Cooking up Health Benefits with Adam Kingl - Author of Executive Eats

Cooking itself is an act of mindfulness and one of the healthiest things that we can do.

This is a great episode with Adam Kingl, author of Executive eats, speaker and business academic at University College London School of Management and Imperial College London Business School.

While Lauren sat this one out to get into her studies, Janel and Adam chat about the overlap between food, health, performance, and creativity. Adam shares how his work as a business academic and his book, Executive Eats, led him to think about nutrition not just as fuel, but as a tool for better focus, energy, mood, and leadership.They also dig into the idea that cooking itself can be a mindfulness practice. The conversation moves from British cuisine and food culture to self-mastery, improvisation in the kitchen, and why learning to cook can improve confidence far beyond mealtime.

Links:

Executive Eats by Adam Kingl: https://bookshop.org/shop/ohletzgrow

Adam Kingl Website: https://adamkingl.com/

Ditch the Mealtime Overwhelm FREE Masterclass Sign Up: https://renew.ohletzgrow.com/program

Key topics

• Adam Kingle introduces himself as a business academic at University College London School of Management and Imperial College London Business School. He explains that Executive Eats connects nutrition with personal and professional performance.
• Janel frames the podcast’s bigger mission around food and health, and helping people take more ownership of their well-being.
• Adam discusses the book’s concept: a cookbook for a better working life, with recipes designed to support focus, sustained energy, mood, concentration, and anxiety management.
• He explains the book’s structure: he and co-author Jakob, a molecular biologist, started with nutrients and ingredients that support performance, then built 100 recipes around them.
• Adam shares a formative cooking memory from college, when he made Christmas goose and flaming plum pudding from Julia Child recipes. The experience gave him confidence in the kitchen and respect for reliable recipe authors.
• Janel shares her own food journey from farm life to chef work, agriculture science, and soil science, and explains how her memoir weaves recipes into personal storytelling.
• The conversation turns to the food system and the gap between what people eat, how food is produced, and how food choices affect the environment and long-term health.
• Cooking is reframed as mindfulness: Adam says regular cooking can reduce stress and support lower blood pressure, less anxiety and depression, and better memory and motor function.
• Janel describes her Mindful Meals Mastery program, which helps people move past excuses like lack of time or skill and build a healthier relationship with cooking through simple recipes and reflection.
• They talk about self-mastery and growth mindset, including how learning to cook builds confidence and problem-solving skills that can carry into other parts of life.
• Both speakers highlight improvisation and creativity in the kitchen, from recipe accidents to signature desserts, arguing that mistakes can lead to breakthroughs.
• Adam closes with a practical message: cook more, know what you are putting in your body, and choose ingredients to support the outcomes you want—including better energy without relying only on caffeine.