Beginner’s Guide

 

Beginning with Whole Foods

Welcome to Quirky Cooking!

We know how overwhelming it can be to start something new or to visit somewhere you’ve never been before. This is where we can help point you in the right direction to get started and move closer to improving your health today.

To get you acquainted with all things Quirky, here is some useful information for you to know.

 

THE QUIRKY PHILOSOPHY

Starters Guide, Quirky Cooking

WHOLE FOOD

Our approach to health has its foundations built on traditional whole foods from nature, using traditional preparation techniques, sourcing high quality ingredients, with minimal toxins and environmental impact where possible.

Why Whole Food?

When we consume food, our aim is to experience and receive nourishment. The most nourishing foods are those closest to their natural state as possible: meat, eggs, seafood, leafy green vegetables, root vegetables, nuts, seeds and fruit. For the longest part of our history as human beings, these are the foods we ate, and it wasn’t until the industrialisation of our food system that we started consuming highly-refined foods in large quantities.

Whole foods contain a natural balance that maximises nutrition, increases satiety and minimises toxicity. A sweet potato, for example, contains sugar that is bundled up with plant fibre. This fibre decreases the rate of sugar absorption, allows for a healthy insulin response and allows us to feel full. The sweet potato also contains many nutrients that our bodies need. If we were to isolate the sugar in the sweet potato and consume this sugar as a fractionated compound, we would lose the blood-sugar control the fibre offers, as well as the remaining nutritional value.

The downside of refined foods

Refined foods don’t satisfy hunger, so overeating becomes a big issue. And of course, since we are now consuming these refined foods in much larger quantities than ever, our health suffers greatly.

Refined foods are a dream for a food manufacturer. The unsustainably high yields of monoculture and conventional farming are producing subsidised crops sprayed with poisonous pesticides and are unfit for human consumption. Industrial processing such as chemical extraction produce profitable, shelf-stable products that compete for our dollar.

We pay a heavy price for cheap food; the soil degrades due to continuous pesticide and chemical fertiliser use; small farms are unable to compete; genetically modified foods enter our food chain; and seeds, which were historically stored year after year by generations of crop farmers, now need to be purchased from food technology companies that own the patent to that life form.

We are losing biodiversity. Insects and bacteria needed for food to grow are dying in great numbers and the soil is degrading. And when we consume the foods produced by these unsustainable methods, our money perpetuates this damaging cycle that benefits nothing except short-term profits.

 

GUT HEALTH

Our own journeys of healing have made us realise just how important gut health is for our overall health and well-being. Most of us have some symptoms of poor gut health, whether we realise it or not. It’s the downside to living in our modern society, surrounded by toxins, stress, pesticides, antibiotics and processed foods.

Many of the health complaints in our world today can correlate to what is happening in the gut. Our microbiome, the microorganisms that primarily consist of bacteria living in us and on us, predominantly in our gut, play a key role in many physiological functions to keep us healthy.

Poor gut health may show up as digestive issues such as chronic diarrhoea, constipation, loose stools, gut pain, reflux, IBS, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or stomach ulcers. It may also show up as something you never realised was related to the gut – food intolerances/allergies, depression, OCD and other mental health issues, behavioural disorders, ear infections, chronic fatigue, glandular fever, autoimmune diseases, insomnia, chronic bed-wetting, brain fog, eczema and other skin, candida, weight issues and even heart failure.

Healing the Gut

The gut must be healed in order to properly address these conditions and food is a great place to start. We emphasise the importance of gut healing foods and lifestyle factors to heal and support this. Everything that we do in our day to day lives affects the state of our Microbiome. Therefore it is also extremely important to work on other areas such as minimising chemicals and toxins, getting restful sleep, reconnecting with nature, getting sunshine exposure, reducing stress and more.

 

HEALTHY FAMILIES

Health and well-being should be our default state as humans. There are few things more satisfying than walking down the path of restoring health as a family and seeing each happy and healthy. This is not only possible, it’s our birthright.

The journey of returning to health is not always easy, but just know that you are not alone and that the benefits on the other side are completely worth pushing through any challenging times. We’ve been through it with our families and have experienced such wonderful healing outcomes. We believe with a little help, practical tools and a guiding hand to health education and whole food recipes, that mothers and fathers are the key to a healthy family.

Getting the whole family involved and excited about nutrition and health is something we are really passionate about. It’s never too late to start, and we’re here to help. We have created this space for you to make it easier to enjoy real, nourishing foods with your family to truly experience one of the greatest pleasures in life…. Sharing a delicious wholesome meal with those you love.

 

Life-Changing Food, Quirky Cooking

COMMUNITY

Community and tribe are a deeply ingrained part of our human nature and we wouldn’t be where we are today without our beautiful Quirky Community. There is a well known proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is a wonderful representation of our community.

Many years ago, Jo intended to share recipes and connect with people online. This has blossomed into a wonderful, engaged and supportive global community that we love and are incredibly grateful for. Contribution and collaboration are major aspects of our purpose and we deeply value helping others as well as being part of a collective mission to reclaim health for all.

Benefits of Community

Science is now showing the mental, emotional and physical benefits to health when community and social connection is present. We were designed for meaningful social contact, and as a result, this impacts our mood, our hormones, our brain and gut health, many other physiological functions, and in turn, our overall health.

Many communities, even if not related by blood are seen as extensions of family and we want to welcome you to ours. 🙂

 

Quirky Cooking

USEFUL LINKS

To save you time from sorting through the archives, here are some useful links, blogs, podcasts and recipes to get you started. Enjoy!

QUIRKY ESSENTIALS

HELPFUL BLOG POSTS

Basics

MOST POPULAR RECIPES

Basics

Savoury

Bread

Treats

There are so many more recipes on the blog, so whatever it is you’re looking for you will probably find if you search ‘quirky whatever-you-like’ in Google or in our search box! 😀 Have fun!

Life-Changing Food: https://www.quirkycooking.com.au/order-life-changing-food/

Life-Changing Food will help you get started with wholefood cooking! Check it out here.
Recipe Index