Healthy food, healthy mood.
HELLO. I AM SARAH.
Food content writer & recipe developer. I love music, reading, and experimenting in the kitchen.
Hello World! Welcome to food and mood creations! My name is Sarah Leadon, and I am from the Bahamas. I was raised on a beautiful island called Eleuthera.
I migrated to New Providence and have lived there for over 10 years. However, these days I spend only get to spend 3-4 months at home when I am not traveling to college.
I’ve always been interested in food. It was something that I could not run from. After all, my grandfather was an excellent cook, and my grandmother was a skilled baker. So, food was destined to be in the picture whether I wanted it to be or not.
Story behind this food blog
Food and mood creations is a passion project created to share how the foods we consume affect the body and mood. In other words, I give you the resources, including recipes and educational blog posts that teach you how to have a healthy mind and body.
How It All Began
Essentially, food and mood creations evolved out of a scholarship opportunity. In 2015, I attained an associate’s degree in culinary arts. However, I decided to walk away from the culinary industry in 2018 after having some not-so-pleasant experiences that drastically affected my mood.
I enrolled in an undergraduate psychology program and later decided to double major in psychology and communication studies.
While I realize these are entirely different fields, I truly believed my life as a culinary professional was over. But clearly, that calling would always be there.
So, upon returning home, after being grounded abroad for months by the coronavirus, I began freelancing as a recipe, blog post, and cookbook writer. Freelancing sparked my creativity in a way I had not been exposed to before, so I decided to continue freelancing in my spare time.
The Proposal
When I returned to college in 2021, I was allowed to apply for the Make A Difference Initiative (MADI) scholarship. This was not the typical scholarship.
Rather than writing the standard scholarship essay, the MADI scholarship required me to develop a proposal about an idea I was passionate about that would serve the community long after graduating.
I knew that I wanted my proposal to combine aspects of psychology and food, but I had no idea how to turn this concept into reality. Then, after discussing it with my mentor and fellow research team member, I realized the connection between food and mood. Ultimately, I walked away with the concept of food and mood.
After weeks of hard work, I developed a proposal to host a nutritional workshop called Food and Mood. The workshop would allow participants to learn about food and select foods that boost their mood rather than foods that suppress their mood.
Most people know that specific foods can drastically affect their physical health, but many people don’t know that unhealthy foods may make them feel depressed or anxious. This is where food and mood would step in and educate people on the importance of choosing the right fuel to have a healthy mind.
After a few weeks of waiting to hear back from the committee, I discovered that I did not receive the scholarship. As you can imagine, I was disappointed that I did not receive the scholarship.
Moreover, I did not want to waste all of the passion and time I put into my proposal. Hence, food and mood creations was born! Food and mood creations is my way of bridging a gap between two seemingly unrelated fields: culinary arts and psychology.
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Food is universal. Its more than something that you eat. Food is an experience that can be enjoyed alone or with others. It can affect your physical health and your mood.
Sarah LEADON
Thank you for reading
Food and mood creations aims to teach individuals how to choose mood-boosting ingredients and prepare them. I must continue to educate those who may be unaware of the connection between food and mood. As we embark on this food and mood journey together, I only ask that you remain open-minded and pass the knowledge you learn on this platform on to someone else.
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