be OK with that. But, for days when you can get into the kitchen, her new cookbook looks to be a saviour.
From “finger foods” – such as orange and blueberry oat bars – you can batch-cook on a good day (and pick at on a bad one), and meals you can whip up in 15 minutes or less, like anchovy butter pasta, to one-pan meals like meatball and white bean stew, for days when you don’t have the head space for complex cooking.
There’s a whole chapter on food and drinks in mugs – because what could be more comforting than that? Think
honey nut milk or a Jaffa Cake pudding in a mug.
“There’s something really transgressive about it.you can hold it with one hand, eat it with the other, it’s literally ideal,” says the author of five previous books. Some dishes are wrapped up in nostalgia for Jack. “During my childhood, whenever I was unwell, my mum would make this magic concoction of boiled eggs, mashed with butter and black pepper and salt, and the eggs would still be warm, the butter would still be melting.
“It’s about cupping a mug full of something warm, feeling loved and nurtured.”
That’s not to say nutrition isn’t a factor.anyone who knows Monroe’s books will know she leads a largely plant-based diet. “I’m 80-90% vegan these days, but I’ve never felt the need to lecture people about their eating choices.” She includes a guide – a “bingo card”, she calls it – of foods that help maintain healthy brain function to consider eating regularly, such as bananas, nuts and oily fish.
“It comes with a massive caveat that eating your way through this list is not going to shield you from having a bluesy day or tragic life events or chemical imbalances – but it can give you something to start to deal with it.
So, many of Jack’s recipes are packed with plant-based goodness. “It’s always come from a place of necessity – meat is expensive,” she explains.
Other meals, meanwhile, are designed to really take your time over – particularly relevant at a time when most of us are spending more hours at home.
“It’s about giving yourself permission to spend time on yourself,” she says. “I use cooking as partly meditation, partly therapy, partly self-care, partly an adventure – it’s being able to acknowledge you have the right to have that time to take care of yourself.”