Sometimes, throwing together a meal from scratch is the last thing you want to do after a long day. The contents of the fridge feel uninspiring and you’re hungry. Really hungry. The urge to reach for your phone and order a delivery or head to the shop for a ready meal is like an itch that won’t subside. Finally, you give in and settle on the sofa to await a moped-riding waiter or the ping of the microwave.

While sometimes a takeaway or a few supermarket-bought shortcuts for the kitchen are the only option, there are many slow living-inspired benefits of cooking from scratch that aren’t limited to the savings for your back pocket.

Slow Food: Reasons to Cook More Meals from Scratch

1. Reduce Packaging

Ready meals are often plastic packaging intensive. But, it can be recycled, right? In the UK, around 1.3 billion black CPET trays are used in packaging each year, but despite being recyclable, most still end up in landfill or being incinerated. Why? The black pigment doesn’t allow light to pass through, meaning that the trays are often not detected by waste sorting equipment. This is a great example of why we should be striving to reduce our overall plastic consumption, rather than just relying on recycling.

By cooking from scratch you have more control over the plastic waste you produce, for example by opting for loose vegetables or buying dry goods at a zero waste shop.

2. Mindful Cooking

Cooking from scratch is a great way to practise slow living and mindfulness, whether you’re living in the city or countryside. The slow food movement focuses on preserving culinary traditions and understanding how our ingredients have been produced. However, in the digital era, the concept of slow food can also be taken a step further to incorporate how we use those ingredients in the kitchen.

Preparing a meal offers the opportunity to switch off from digital notifications and distractions and focus on the repetitive rituals of cooking techniques. Many see cooking as a mindful experience, especially when you make a conscious effort to be present and engage with the senses as you chop and stir. Therapists have even begun practising ‘culinary arts therapy’, using cooking as a way for patients to experience therapeutic expression.

3. Know What’s in your Food

The mindful aspect of cooking introduces this next reason to don your apron. By connecting with the food you are preparing, you’re more aware of what’s going into your body and are more likely to eat fresher, higher quality food, versus ready meals and other food options that may cut corners on quality to be able to be produced on a mass scale.

But, being more conscious about your ingredients isn’t just about knowing what’s going into your body. It’s also about being informed about where your food has come from. Just like the plastic packaging point above, you often have more freedom to make sustainable choices at an ingredient level.

4. Meaningful Meal Times

Of course, cooking from scratch doesn’t automatically mean your dinnertime conversation is going to be riveting, but the effort put in to prepare the meal can encourage a slower, more mindful approach to eating.

Keeping regular meal times is important psychologically, socially and biologically, according to mentalhealth.org. Rather than rushing through meals on-the-go or accompanied by a smartphone, sharing meal times with others can “provide a sense of rhythm and regularity” and a chance to connect.

In our fast-paced world, cooking from scratch and being creative in the kitchen is one of the easiest ways to slow down while doing something positive for mind, body and planet.

This article is part of A Year of Living Slower – 12 monthly experiments in living better, not faster. March’s theme is Slow Food.

In the 1980s, the founder of the slow food movement, Carlo Petrini, began to notice how “the umbilical cord that had once connected the worlds of farmer and consumer was cut.” Petrini, from Bra in Northern Italy, lamented the loss of connection between consumers and producers with the introduction of large-scale supermarkets and fast food.

In 1986, two significant events took place which encouraged Petrini to found Slow Food, a not-for-profit grassroots organisation which champions traditional food preparation techniques and locally sourced ingredients.

The first event, which is often associated with the birth of the movement, was the planned opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in the Piazza di Spagna in the centre of Rome. While many protested outside the planned McDonald’s site, Petrini disagreed with this solution. Instead, he set about defending Italian culinary traditions by showing how they were at risk.

The second event was the selling of cheap wine made with methanol which led to the deaths of 19 people, in addition to multiple poisonings. According to The Independent, the cheap wine incident also supported Petrini’s drive to raise awareness. Italian wine exports fell by more than a third and demonstrated that protecting the country’s culinary heritage was not only important culturally, but also economically.

The Slow Food Manifesto and Beliefs

In 1989 Slow Food came to life when delegates from 15 countries from around the globe signed the initial manifesto. The manifesto promoted living a “better quality lifestyle”, finding pleasure in food and protecting local traditions:

“First of all, we can begin by cultivating taste, rather than impoverishing it, by stimulating progress, by encouraging international exchange programs, by endorsing worthwhile projects, by advocating historical food culture and by defending old-fashioned food traditions.” – Slow Food Manifesto, 1989

Over time, the beliefs of the Slow Food organisation have been developed and refined. Today, Slow Food is guided by the principle that food systems should produce “good, clean and fair food for everyone”.

• GOOD: quality, nourishing food that is full of flavour
• CLEAN: food production that is not harmful to the environment
• FAIR: prices that are affordable for consumers and fair conditions and income for producers

The time and potential cost implications of cooking from scratch using local ingredients have been contested in an opinion piece by Karla Fernandez for Feminist Wire. Fernandez suggests that the slow food movement can vilify all processed foods which have allowed both working women and men to spend less time in the kitchen. She alludes to the difference in processing, for example between frozen vegetables and a ready-meal.

While a trip to the farmers’ market may not be feasible or affordable for every weekly shop and some elements of processed food may be unavoidable (or even desirable), it’s still possible to make more sustainable and conscious decisions in supermarkets with some research.

Slow Food in the Digital Era

Since Petrini first shared his concerns over our accelerated pace of life in the 1980s, referencing industrialisation and the creation of the ‘machine’, our speed of living has arguably only increased.

In 2018, the conversation around the environmental costs of our food consumption habits peaked with the release of new research from the University of Oxford. The study advised that two seemingly similar food products in the same supermarket could have wildly different environmental impacts and as consumers, we’re not informed about the consequences of our purchasing choices due to lack of clear labelling. The research also increased discussion around the impact of reducing animal products in our diets as one of the most beneficial ways to support the planet on an individual level.

2018 also saw Collins Dictionary select ‘single-use’ as the word of the year, reflecting the increase in public discussion around plastic pollution. The plastic bag tax has seen a shift in consumer behaviour, encouraging shoppers to bring their own. This suggests that a similar effect could be possible for food packaging and levies on high environmental impact foods.

While we’re clearly at an environmental tipping point on the discussion around sustainability and how we make food purchases, we can also consider how the act of preparing and eating food has changed in the digital era.

The significance of meal times has arguably been devalued as we eat at our desks or accompanied by our smartphones, the latter breaking down conversations and distracting us from what’s on our plates.

Today, Slow Food deserves a further point in its list of GOOD, CLEAN and FAIR principles. A focus not just on selecting ingredients, but also how we use them – on slowing down to find joy in the meditative and creative process of cooking from scratch, and re-assigning value to the importance of connecting with and over the food we consume.

This article is part of A Year of Living Slower – 12 monthly experiments in living better, not faster. March’s theme is Slow Food.