When we think of peak performance, we visualise medal-winning athletes such as Kate O’Connor, Mark English, Rhasidat Adeleke and Andrew Coscoran. Their stellar performances at the European Championships follow years of physical, mental and emotional discipline.
Peak performance is something that we should target at work too. We know some of the proven ingredients for thriving at work: psychological safety and trust, purpose and autonomy, a learning and growth mindset, connection and respect.
Minding yourself is also important for productivity, so taking proper breaks each day, exercising regularly, sleeping well and taking holiday time are known keys to success.
One less-explored area is how we fuel ourselves every day – with food. Corporations often provide free sweets and caffeinated drinks for their employees throughout the day. While free fruit and smoothies might not be as big a selling point as a barista on each floor, they’ll help you and your team perform better and more consistently.
Academics Adam Kingl and Jakub Radzikowski recently published Executive Eats: The Cookbook for a Better Working Life. Unlike most cookbooks, which focus on reducing calories, optimising time or saving money, Executive Eats examines how the right diet can improve workplace performance, including focus, clarity, energy and creativity.
“We know that 30 to 40 per cent of our performance is correlated to our body working properly,” Kingl told me. “I don’t just mean being healthy but being able to concentrate, having sufficient energy and not being overcome by anxiety.”
Yet leaders and managers never really talk about keeping your body healthy at work.
“How could we possibly look after our company, our team if we’re not looking after ourselves? Too many people make sacrifices, take shortcuts to serve the company or team, forgetting that the more often they take a shortcut then that becomes a bad habit.”
The “infinite workday” has become the norm, with work regularly spilling into evenings and weekends. “This blurring of professional and personal boundaries is making it increasingly difficult to switch off and recover. Yet carving out even one small moment each day to support mind, mood and body makes a meaningful difference – and cooking is just the way to do it.”
Cooking with purpose
Too many “healthy” food fads come with little evidence to back them up, so this book – which they say is based on nutrition, cognitive science and gastronomy research – is refreshingly easy to embrace and use. It’s broken into sections including energy boost/ wake up, treats for the office, sustained energy, concentrate, mood boost, de-stress, creativity, detox, calorie conscious, comfort and solace, and celebrate.
During the writing of this article, I tried a few recipes: peanut butter and jam French toast (energy boost); smoked fish on sourdough with tomatoes, capers and red onion in sherry vinegar (focus); citrus yoghurt bread (treats for the office); chicken with shallots and tomatoes (mood boost); tzatziki (creativity) and kimchi fried rice (detox).
They were all delicious and fast and easy to make. I felt good afterwards too.
The authors, both trained chefs, don’t just theorise around the science of food and performance; they’ve spent decades researching it and making the food for themselves. Kingl is adjunct faculty at University College London School of Management and Hult International Business School, Imperial College and the Moller Institute at Churchill College – the University of Cambridge. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu in California.
Radzikowski is an educator, scientist and culinary professional. He has a PhD in molecular systems biology, a grand diplôme in cuisine and patisserie from Le Cordon Bleu London and has worked in Michelin-starred and fine-dining restaurants.
In addition to using the right food, the authors believe the act of cooking itself is a powerful route to greater wellbeing. “When cooking is treated not as another chore on the to-do list but rather as an intentional moment of renewal, repeated day after day, it’s possible to reset the mind, nourish the body, and sustain the energy needed to meet the many demands of modern working life.”
Culture and community
“The best definition of culture I ever heard is so elegant, simple and true. And it’s this: shared behaviours,” says Kingl. When you join a community – and a workplace is a community – you see how other people behave and then, consciously or unconsciously, adopt many of those behaviours.
“If everyone is working at their desk every day eating a ham and butter sandwich and drinking coffee, that’s probably what you will do as well,” he said.
An unhealthy culture is expensive. “The cost of replacing someone who leaves unexpectedly or is on long-term sick leave costs an organisation per person on average 60 per cent to 200 per cent of their annual salary” says Kingl.
Leaders can shift behaviours – including healthy eating and cooking habits – because they’re a role model.
“Ultimately, as a CEO, you are accountable for the performance of others and that also includes their wellbeing. Making sure, for example, that they’re not working 19 hours a day every day.
“If you’re burning people out, if bad habits are the norm in your organisation, then I would argue as CEO that you are accountable.”
Kingl suggests three ways to get peak performance for yourself and others at work: start eating a healthy diet yourself; make some of your own food and bring it into the office; cook together as a family or as a team.
Managers need to talk about healthy food and cooking and socialise the importance of looking after your health while also showing the team how it’s done.
If you think you don’t have time to do it, then think about batch cooking, says Kingl. “Make a big salad – mango, cucumber, tomato salad – on Sunday night and just take individual servings Monday through Wednesday. It will keep.
“Add different things each day to keep it interesting. On Tuesday, add some avocado and coriander and you’re in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. On Wednesday, add some crushed peanuts and tofu and a splash of soy sauce and you’re in Asia.”
Cooking is a powerful and fun way to bring the team together too. “If it’s a team standing meeting, you can all cook and eat your breakfast or lunch together,” he says.
Communal activities promote mood, wellbeing, happiness, confidence, self-mastery and a host of other things that we typically overlook and undervalue.
“Just because it hasn’t been part of the popular conversation does not mean it isn’t critically important. Too often I think we rely on leadership as an imitation of what was done in the past.
[ ‘What you eat affects the structure and function of your brain and ultimately your mood’ ]
“If our world of work is to improve and people are to thrive in the workplace, we have to evolve because we know that there are lots of aspects of our work life in too many places that are broken – not even slightly dysfunctional – but broken.”
“Cooking together helps role model the selection of foods, preparation of foods and creates an environment whereby you can probably have some open, vulnerable, honest conversations that are harder to have sitting around a table in a boardroom.”
This article was originally published in The Irish Times on 20th August 2026 and can be accessed here.