Back from another day at school!

Today’s schedule started off with a lecture on selecting basic quality ingredients. The class seemed to be pretty familiar with most of the concepts mentioned- local, organic, whole foods- but the instructor also spent some time talking about using your “right brain” in food selection, which was really interesting to me.

Most people are either categorized as left or right brain thinkers. Left brainers are more logical and rational, and tend to use math and science to make choices. Right brainers, on the other hand, are more emotional and visual, and tend to follow their instincts more often than others.

How does this apply to food? This idea essentially holds that Americans have been taught to use their left brains to do all the food thinking. If I’m not allergic to something, I can eat it regardless of how my body reacts to it, right? Is X food group bad for me? How many calories and fat grams should I eat in a day? And while those left brain thoughts are undoubtedly a pretty important part of nutrition, it’s not that black and white. Just as science can’t explain the ins and outs of the universe, it can’t explain some aspects of food science, either. That’s where intuition comes in: sometimes it’s better to make our own choices regarding food, rather than listening to what’s “okay.”

Seriously, how many times have we all heard that things are “bad” or “good” for you? Some people swear against meat, and some people swear that it’s necessary. Too many vegetables can leave people’s stomachs hurting. There is no “right” or “wrong” approach to nutrition…it’s all about taking the information you find and applying your own intuition to it. So, you have to use both sides of your brain to make food choices, just like with any other decisions. Interesting stuff, right?

Anyway, in the afternoon we moved on to the hands-on stuff: basic cooking techniques! We learned how to blanch and shock vegetables, parboil potatoes, poach pears and steam artichokes, among other things.

And then we got to eat it all! I was still full from lunch a few hours before, so I tried a bite of everything and brought the rest home for dinner, with extra potatoes, vegetables and creamy miso-tahini sauce.

Yum. I could get used to perfectly cooked piles of produce for dinner…

Are you more of a left brain thinker, or a right brain one? What are your thoughts on it relating to eating? I’m definitely more right brain for most things, except I have a ridiculous memory, which is usually a more left brain trait.