May 2, 2025
May 2, 2025
“I like cooking... If I can find the time.”
“I rack up large bills from Seamless and DoorDash every month.”
“I have an empty fridge — except for condiments and an old orange juice.”
The Brooklyn Mission North team took turns describing their relationships to cooking in our first-ever wellness workshop, Meal Planning Basics (I’ll guiltily admit, the last statement was mine).
In sticking with our core value of investing in our team, Mission North offered wellness workshops on both coasts to highlight healthy practices.
In Brooklyn, Nancy Campbell from Radiant Health NYC gave tips on making one-pot meals, storing leftovers and planning ahead for each meal, one week at a time. We discussed setting aside time to shop and prepping in advance, and Nancy provided a few sample recipes to get our creative cooking juices flowing. After we shared a meal of baked chicken, wild rice and roasted vegetables, confirming that healthy eating is definitely delicious!
In San Francisco, Kelsey Gonzales of ThriveRD gave a refreshing presentation on mindful eating and encouraged us to be thoughtful of the time we spend at work, at home and in our personal lives.
Kelsey had a particularly fun mindfulness exercise: she handed out a Ghirardelli dark chocolate square, and rather than eating the whole square at once, we broke the piece in quarters and focused on savoring each bite. This showed us the importance of being present in the moment with food and understanding how we feel when eating.
Kelsey also walked through the proportions of protein, starches, veggies, fruits and fats on the ideal plate. Given our busy lives, every meal might not always align with the ideal plate, so Kelsey encouraged us to think about our proportions for the overall day.
She addressed questions from the SF office, such as “is there a thing as too much protein?”; “how do you maintain the right balance when you have a work-sponsored happy hour?”; “what about parties or vacations when you can’t plan your meals?”; and “is pizza really that bad?”
Kelsey encouraged us to think about our hunger level before we eat — are we starving or just eating because it’s noon? The key takeaway is to listen to your body and fuel it with the right energy it needs to run efficiently.
Armed with new knowledge about meal planning, mindfulness and a whole lot of office avocados, Mission North’s San Francisco and Brooklyn offices are investing in a healthier summer.
