Cooking to Support Daily Life with Vibrational Nutrition

by Candice Covington, author of Vibrational Nutrition and Essential Oils in Spiritual Practice

When we cook for our family and friends, most often it is a dynamic way to show affection, to celebrate, to bring comfort, to aid in mourning, or to create space for quality time and being together. Cooking with intent does not need to be saved for a special occasion—you can also cook to help manage daily life, bringing ease and achieving goals. In the following article we will explore a recipe and some whole foods that help manage day-to-day affairs.  

I would like to start with the role of plants in diet. Plants are a divine boon and greatly influence us on a subtle level, kneading and forming our energetic bodies by linking our physical self with nature’s divine intelligence. Plants continually configure the feeling self, which can be understood as the phenomenal aspects of our emotional, spiritual, and mental lives. The more you ingest a specific plant, the more its energetic signature becomes your energetic signature. Quantum physics asserts that everything has a vibrational nature. Of course, this applies to the food we consume as nutrition. And each type of food, just like each person’s handwritten signature, reveals unique energetic properties that point to its nature and “personality.” This distinct vibrational nature of the different foods we eat is its energy signature.

Once this is understood, you can select the food-signatures that support what you currently have going on in your life. Creating a recipe is akin to blending single musical notes together to create a melody. In our case we are using the vibrational “note” of each food item used in combination to weave a narrative or energetic story, to craft a specific state of being.

Keeping this in mind opens up endless possibilities for creating specific states for yourself, loved ones, and friends. When you “read” the energy of a recipe, not every ingredient needs to be factored in to understand how it will behave. If an individual will benefit energetically from a specific food it will have the desired effect, if a food is consumed that is not relevant on a subtle level, it will register as “neutral” energetically, and only nourish the physical body. So there is no need to worry about fine-tuning your recipes down to the point it is no longer enjoyable to cook.

I chose the following recipe based on what has been most “up” for my clients in the collective.

Time Management seems to be on everyone’s mind: from learning how to regulate oneself whilst working from home to managing online schooling for children to creating space for your spiritual, exercise, and health routine. That is a lot of balls in the air! If you are accustomed to an outside structure offering support, space, and a blueprint to manage your day, this can be quite the learning curve. Even if you are no longer impacted by Covid restrictions, the following recipe helps one to manage the day and the myriad of activities one has to navigate.

The following recipe helps one to slow down the external and internal hustle and gives perspective and support in breaking your day into small bits you can examine and reassemble in the most beneficial way.

Watercress with Warm Mushrooms

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds mushrooms of choice (see below for options), cut uniformly
• Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
• 3 cups fresh watercress, tough stems removed
• 4 tablespoons vinaigrette of choice (I like balsamic)

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Working in batches, add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper to taste, and sauté for about 5 minutes or until the mushrooms have softened and exuded their liquid and the pan is almost dry. Remove from the heat and stir in the garlic and thyme. Taste, and if necessary, season with additional salt and pepper. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the mushrooms to a colander placed in a mixing bowl and drain. There should be no juices left if cooked correctly.

Place the clean, trimmed watercress in a large mixing bowl. Add the warm mushrooms and drizzle with just enough vinaigrette to season lightly. Apply salt and pepper to taste (if needed) and toss to blend. Serve immediately.

Recipe Narrative: When you’re feeling over-stimulated by ordinary daily events, this recipe facilitates the ability to partake in life without being swept away by the multitude of dizzying aspects that flow through your day. It allows you to firmly ground yourself, take a breath, feel solid in yourself, and condense the information all around you into usable, manageable bits.

You might serve this dish when your life is so harried you don’t know which end is up, and you see no end in sight. This recipe will create an island of repose where you can catch your breath and filter what is required of you in order of importance, allowing you to know what to move on and what to put on the back burner, creating a more manageable day. This dish tonifies the energetic body and offsets fatigue that sleep alone cannot quench.

Getting to Know Your Plant Allies

Explore the food signatures below and feel into what mushrooms are most supportive at this time and use those for this savory dish.

