Cooking Diplomatically
My Philosophy
I grew up in Minnesota, and started cooking just out of college, quickly becoming vegetarian, but then later switched to an omnivorous diet that I call one-third Mediterranean, one third vegetarian, and one-third vegan.
​
The foundation for my approach to nutrition comes from my early research on the long term health issues that arise from eating meat, while also drawing on the insights form Dr. Andrew Weil on which types of fats are the healthiest, like olive oil, and which types of carbs are the healthiest, basically those that cause your blood sugar to spike the least. The idea however is not to restrict specific foods entirely or all of a certain type of food, but to put each food on a continuum from least healthy to most healthy and to try and eat fewer foods on the least healthy end and more foods on the most healthy end.
​​
I remain committed to learning about the most rigorous research on nutrition and sharing it with others, while finding ways to incorporate those insights into our regular eating habits, so that people can find joy in food, make them feel better, and build community through incredible meals.
Searching More
Another critical insight came when I was studying for a PhD in economics, where I learned people have certain biases that cause them to search too little for new recipes. Part of it is the disappointment people experience if a new recipe does not work out, which they very much try to avoid because it feels especially painful. However it is also in part because the cost of searching for new recipes are immediate, while the benefits accumulate over the very long term, which works against us because we overvalue the cost and undervalue the benefits due to present bias.
​
This creates the possibility for a big and easy win for your diet, since many of the meals you make for yourself, you do just out of habit, and many of the dishes you make are not particularly delicious and are often unhealthy. Substantial gains can then be realized if you just make a special effort to search for new recipes, discover some great new meals that are incrementally healthier that also taste better too, that allow you to significantly improve your diet without banning specific foods.
The trick to finding great new meals that are delicious, healthy, and easy is to engage in an expanded and intensified search process, so that you keep adding amazing new meals to your diet on a regular basis, which makes it easy to phase out your least favorite and least healthy meals that you make all the time. If you have a particular meal or food you absolutely love, then you can keep it, but you can also get rid of the unhealthy meals you do not really like that much anyway, which is a win on multiple fronts.
My Strategy
My goal is to approach the issue of food and nutrition diplomatically, to encourage people to eat less meat by giving them great vegetarian and vegan recipes that they will prefer to their standard rotation of meat based recipes, so they can eat healthier without sacrificing anything on taste. As a result of this shift, it makes the recommendations easier to follow, avoids the disappointment that comes when you make a mistake on a strict diet, while being flexible, adaptive, and innovative at the same time.
