Foods for Creativity: A Multisensorial Experience
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Have you ever noticed how a great meal can spark new ideas, or how a heavy lunch leaves you feeling sluggish? What you eat directly affects your brain health, focus, and ability to create. The brain consumes around 20% of your body’s energy, so when you fuel it properly, your thoughts stay sharp, and your imagination stays alive.
Let’s be honest—there’s no magical food that can instantly make you more creative. Creativity is a skill you cultivate through practice and effort. However, food can help you avoid brain fog, energy crashes, fatigue, and jitteriness, giving you the mental clarity needed to fully tap into your creative potential. When cognitive function is disrupted, it becomes much harder to focus and think of new ideas.
I like to think of creativity as a “mental marathon.” You need sustained energy and mental clarity to stay in the zone, especially during long brainstorming sessions or detail-heavy projects. Balanced meals with complex carbs, healthy fats, fiber, and protein offer a steady release of energy, helping you ride the creative wave instead of crashing mid-project.
But eating isn’t just functional—it’s one of the most multisensory human behaviors, and it can also be a playground for creative thinking. A growing body of research shows that engaging all the senses can spark creativity. In fact, this paper inspired me to write this article! Sensory engagement refreshes the mind, making it easier to think outside the box and generate new concepts (and it’s neurodivergent-friendly!).
Top Foods That Enhance Focus
While maintaining a balanced diet with a colorful variety of fruits, vegetables, plant-based protein bias, whole grains, healthy fats, and plenty of water will keep your body performing at its best, adding some specific brain-boosting foods can give you that extra oomph.
Blueberries
Blueberries are packed with antioxidants called anthocyanins (the pigments responsible for their deep purple hue) These antioxidants help improve memory and cognitive function. Research shows that anthocyanins, along with other red, blue, and purple foods, play a protective role against brain aging and may prevent neurodegenerative disorders. They’re perfect for those mental marathons I mentioned earlier!
Dark Chocolate (70% and Up)
A small square of dark chocolate is a great way to get a quick energy boost. It contains both caffeine and theobromine, providing a gentle lift without the crash. (Note: A square, not three whole bars! Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way.) Dark chocolate is also rich in antioxidants and can improve mood, making it easier to tap into your creative flow when you’re in a positive mindset.
Green Tea
Green tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation without causing drowsiness. If you’re stressed or working under a deadline, a warm cup of green tea can help you stay calm and focused, allowing you to brainstorm, sketch, or write with clarity and ease.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Did you know that about 60% of the brain is made up of fat? But it has to be the right kind of fat to support cognitive performance. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for brain health, particularly DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), which plays a critical role in learning, memory, and overall cognitive well-being.
You can find Omega-3s in fatty fish like salmon and sardines, or opt for supplements such as fish oil or algae oil. Algae oil capsules are just as effective but without the fish burps or animal cruelty concerns. I personally use the Sports Research Algae Oil, which tastes like lemon—no fishy aftertaste!
VEGAN OMEGA 3 | Sourced from sustainable Algae Oil providing 770mg of heart healthy Omega-3’s per serving.
3rd party tested, premium quality & no fishy burps.
Best Times to Eat for Maximum Creativity
What you eat is important, but when you eat can also have a significant impact on how you feel and perform throughout the day.
Start with a Balanced Breakfast
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper”? Although it originally targeted weight loss, this approach aligns with chronobiology—the study of our body’s natural rhythms, including sleep-wake cycles and how our internal clocks affect mood, focus, and energy.
After waking, cortisol levels naturally rise, priming our body for mental clarity and focus. Eating a nutrient-rich breakfast gives your brain the fuel it needs to take advantage of this morning peak, while also helping to prevent fatigue and those dreaded mid-afternoon slumps. A hearty breakfast can even reduce your need for caffeine, energy drinks, or sugary pick-me-ups later in the day.
Avoid sugary breakfasts like cereals, fruit juices, pastries, and fast food items, as they can cause blood sugar spikes and crashes. Watch out for processed meats like bacon, sausage, and hatm—they’re high in saturated fats, take longer to digest, and may make you feel sluggish instead of sharp. These meats also contribute to inflammation and brain fog over time and lack essential nutrients like complex carbs and fiber, both of which help stabilize mood through serotonin production.
Ideas for a Nutrient-Rich Breakfast:
- Oatmeal with dates, berries, and nuts.
- Avocado toast, on whole-grain bread with tempeh and greens.
- Smoothie with spinach, chia seeds, and Greek or soy yogurt.
Snack Smart to Sustain Your Focus
When you need a snack, opt for one that includes protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats to provide steady energy. This combination helps keep you in the creative zone without energy crashes.
Ideas for Snacks:
- Trail mix (nuts, seeds, and dark chocolate).
- Fruit with nut butter.
- Veggie sticks with hummus.
