BY NICKI SIZEMORE

Intentional cooking is incredibly simple.

It’s an invitation to rewire your patterns in order to find more peace, pleasure, and connection in the kitchen.

However, it asks you to pause for just a few breaths, and the pause isn’t always easy.

BESTT

I’ve therefore developed a simple practice, or really a ritual, that I call BESTT (oh, for the love of an acronym!).

It stands for:

Breathe
Engage your senses
Set an intention
Thank your food
Thank your body

BESTT is a suggestion, not a prescription. It isn’t something that needs to be checked off a to-do list, but rather a new way of approaching cooking and eating.

Perhaps you begin with a few deep breaths, or maybe the gratitude portion resonates most with you.

This practice is not meant to look perfect. Intentional cooking can involve screeching kids, barking dogs, and burned chicken. The point is not perfection but connection; it’s a way to better tune in to your body and heart.

Eventually, it becomes embodied: you pick up your knife, breathe, tune in, and give thanks.

The Practice of Intentional Cooking

A few simple pauses can change the tone of cooking and eating.

Breathe. Two slow breaths can help ground you in the present moment and calm physical and emotional tension.

Engage Your Senses. Smell the kitchen, hear the sounds around you, feel your feet on the floor. Sensory awareness helps us become more intuitive cooks and eaters.

Set an Intention. Choose how you want to feel as you cook or eat. It can be as simple as, “I will be fully here now.”

Thank Your Food. Gratitude helps us appreciate the nourishment before us and the many hands and forces of nature that brought it here.

Thank Your Body. Your body knows how to digest food and process nutrients without your mind doing a thing. Trust that wisdom.

With repetition, these small acts can become as natural as tying on an apron or turning on music before dinner.

Put intentional cooking into practice with these simple, nourishing recipes, each paired with a thoughtful intention to inspire mindfulness in the kitchen.

• No-Recipe One-Bowl Green Salad (Anything Goes)
• Potato Salad (Herby or Creamy)
• Yogurt Cake Two Ways (Blueberry Snack Cake or Strawberry Shortcake)

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Nicki Sizemore combines more than two decades of experience as a recipe developer, culinary educator, and cookbook author with a passion for nurturing inner connection and personal growth, helping her readers nourish their bodies, minds, and spirits. She’s the author of Build-a-Bowl and Fresh Flavors for the Slow Cooker and publishes the Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD newsletter and podcast, along with the From Scratch Fast blog. Find her at nickisizemore.com and on Instagram at @nickisizemore.

Well Being Journal adapted the above excerpt from Mind, Body, Spirit, Food by Nicki Sizemore. Copyright © 2026 by Nicki Sizemore. Printed with permission from Storey Publishing, an imprint of Workman Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.