EP33: "Food As Medicine" Josefiene Smet

Fall is a season for change, for shedding layers and releasing. For me this is a welcome shift, but I must admit it can sometimes be quite uncomfortable. Healing is not linear. it’s easy to believe that once on a journey of self discovery breakthroughs are always pleasant. The key here is to stay the course, celebrating the highs and nurturing ourselves though the lows, knowing that the only way through.. is through. It’s important to feel all the feelings, touch them and digest them in order to understand them. Once you know what the conversations in your head are - you can best work with them rather than against them.

For today’s conversation I sat with Josefien Smet of @yosogreen, she’s brilliant and beautifully humble and a plant based chef  who’s healed herself through the  power of foods.  Our conversation has inspired me to dig even deeper and try out new things, it ignited curiosity and has set me on a path of playing with new herbs and mystical mushrooms. Josefien iresides in Leuven, Belgium. She creates functional food with a focus on self-care - because food IS selfcare. Her culinary journey started as a blog, YOSOGREEN and she now works as a freelance chef and recipe developer. The idea of YOSOGREEN as a brand came into fruition during her culinary education at PlantLab in Los Angeles, where she felt hugely inspired by the food culture. Upon her return to Belgium, she founded the company with the aim of creating food that should be regarded as an extension to your personal self-care: functional food!

And how do you see your food? Is it nurturing? Does it support you and your body? Does it make you feel calm or energized when you need to? Or are you in a muddy space of reward and punishment… good and bad.. of all or nothing? Today I encourage you to pause and take account of how you feel and consider which practices you can put in place to support you on your journey. … Can you take a few minutes on Sunday or during your daily commute to write down how you WANT to feel, then assign one or two action steps you need to take to achieve these… Start with simple tasks and build from there, and if you need support - seek it - there’s a village waiting for you out there…

JOSEFIEN’S FAVORITES

Self Care Ritual: My favorite selfcare ritual is waking up early! It's my personal time where I stay quit and have an hour of me-time. I wake up early, do some breathing excercises and set my intentions for the day. I walk around in a bathrobe and make myself a chagacchino. Next I play with my dog.

Recipe: Mushroom dust

Ingredients

1 cup almonds (I love to reuse dehydrated almond meal)

1/4 cup sesame seeds

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 teaspoons cordyceps extract powder

1 teaspoon Himalaya salt

How to:

Blend in foodprocessor until powdered

+ Add in any dried herb you like

How to use:

Use as a topping for stir fries, asian dishes, pasta or salads