ADHD food: chili

Cooking is hard when you have ADHD. Eating is somehow harder.

When I moved out of my parents’ for uni, I immediately lost 15 kilos (33 pounds) cause I stopped eating properly. I knew how to cook, or so I thought, but I didn’t like the taste of my cooking. My family is South Asian, and the food isn’t the easiest thing to make right. So I never cooked and I never ate.

The perfect food for ADHDers has to be simple to make. The more steps there are, the more of a hassle it is. It has to have a few steps, you have to be able to make it in bulk and you shouldn’t have to keep watch. And ofcourse, it has to be delicious.

Chili fulfills all those categories and more. You can eat it in a wrap, with rice and with pasta.

The ingredients are simple:

• A large onion
• garlic (a few cloves)
• celery
• mince of choice
• canned tomatoes (1 can)
• kidney beans (1 can)
• red chili powder and paprika (depending on how hot you want)
• green chilli chutney (optional)
• stock of choice
• tomato puree (let’s say, two spoons)
• salt to taste
• some kind of cooking oil (a few spoons)

There are three main steps:

1) Chop onions, garlic and celery

2) Brown the mince in a pot with some oil on highest heat (optional, just to give it some texture)

3) Cook it all together. You can literally just toss the rest of the ingredients in starting with the spices. Make sure you add enough water/ stock to cover everything.

Cover with lid and let cook for 30 mins on high medium-high heat (I set a timer on my phone).

Then take off lid and cook for another 25ish minutes or until the desired consistency on medium-low heat. If something tastes off, you probably haven’t added enough salt.

I throw in a spoon of green chilli chutney for some extra heat.

If you’re nervous cause its your first time making it, you can keep watch and check it every 10 mins (its what I did).

As you can see from my instructions and pictures, I’m not a professional nor am I trying to make a professional level dish. Its just something that’s easy to make, filling and versatile. If you want a change of pace, you can add different vegetables as you want. I am partial to mushrooms.