Chanterelle Mushroom

This aromatic, fleshy wild mushroom helps you shift the pattern of taking on too much responsibility (this looks different for everyone), pushing yourself too hard, and waking up early but feeling tired and not refreshed, leading to a dulling of the emotional body and the mind.

Portobello/Portabella Mushroom

This mushroom helps you dwell in your center and not diminish the essential parts of yourself to make another person comfortable or happy. It supports you in defining your own needs while acknowledging others’ needs.

Royal Trumpet Mushroom

Looking exactly like its name, this savory fungus instills consistency in achievement and energy output so you don’t vacillate between doing too little and doing too much. It supports time management in all ways.

White Button Mushroom

The most prosaic of mushroom varieties can help you get centered in lightness and calmness despite rising pressures and tensions so that inner peace prevails. It supports you seeing your options so you don't make life one long hard choice. 

Watercress

A cousin of kale and broccoli, watercress is an aquatic and semiaquatic green that’s beneficial for those who are easily overstimulated by the ordinary events of day-to-day life. It facilitates flowing awareness and the ability to partake in life without being swept away by the sensorial aspects.

Whole Foods to Support Daily Life  

The following are foods that support the practical aspects of living.

Broccoli

Offers the gift of achieving balance, helping you to be responsible and respond to the challenges you face. Broccoli also helps you “get it right” and clear up loose ends that nag at you internally, like taking care of unkept promises and unfulfilled duties, including those that matter to others. Broccoli helps you choose your tasks with freedom and joy, so your to-do list comes from a place of service. This is accomplished by allowing you to tap into the fullness of your mind and your robust energy.

Scallion/Green Onion

Green onions bring you back in touch with your loved ones, promoting sensitivity. They help you to be in the here and now, patiently allowing time and space for closeness and the little joys of life when together. Scallions are helpful for busy parents, friends, and partners who find their distracted behavior is creating distance in relationships.

Turnip

Raw or cooked, turnips promote discrimination in all situations, helping you identify what is of use and what isn’t.

White Potato

This all-purpose variety helps you become disciplined and keep a schedule. Allowing regularity in life helps you move forward and find your rhythm. It is a wonderful choice if you are prone to procrastination.

Coconut

Coconut promotes endurance and perseverance for completing tasks, which in turn helps you manifest your full potential; it provides strong, steady energy and the ability to welcome challenges and be solution-oriented.

Cranberry

Cranberry promotes inner discipline and stimulates the right balance of flexibility and restraint.

Huckleberry

Supports you in taking ideas and visions and turning them into reality, acting in the right moment in the right way, allowing you to hit your mark, doing exactly that which brings the intended results.

Strawberry

Strawberry encourages being adventurous and daring and willing to take a risk and stretch for things out of your reach and getting them.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat brings a sense of being capable no matter what the task at hand is, allowing you to leverage your inner and outer resources to get the job done. This can involve calling on your own inner knowing, getting help from another person, or learning something new on the fly.

Gigante Bean

These large white beans, whose name means “giant” in Greek, are very practical: they can help you find the energy and motivation to tidy up loose ends like unpaid bills, sock drawers that runneth over, changing the oil in your car, and so on. Once you clean up the clutter, both physically and mentally, gigante promises you will feel much better.

Chia Seed

Chia seed teaches the art of self-sufficiency. It supports you in creating a thriving life built upon the foundation of your own hard work. Chia also teaches the art of tenacity and keeping with your goal, even after setbacks, until you hit the mark.

Chicken Egg

The chicken’s egg brings the knowledge of how to run a household in all of its complexity, from raising children to managing the daily domestic affairs necessary for keeping things running smoothly.

Rockfish

Rockfish promotes the ability to stay with a task or idea and not fantasize to the point where progress stops. It supports being idealistic and practical at the same time.

Seitan/Wheat Gluten

Seitan promotes enthusiasm in your endeavors, bringing beneficial energy to your current situation. It also brings awareness to any fine-tuning that may be required and encourages you to act on that knowledge with a smile.