3 Steps To More Mindful Abundance In The Kitchen

Plus a tip for bringing a little more joy into the kitchen

Feb 14, 2025

Welcome to Roots! A newsletter about plant-based eating, nutrition, lifestyle, I cover it all. Join me, Lori Osterberg, as I explore good food, great health, and Gorgeous Wellth! New here? Get started.

When you hear words like vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based, what springs to mind?

Is it rich, nutritious meals? Or is it anything but?

I laughed recently when reading a romance book, where a man and a woman were comparing notes about their crazy vegan exes who ate nothing but salad. “How boring!” they both exclaimed as they dug into steak dinners.

Ever read a story like that? It’s not hard to do - I see it everywhere. The assumption is:

Meat flavorful, yum!

Plants boring, yuck.

Quite honestly, I understand that way of thinking. I was sold that story for the first thirty years of my life simply by living in this culture. Meat was a part of meal planning. It was a central part of every meal.

Then my dad died at the age of 54, and I started asking questions.

Operating From a Place of Scarcity

Today, “food” is in abundance. What I mean by that is you have access to “food” everywhere. Tens of thousands of items on your grocery store’s shelves. Supermarkets all over town. Restaurants on every street corner.

We no longer have a problem with finding “food.” Unfortunately, what comes with it is an overabundance of nonfood options.

Manufacturing has brought options like never before. We’ve found ways to process food, make it cheaper, make it addictive, and give us choices upon choices.

Yet with all that comes a bigger problem: what I refer to as the “potato and tomato” diet. Despite all these choices, most food items aren’t made from a wide variety of wholesome ingredients. Many are made from the biggest two: potatoes and tomatoes.

They lack the rich nutrients found in eating a wide variety of plants. We lack the diversity found in the traditional diets of our ancestors, which means we lack nutrients and have health issues never seen before.

Still, we eat. And eat. Serving sizes are waayyy up. The serving size for most beverages has increased by 50 percent in just a few short decades. Individually packaged bags and containers make it easy to grab and go. Which means you can consume it without even thinking about it.

With so much abundance, it might be difficult to see where scarcity comes in. I believe it starts with our stories.

I shouldn’t eat pasta, it has too many carbs.
Clean your plate or you can’t have dessert.
I’ll take my share now before my favorite dish is gone.
I rarely get these cupcakes so I’ll eat them now.
It’s a special occasion, I’ll worry about my diet tomorrow.

I could continue with an endless supply of stories, but I’m sure you recognize one of these or something similar in yourself.

What’s common in every one of these stories? Scarcity. It’s how humans move throughout our days. It’s the way we operate. Especially around food.

Your body feels restricted, so it sends out a response mechanism that triggers your appetite or cravings. We want it. We’ve got to have it.

And once it becomes “off limits” in our minds, it’s nearly impossible to stop thinking about it. And getting it as fast as you can.

If you prevent yourself from having something - for any reason - it becomes a scarcity. And the human brain wants what it thinks is in short supply.

So, that means you have to recognize your stories, then turn your approach to them around.

It’s challenging at best. But if you recognize it, then you can build a support system into your life to handle when this scarcity mechanism is triggered.

3 Simple Tips To Create Abundance In Your Kitchen

I’m the first to recognize that food extends way beyond the kitchen. I know about the candy stash in your desk drawer, the cookies you hide in a purse in the back of the closet to keep it away from the kids. (I’ve been there.)

I have found the longer I’ve been on this plant-based journey, the more mindful I am in the kitchen, the less stress I have with food outside of the kitchen. Maybe it’s because I have good, healthy, chocolate treats in my kitchen. I'm okay eating any time. No more hiding because … Why?

So, let’s get into the mindful tips you might like to try.

Stock your kitchen with the healthiest, good-for-you treats you can find

What does it for you? Do you LOVE chocolate? Adore cookies? Slurp up fudge sauce? Absorb chips and crackers?

We all have our vices. The things that bring us pleasure. The foods we turn to when the world goes wrong.

Take your favorites and find THE BEST alternative. Make it yourself - you can find recipes for anything online. Or maybe just read ingredients - shop for an alternative that has ingredients you can actually read.

This is a process. Choose one thing today and find an alternative. Then load up your kitchen and give yourself permission to eat it when you desire. Then ebb and flow - return to finding an alternative every few months. Over time, your taste buds will change, and so will your desire for what is GOOD.

Reframe your thoughts about food

Ever heard of the rubberband technique, where you wear a rubberband on your wrist and snap it to change your mindset? It works like a charm because you become aware of your negative thought patterns.

Mindful abundance comes from reducing scarcity.

Whenever you start thinking in a scarcity mindset, gently reframe your thought patterns and create abundance. Whatever your story, reframe it to create abundance.

I’m allowed to have _____ whenever I choose.
I have plenty of food and I can indulge whenever I want to.
I can have my favorites today, tomorrow, or this weekend.
This food will be there later if I still want it.

This is how you slowly move away from things like processed foods. The more you learn, the more you look for alternatives. And as you feed those alternatives into your life, the less you’ll want the old foods.

Think portion size, not serving size

Here’s something you might not realize: Serving sizes listed on your favorite foods’ nutrition labels ARE NOT advice for how much to consume. Instead, it’s what they used to calculate the nutrition information on the label.

YOU get to decide your portion size. YOU get to control your portion size.

If having the huge package from Costco allows you to binge, buy smaller packages. They cost more, so invariably they also make you think twice before consuming them in greater quantities.

When my husband and I are out and about, we’ll stop at Chipotle if we want a quick lunch. Instead of each ordering a burrito, we get a burrito bowl to split. We fill it up with brown rice, black beans, sofritas, veggies, a couple scoops of pico de gallo, and a scoop of guacamole. We divide it in half and have a filling lunch. Is it perfectly healthy? No, but it’s a good choice when we’re on the go. And WE decide our portion size.

It’s your turn to choose what you eat, how much you eat. Don’t let restaurants and manufacturers tell you what to consume - make the choices yourself.

Seeing it in practice - You might just like this tip …

I talk about refining your food choices all the time. I thought I’d share one of my latest finds.

I’m a chocolate person. I love it. I crave it.

I keep a stash of chocolate chips in my pantry at all times. To snack on. To bake with.

Let’s talk the most popular. Nestle chocolate chips are easy to find in any store you look in, even Costco. I pay attention to the ingredients.

Sugar is the number one ingredient. Over chocolate. If I want chocolate, why start with something where the main ingredient is sugar? Shouldn’t it be chocolate?

And what does chocolate mean? Chocolate comes in a variety of formats, so I can only assume it’s processed.

The most concerning ingredient is “natural flavors.” This is one of the key ingredients to avoid. Manufacturers place this term in their ingredient list to avoid talking about the chemicals used during processing. Yes, it is considered “natural” under FDA regulations, but why? Not when you have options.

For me right now, it’s Hu Dark Chocolate Baking Chips. It has three ingredients. Readable. Understandable.

And yes, it still has sugar.

Is this something to eat daily? Nope. But for making treats in the kitchen, it’s a very good option.

And I know if I sneak a handful from time to time, it doesn’t have questionable chemicals and other byproducts.

One small adjustment in the kitchen, and I know it creates a little more joy when I enter the kitchen with chocolate in mind.

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