Cooking can be a huge amount of fun. You get to experiment with different ingredients, get your hands dirty, and at the end of it all; you get to eat (fingers crossed it tastes good).
Aside from being fun, many psychologists have discovered that cooking is a great stress reliever. It can be a form of meditation, filled with repetitive and simple activities that help create calming feelings. When things feel like they’re out of control, cooking gives you back that control.
And because it’s a creative process it also brings a sense of pride and achievement that can lift your mood in a matter of minutes. Each time you cook, you’re getting more practice and improving your skills – and we don’t just mean cutting pastry.
There’s a bunch of different skills that you may not be aware of that you’re picking up the more you cook, skills that you can transfer to other areas of your life.
For example, the hand skills required in baking can help people in various professions, like dentistry! The other big thing cooking teaches you is how to be patient, and this can help in all other areas of life.
Cooking teaches you:
- Cooperation and teamwork by working and sharing with others in the kitchen.
- Appreciation for different cultures.
- Maths skills by counting, measuring and following recipe directions, as well as science skills (you’re mixing different ingredients together, creating chemical reactions that
- make something new).
- Reading, comprehension and vocabulary when you go through a recipe
- Confidence, responsibility and self esteem
- Creativity
- Food preparation enhances organisational and cleanliness skills
- Sensory skills through tasting, hearing, touching, smelling and seeing different foods
- Motor skills such as hand eye coordination
- Communication
- Healthy habits as well as food and nutrition skills
