Day 10: Cook All Your Food #30DaysofGOOD

---

\n
Welcome to The GOOD 30-Day Challenge (#30DaysofGOOD). Each month, we challenge our community members to do something that will improve the world around us—and our own lives. The challenge for October? To get healthy. In an effort to help us all rise to the occasion, we're going to assign one small task every day. Each morning, we will post the challenge on GOOD.is and Twitter, along with a testimonial from someone on the GOOD team who's already completed it. We invite you to complete all 30 mini-challenges with us! Today, we challenge you to:

Cook all your food.

This is a health themed-challenge, so I’m in this cooking game to avoid the health issues that come with fast food and preservatives. It’s healthier to make your own food, if only for portion control: Pretty much any sandwich I’ve found for lunch near the office is about as much as I need for two meals, but that’s never stopped me from devouring the whole thing in five minutes. To avoid that fate, I stepped up my grocery game with a little forethought and set out to eat home-cooked food all day.

Instead of cereal or my normal breakfast fare of nothing, I made toast and a soft-boiled egg, a good start to the day that didn’t take too much time (actually cooking a proper breakfast on a weekday is for those with far more time than I have available). I found myself with a nice burst of energy around mid-morning, when I’m usually conking out, but without the horrific fullness/sugar rush that comes when I indulge myself in a donut or other morning treat.

Lunch was leftovers from last night’s dinner, which counts as cooking, right? (We’re not exactly cooking-enabled at GOOD HQ.) The stir-fry I made—chicken, peppers, onions, broccoli, peanuts—was just about as good microwaved over rice as it was out of the wok. Pluses: Cheap, delicious, and I didn’t even have to leave the office. Minuses: I didn’t even have to leave the office.

By dinner time, I was pretty tired and briefly consider ditching the project for a taco truck, but dammit this is a GOOD challenge, so I fired up the stove. On the menu was pasta: Linguini with Parmegiano Reggiano cheese, an egg, more broccoli, and lots of cracked pepper. It’s tasty, if not the healthiest thing I could have made myself. The recommended pairing is wine.

A bonus: cooking is also frugal—buying groceries and preparing your own meals is a major saver.

-Tim Fernholz

\n

Ready, set, go! Good luck completing today's challenge. Share your experience on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook by using the hashtag #30DaysofGOOD, or let us know how it went in the comments section below.

Tomorrow's challenge: Sleep for eight hours.