Whole-Food Lunches to Avoid Afternoon Sluggishness
Heavy lunches loaded with refined carbs (like white bread, white rice, traditional pasta, and fast food) can leave you feeling tired and unfocused. To maintain your energy, try these tips:
- Swap Refined Carbs for Whole Grains. You don’t need to eliminate carbs—just choose smarter options! Replace white bread, rice, and traditional pasta with whole-grain versions. You could also explore ancient grains like spelt, barley, sorghum, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, or quinoa.
- Increase Your Fruit and Vegetable Intake. You don’t need to overhaul your entire diet, small additions make a big difference. Add berries to yogurt, roasted veggies to lunch, or leafy greens to sandwiches. Aim to fill half your plate with colorful fruits and vegetables to get essential nutrients like B vitamins, vitamin C, iron, and magnesium, all of which are crucial for energy production.
- Incorporate Protein and Healthy Fats. Adding protein and healthy fats ensures sustained energy throughout the day. Try to limit fatty red meats and processed meats, which contain saturated fats and can contribute to cardiovascular problems. Instead, swap them out for plant-based proteins like tofu, tempeh, edamame, seitan, TVP, or legumes. These not only provide fiber but are also linked to the reduction of chronic diseases like obesity, cardiovascular issues, and type 2 diabetes. Healthy fats can be found in nuts, seeds, avocado, and olive oil.
Ideas for Lunches:
- Quinoa bowl with veggies, avocado, and miso-glazed tofu.
- Salad with leafy greens, nuts, roasted chickpeas and vinaigrette (add fruit like grapes, apple slices, or orange slices for extra flair!).
- Rice paper wraps with edamame, fresh herbs, and a peanut butter dipping sauce.
Hydration for a Creative Mind
Mild dehydration can impair cognitive function, leading to brain fog, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. Water plays a vital role in maintaining neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), flushing out toxins and metabolic waste that accumulate in the brain, promoting proper blood circulation, and transporting essential vitamins, minerals, and oxygen to keep your brain functioning optimally.
Keep a water bottle by your side to remind yourself to sip regularly throughout your work sessions and prevent dehydration!
Plain water isn’t the only option—check out my natural energy drinks post for more ideas and expanded explanation.
>> Quick Guide to Natural Energy Drinks That Won’t Crash You (+ recipes)
Inspiration Through Mindful Eating
Let’s shift from eating for fuel to something more experiential! Mindful eating is the practice of slowing down and savoring each bite. It helps you connect with your senses, calm your mind, and open the door to creative thinking.
How Mindful Eating Sparks New Ideas
As I mentioned earlier, the senses play a crucial role in stimulating creativity, and what better way to engage them than through food? When you slow down and focus on flavors, textures, and aromas, you activate multiple senses. This practice stimulates your brain, sparking new ideas and offering fresh perspectives.
- Engage the senses: Mindful eating helps you notice subtle details and trains your brain to be more observant—an essential skill for any creative endeavor.
- Clear mental clutter: Focusing on the present moment gives your brain a break from stress and distractions, improving your ability to generate new ideas.
- Foster curiosity: Exploring new flavors encourages a sense of discovery, which can inspire solutions and ideas across other areas of life.
Simple Ways to Practice Mindful Eating
- Put away distractions: Turn off screens and enjoy your meal without multitasking.
- Savor each moment: Chew slowly and focus on the sensations in your body as you eat.
- Describe flavors and aromas: As you savor each bite, can you identify the flavors? Is it citrusy, herbal, or umami-rich?
- Observe portion sizes without judgment: Pay attention to how your body feels, and stop eating when you’re satisfied, not stuffed.
- Try a “first bite” meditation: Close your eyes for the first bite to fully experience the taste, texture, and aroma of the food.
Having a Multisensory Experience with Food
Mindful eating is just one way to engage your senses, but there are plenty of others! When food becomes more than nourishment, it transforms into an experience. Here are some ways to tap into the multisensory magic of food:
Colorful Plating
Arranging food thoughtfully in vibrant colors and textures is not just visually pleasing—it can unlock your artistic side. Playing with patterns and color palettes on your plate makes food feel like a form of self-expression.
Cooking with Aromatic Ingredients
Fragrant herbs and spices do more than enhance flavor—they boost your mood, too! The scent of basil, mint, or cinnamon can lift your spirits, helping you solve problems with a clearer mind. Herbal infusions are also powerful mood enhancers. A fragrant citrus or fruity tea always helps me feel more energized before starting work.
Explore New Cuisines for New Perspectives
Trying foods from different cultures introduces you to new flavors, stories, and traditions, inspiring creativity through symbolism and meaning. Whether it’s tasting Japanese matcha or learning about Italian food customs, each new experience expands your mental horizons.
Eat in Nature or Green Spaces
Changing your environment by eating near a window with a natural view, next to indoor plants, or outside in a garden can enhance your experience. Nature restores mental energy, calms the mind, and helps you approach challenges with a fresh perspective.
