Conquering Fear Foods in the Kitchen with Kris Dovbniak

Today, you’re going to get a sneak peak inside my signature food freedom and ED recovery program, The Joy-Filled Eater Course! 👀

Inside, I regularly bring in guest experts such as therapists, women’s health experts, and strength trainers that address areas within their expertise. (You can check out the course HERE!) 

In this training, I interviewed chef and culinary nutritionist Kris Dovbniak about conquering fear foods in the kitchen. Kris is a classically-trained chef with decades of experience in the culinary world. She is also the owner and recipe-developer at Healthy Mama Kris. More importantly, she is a busy mom of two with a passion for sharing real food recipes for real families that are really delicious. Today, you’ll learn:

• Kris’s personal disordered eating struggle 🪞
• How you can conquer fear foods in the kitchen with nutrition in mind 🗡️🥗
• Super cool tips for whipping up satisfying, delicious dishes 🍽️
• Next steps for learning basic cooking skills 👩‍🍳

Kris’s Story

In high school, Kris struggled with body image. As she began to learn about “healthy eating” and started to notice that her body was different from others’, she developed an unhealthy relationship with food. She then decided to become a vegetarian—partly because she wanted to save all the animals and partly because it seemed like an easy way to restrict.

Her parents were supportive, but they had no idea how to cook for her. So, Kris started to explore and fall in love with food.  She discovered cuisines such as Japanese, Mediterranean, and Indian… While that was good, she also developed an eating disorder. 

During her time of exploring food, Kris was also training for her black belt in martial arts. It required strenuous exercise, and she was told to watch what she ate. People started to comment on her body because it was changing. For about 4 or 5 years, her relationship with food went downhill until her best friend, who was taking nutrition classes with her, sat Kris down, looked her in the eye, and said, “You can get help, or I’m getting help for you.” 

(We ALL need that kind of friend.)

During her recovery process and third year of nutrition school, Kris went to a study abroad program in Italy. She was fascinated with how the locals never spoke about food negatively, but just enjoyed food. She even began to step out of her vegetarian box because she wanted to try everything! After that trip, Kris decided to change her major to sports nutrition and take culinary classes in order to teach people how to fuel their bodies in a way that’s delicious and nutritious. 

Long story short, Kris met a guy (now her husband), followed him to Canada, and continued to pursue culinary studies at a classical culinary school. She ended up getting an internship at a holistic nutritionist cooking studio where she took a course for teaching cooking classes. Kris was a personal chef for 5 years, taught classes at her studio, became a health coach, and opened up her own business. 

Today, Kris is here for women who want to cook delicious meals while incorporating some gentle nutrition. 

How You Can Conquer Fear Foods In the Kitchen with Nutrition in Mind 🗡️🥗

If you struggle with your own set of fear foods, you may be thinking:

• “If I eat [insert fear food], I’ll eat all of it.”
• "I’ll feel awful if I introduce it back into my diet.”
• “I’ll get out of control.”

And, friend, you’re not alone. In one phase of her disordered eating story, Kris struggled with bingeing. One thing that helped her with this behavior was to approach food with satisfaction in mind, because if you are more satisfied by food, you’re less likely to overdo it. This means that as you prepare a meal or snack, you ask yourself:

“What is the most satisfying way I can enjoy this food?”

Kris talked about sourdough bread as an example. If you'd love to incorporate bread into your diet, but you don’t know how to do that without eating the whole loaf, listen up! Maybe it would be the most satisfying for you if you ate a plain slice, but here are some of Kris’ ideas for making a slice of sourdough super satisfyingly delicious!

• Slather some butter on it and dip it in a steaming bowl of your favorite soup!
• Drizzle it with olive oil, toast it in a pan, and add some flaky sea salt on top.
• Mash some avocado on top, sprinkle it with red pepper flakes, and add a drizzle of sriracha. Make it a meal by topping it with an egg!

When approaching food from a disordered mindset, we often come to a meal or snack with a, “What should I take away?” mindset. However, when we approach food with satisfaction in mind, we ask, “What can I add to this meal/snack to make it more satisfying or nutritious?” How can you add some extra protein to your pasta? What about some color with your grilled cheese? If you would like some extra support with nutrition and meal prep, grab my free Mix and Match Menu Planning Guide! 

The Principles of Flavor 😋

Growing up, Kris’s dad had a beautiful garden. Sadly, her mom had no idea how to deliciously prepare those fresh veggies. For example, she would slice up the zucchini, boil it into mush, and mix in some ground turkey (which was sautéed in water). Finally, it all was served on minute rice.

Not only was this meal lacking in nutrients, but it was also totally bland. 😝However, that same meal could be turned into something delicious if the cook knew a little something about flavor! For instance, if Kris’s mom had sautéed the zucchini slices in olive oil and garlic until they had crispy edges, infused the ground turkey with salt and spices, and grilled the meat into burgers served on a bun, there would have been a completely different turn-out! This is made possible by knowing some things about flavor: 

The 3 Foundations of Flavor:

1. Taste—Taste refers to the balance and contrast of flavor in a dish (we’ll dive into this later!) The goal in flavor is to balance out all the flavors in the dish; you don’t want one flavor to overpower the whole meal. Some flavors especially balance out each other. For instance, salty balances out sweet (think sea salt on chocolate). If you would like to learn more about balancing flavors, grab Kris’s FREE flavor wheel download HERE! 
2. Texture—Along with flavors, we want the textures in our meals to be balanced. No one likes poached fish with mashed potatoes and mushy peas!
3. Temperature—Temperature is categorized into two groups: physical and perceived. Physical temperature describes whether your dish is hot or cold. Perceived temperature is whether your dish is spicy or cool. Imagine a spicy chili with a cooling dollop of sour cream on top. 

The 5 Tastes:

Flavor is separated into 5 categories:

1. Sweet
2. Salty
3. Bitter
4. Sour
5. Umami—Umami is savory. It is typically thought of in MSG (which is pretty much straight umami), but you can get in from hard cheeses, tomatoes, soy sauce, meat, etc. If you feel like your dish is missing something, it’s usually umami or acid.

To create a meal that is really satisfying, you need to incorporate variety and contrasting flavors and textures. Same thing goes for nutrition in our meals: we want to use a variety of different ingredients that include a bunch of different nutrients!

When you approach food with this knowledge of flavor balance and satisfaction, experiment with your personal preferences. What textures do you love? What flavors make your mouth water? What amounts keep you satisfied? 

So, How Can You Begin to Learn Basic Cooking Skills? 👩‍🍳

1. This week, GET COOKING. You don’t have to whip up a 5-course meal, but just start with one thing. Make an omelet or a simple pasta dish. As Kris said in the episode, “You will become a better cook the more you spend time in the kitchen!”
2. Try something new that you’ve never eaten before. This can look like taking yourself out to lunch at a new restaurant (it doesn’t have to be expensive!) or buying a small container of Nutella at the store (If you’ve never had Nutella, I strongly recommend it! 😊).
3. Check out some of Kris’s cooking resources! 

• Head over to Kris’ website, Healthy Mama Kris, for recipes and cooking inspiration!
• Healthy Mama Kitchen: This is Kris’s podcast where you can find short and sweet episodes about cooking basics. 
• Head over to her instagram page @healthymamakris. Kris is frequently in her DMs, so feel free to reach out to her there.
• Kris’s Cooking Courses (use code JFE20 for 20% off!)

Also, if you’re biting at the bit for more training in gentle nutrition and menu planning, check out my Nourishing Menus Workshop! 

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