Between hectic routine, progress in deliveries and meals increasingly eaten in front of screens, a daily practice is once again taking on a new meaning: cooking. Not just as a way to prepare meals, but also as a strategy for emotional care, sensory reconnection, and mental health promotion.
Known as mindfulness cooking or culinary therapy, the approach proposes to transform the act of cooking into a mindful experience, with effects that go beyond the dish and reach psychological well-being, social connections and the relationship with one’s own body.
“We have lost the present moment of cooking,” says psychiatrist Marcus Zanetti, Doctor of Science from USP (University of São Paulo) and researcher on the relationship between nutrition, the gut-brain axis and mental health.
When resorting to childbirth, explains the psychiatrist, the entire eating process is delegated. Meanwhile, people continue to respond to messages, scroll through social media, and food arrives packaged in plastic or cardboard waterproofed with chemicals.
“We are increasingly removed from the needs of the body and more exposed to invisible environmental factors, such as toxins, stress and excessive stimuli,” he says.
For Zanetti, cooking activates a set of sensory experiences rarely accessible in daily life. “It’s touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing. It’s a very complete massage of the senses. From a neurological point of view, it has a huge impact.”
This sensory activation is one of the pillars of conscious cooking, explains nutritionist Vera Salvo, co-coordinator of the National Mindful Eating Project at the Department of Psychobiology at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo).
“When we talk about mindfulness, the kitchen is a big laboratory. There you have aromas, colors, sounds, textures. Using the five senses is a very powerful way to anchor yourself in the present moment,” he says.
When we talk about mindfulness, the kitchen is a big laboratory. There you have aromas, colors, sounds, textures. Using all five senses is a very powerful way to ground yourself in the present moment.
She says this process is particularly relevant for children, but it works just as well for adults. “The simple act of cutting, sautéing, hearing the sound of food in the pan, touching and handling the ingredients already brings presence. It’s getting out of the racing mind and returning to the body.”
Zanetti notes that the ultra-processed food industry intensely exploits the brain’s reward system, creating hyperstimulating flavors that make it difficult to recognize the natural taste of foods, especially among children and adolescents.
“The brain gets used to very intense stimuli. When a person tastes a simple food, they find it bland. It’s not natural, it’s conditioned,” he says. Cooking, according to him, helps to “re-educate the palate” and reduce dependence on these products.
For Salvo, the pandemic has highlighted this therapeutic potential of cooking. “Many people have found refuge there to escape excessive thoughts. Mindful cooking is a form of mindfulness applied to everyday life.”
Nutritionist Adriana Kachani, PhD from USP and reference in functional nutrition, considers mindful cooking a powerful tool for both nutritional education and emotional care. “Cooking with full attention means being present at the moment of preparation. It’s transforming a routine activity into something special,” he says.
She explains that by paying attention to the resistance of the carrot when cutting, the sound of the knife on the cutting board or the smell of the sauce bubbling, the relationship with food completely changes. “If the meal becomes a special moment, we plan better, we choose the ingredients better. This has direct effects on your health.”
Kachani emphasizes that mindful cooking does not require elaborate recipes or sophisticated techniques. “It could be something simple, like washing rice thoroughly or preparing a colorful dish. The emphasis is not on performance, but on presence.”
This practice also helps reduce rigidity and self-criticism, common among people with a conflicted relationship with food. “It doesn’t always work, and that’s okay. Cooking develops creativity, flexibility and a more caring relationship with yourself,” he says. For her, this aspect is particularly relevant in a context of restrictive diets, food guilt and idealization of the “perfect body”.
Salvo emphasizes that this change goes beyond the plate or the scale. During her postdoctoral work, carried out in basic health units on the southern outskirts of São Paulo, she accompanied groups of overweight women in mindfulness and conscious eating programs.
“Many arrived thinking that it was simply a nutrition program, but they realized that they were learning things for life. They changed their relationship with their body, with their children, with their partner,” he reports.
According to her, the transformation relationships were profound. “They said, ‘I learned that I don’t have to like it, I just have to accept it.’ It’s a change that happens from within.”
The emotional dimension of food also appears strongly. Zanetti remembers his Italian grandmother and the taste of gnocchi he discovered decades later. “The emotional memory was there. Food is linked to identity, belonging and history.”
Salvo notes that eating together enhances this effect. “Eating together is part of our Brazilian Food Guide. In times like Christmas this becomes even more evident. Food brings people together, creates affection, strengthens bonds.”
She emphasizes that there is no need to prepare fancy dishes. “Everything I cook can be done consciously or automatically. The difference is presence.” According to her, even carefully prepared food can lose its meaning if the person eating it is absent. “Care must be taken in both preparation and consumption.”
This vision has inspired structured initiatives in Brazil. Le Cordon Bleu São Paulo recently launched the Therapy by Cooking program, a five-day immersion that offers cooking as a practice of emotional, mental and physical balance, integrating the concepts of mindfulness, neurogastronomy and conscious nutrition.
“The idea is to restore awareness of the act of cooking as a form of care,” explains Patrick Martin, technical and executive director of Le Cordon Bleu Brasil. “Cooking is an act of presence.”
For Salvo, the growing interest in these approaches reflects a broader unease with contemporary food. “The way we eat influences our relationships with ourselves and others. Food is a path to self-knowledge and self-care.”
Zanetti agrees. “We eat quickly, alone, distracted. And then we don’t understand why we are anxious, tired, disconnected. The kitchen can be a space for break, emotional regulation and reconnection.”
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