Use Auditory Stimulation Instead of Screens
If you need entertainment while eating, swap screens for audiobooks, podcasts, or music. Auditory stimulation can ignite visual imagery, immersing you in new ideas and creative thoughts.
Encourage Social Interaction While Eating
Sharing meals with friends or family cultivates positive emotions and relaxation. Eating together in a supportive environment nurtures mental well-being, which is essential for creative work. Don’t forget to text a friend about that café date!
Create Food-Inspired Mood Boards
Use your meals as inspiration for visual storytelling by creating mood boards. Capture the colors, textures, and themes from your food to inspire future creative projects.
Food Journaling to Reflect on Experiences
This is one of my absolute favorite activities! Taking a few minutes to jot down thoughts during or after meals allows you to reflect on how the food made you feel. I recently took this Food Memory Journal course on Domestika by Sumayya Usmani, and it filled me with inspiration! Here are a few things I learned:
- The City Game: Think of four cities you’ve visited, and associate each one with a food or flavor. What does it remind you of? Where did you eat it? What smells and textures stand out? Were you alone or with friends?
- Flavor Flashcards: Pick six flavors or ingredients that hold special memories. Write about how these flavors are connected to your life and why they are meaningful to you.
- Food Prompts: I’ve made a list of prompts and questions you can use to inspire your journal pages!
- Gather Inspiring Things: you can bring photos of these food memories, sketch out the scenes or ingredients, or bring out items that spark those memories.
- Journal Freely: A journaling page can be anything! It could be a conversation you recall, a recipe, a comic illustration, or even a collage of photos and stickers. It doesn’t have to be Instagram-perfect—it just needs to be meaningful to you. Some of my favorite pages are messy collections of ideas, photos, and quick notes. Of course, you can also make them as beautiful as you like to satisfy your aesthetic side. Here are two pages I have created:
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Book Suggestions to Spark Curiosity in Food
Here are some books that have inspired wonder and creativity around food in me:
Whether a flavor is defined by a “grassy” ingredient like dill, cucumber, or peas, or a “floral fruity” food like figs, roses, or blueberries, flavors can be combined in wildly imaginative ways. In this lively and original book, Niki Segnit identifies the 99 fundamental ingredients of food and examines what goes with what-revealing for the first time just how infinite are the possibilities in an everyday kitchen.
More Flavors explores the character and tasting notes of chickpea, fennel, pomegranate, kale, lentil, miso, mustard, rye, pine nut, pistachio, poppy seed, sesame, turmeric, and wild rice―as well as favorites like almond, avocado, garlic, lemon, and parsley from the original―then expertly teaches readers how to pair them with ingredients that complement. With her celebrated blend of science, history, expertise, anecdotes, and signature sense of humor, Niki Segnit’s More Flavors is a modern classic of food writing, and a brilliantly useful, engaging reference book for every cook’s kitchen.
From the fiery funk of kimchi to the velvet tang of kefir, James describes the microbial process, then shares his recipes for recreating these wonders in your own kitchen – no specialist equipment required. Alongside his recipes, James investigates the extraordinary cultural and historic backgrounds of fermented foods, exploring how the microbes that bring them to life have developed alongside our culinary evolution. (with BEAUTIFUL drawings, i must add!)
Most of the book’s 100 vegetarian recipes use just three or four ingredients and simple steps, resulting in fresh, delicious, and visually stunning dishes. It features appetizers, cocktails, salads, veggie mains, and sweets, with vibrant photos and Erin’s whimsical watercolor illustrations. Part cookbook, part art book, The Forest Feast belongs in both the kitchen and on the coffee table.
Sure to get your tastebuds tingling, you can explore:
– 52 exciting recipes from around the world which showcase each spice blend
– An explanation of what spices are and how they’re produced
– Which countries favor which spices and a bit of the history behind it
– Dozens of spice blends you can make and what you can use it for
– A reference guide where you can conveniently look up each spice to understand how to use it
– Various color-coded charts to help you learn the chemical compound that make up the flavors
– Instructions on how to design your own spice blends
– Beautiful photographs of spices and food
Conclusion: Feed Your Creativity, One Bite at a Time
Creativity thrives when the mind and body are intentionally nourished. What we eat, when we eat, and how we experience food can significantly influence our mental clarity, focus, and inspiration. By embracing mindful eating practices, exploring new flavors, and understanding how certain foods affect brain function, we unlock new ways to fuel creative flow.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach—creativity is personal, and so is the way food nurtures it. I encourage you to experiment with different foods, meals, and routines to discover what sparks your inspiration. Whether it’s a vibrant smoothie bowl, an afternoon herbal tea, or a journaling session reflecting on your meals, small, intentional choices can make a meaningful difference.
What foods fuel your creativity? Do you have any favorite meals or mindful eating practices that spark inspiration? I’d love to hear about your experiences! Share your thoughts, food memories, or go-to brain-boosting snacks in the comments below. 🙂
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Feeling Inspired? Here’s Some Extra Fun Stuff!
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