new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Shadrach]

The skills can be learned. They really aren't difficult for basic cooking.

Don't nearly all of us have more time for preparing food than nearly anyone else in history? Among other things, most of us don't have to gather the fuel or build the fires to cook over.

Whether or not we have more time for prepping food than people who did it or are doing it, are you really sure most of us don't have time for it?

My family, for example. It takes seven minutes to cook steel cut oats, less if we were willing to eat quick oats but steel cut is more minimally processed with the advantages of that (lower glycemic index, etc). And while the water is heating, I can fill a jar with leftovers or prep sandwich filling. Then, while the oats are cooking, I finish putting the sandwiches together or add the makings of a salad. Add 30 seconds to put the oats in jars and add fruit and another minute to wash up -that is breakfast and lunch in less than ten minutes. Often, the same ten minutes can prep both meals for two or more days for two people. When we were seven, it took a little longer to make all the sandwiches and I didn't try to make more than one day's worth of oatmeal.

Dinner usually takes from a half hour to two hours. Again, that counts the cooking time where there is often no attention or activity other than staying within the sound of a timer. Add ten minutes on subsequent days for reheating and changing it up a bit - such as adding a fresh salad and it yields delicious, wholesome meals for three or four days. We like leftovers.

I don't have any reason to minimize the time I spend making meals. If I did, I'm pretty sure I could spend a lot less time doing it.

If that seems like a lot of time prepping food, we could look at what people are doing with their time instead of cooking. Do so many people really not have time for it? Or is that a convenient way to say they would rather watch tv, play on the internet, etc, etc, etc...

I've recently made some fairly major changes to my cooking. I wasn't at all interested in cooking; done it for years out of necessity. As you point out, I had to ask myself exactly what it was I was doing with my time that was so important that I ate a rather boring and not particulalry healthy given my food knowledge diet, rather than spend some time in making something wholesome and appetizing. My diet has suffered horribly since I left Spain.
The hard sell is, cooking decent food requires decent ingredients and as I've founf much to my horror; tools! It's quite expensive starting out. I had to buy lots of spices and herbs for example. I found I needed more baking trays, loaf and cake tins, etc.
It's a difficult sell when one can pick up a ready meal for £3.00 that just needs 6 minutes in a microwave. Or, failing that a takeaway meal for around £5.00.

 

[Perris]

Another is that there are umpteen cookbooks and most of them assume the cook knows some basics. Thankfully, there are also cookbooks that spell everything out in abundant detail. The poor person just starting out, though, who may not even know to look for that kind of cookbook.

you have reminded me how one of our most famous cooks became famous, back in the 90s (a generation ago! it was a problem even then, and that's the generation that now includes people who can't teach their kids even if they wanted to, because they don't have the skills, as per gtaus' post): this from the blurb on Amazon

"Delia's How to Cook is a simple-to-follow cookery course for people of all ages and abilities.

In this comprehensive book series, Delia returns to the very roots of cooking to look at the techniques and the staple ingredients which underline the best traditions of British cookery. Delia sees it as an answer to an urgent need. There are more recipes than ever on television and yet it seems that many of us have forgotten how to put together a wholesome, nutritious meal that doesn't come from the chill cabinet or ready-made in a packet. Delia is convinced from the questions she receives in her postbag that people are no longer handed down the basics. In a world where people have less time than ever, they feel intimidated by the thought of cooking.

How to Cook: Book One covers the staple ingredients which form the basis of the world's foods: rice, flour, potatoes, pasta and eggs. With her unique powers of communication, Delia removes the fear and mystique from cooking both the simplest and quickest and the more advanced dishes with these essential tools of the trade. Perfect sponge cakes, fail-safe pastry and Delia's guide to the Great British Breakfast rub shoulders with an everlasting souffle and tempura prawns. For the health conscious there are chips that you don't have to fry and Delia's amazing no-fat white sauce. And, if you can't even boil an egg, Delia will show you how to do that as well.

Delia's How to Cook is a complete guide to cookery for the 21st century." (emphasis added)

 

[Perris]

I've been thinking about it off and on most of the day. "It" being people having time to cook.

I came up with a lot of facets.

One of the bigger ones is what people are trying to cook. Dinner doesn't have to look like food our parents or grandparents served. That might be the cans and boxes casseroles or the fast food and microwavables or holiday feasts. It took me a long time to realize that and even longer to move there.

Another facet is that it takes some management to end up with the right staples in reasonable quantities for the way one cooks.

Another is that many of the things that cost less time, money, and effort to make at home need a recipe that is not easy to find. I am still looking for a burrito mix recipe that tastes right.

Another is that there are umpteen cookbooks and most of them assume the cook knows some basics. Thankfully, there are also cookbooks that spell everything out in abundant detail. The poor person just starting out, though, who may not even know to look for that kind of cookbook.

Also, thankfully, many of the simpler meals are quite forgiving. They may not be as tender or tasty when something goes wrong but there is very often a wide margin of it still being safe and nourishing. That might be another cause to say the poor person who may not even know how to eat the odd tasteless or weird textured meal.

It often isn't easy. It helps to know it can be done and see how other people did things.

Thankfully, another facet is that it isn't all or nothing. A person can start and gain benefit from even small changes.

there's a lot of food for thought here; thanks.

Another one that occurs to me is participation. People who grow something edible value food more than people who don't, and I think the same applies to food preparation, or food preservation, or anything else to do with food. Cooking classes in school help with that appreciation, as well as equipping them with skills; those kids have some idea of how much work may go into making a meal. But of course that might actually put them off cooking, and render them more, not less, likely to buy a UPF or a take-away, when the choice is theirs to make. Short-term solutions have a habit of winning.

 

[Sally PB]

Or is it that we just don't value mealtime and eating healthy? When I grew up, we had lunch in school which took about 10 minutes to wolf down and then we ran to the gym to play for the rest of the lunch period.

I just watched a story about a school in France where they take a full hour for lunch, which includes education on food nutrition, how to prepare the food, and even how to serve it as the classmates were responsible for serving each other. I know the women cooks at my school were low paid part time employees. In that French school, they had a full time well paid (male) Chef preparing the menus and supervising the (men and women) sous-chefs in preparing the meals.

I just don't think we value food in our US culture like they do in so many other places.

This.

The human body being hardwired to chose sugar and fat has made this an easy sell too.

The poor person just starting out, though, who may not even know to look for that kind of cookbook.

Delia's How to Cook is a complete guide to cookery for the 21st century."

That is a book that every school should have. Maybe they should have a class in which the kids have to prepare their lunches for a week, and NO microwaves allowed. And a field trip to a store to shop for and buy basic kitchen gear. They could tie in science (how/why heat affects the ingredients, etc.), math (measuring the ingredients by weight and volume), social studies (other cultures/foods), history (what they ate during the Civil War, eg), and of course, health!

 

[Krugerrand]

pretty much the whole basis of capitalism
unfortunately the other forms of economy have issues too

I would argue that most of our issues stem from lack of capitalism rather than from capitalism. Capitalism relies on two basic principles: 1) investments from savings (capital) build economic opportunities rather than artificial incentives (ie federal stimulus via printing more money or manipulating interest rates) and 2) free market pricing is superior to other pricing. (controlled, subsidized, etc)

Things that are NOT a part of Capitalism include government subsidies to high fructose corn syrup, permitting fraud on food labels, shielding corporations from liability for dangerous products, federal laws and practices attacking small farmers.

For many years, corporations have controlled the Federal government's money and power to set things in their favor. That is not free market capitalism and is more closely aligned with fascism. (Privatized profits and socialized losses, such as we seen with 'too big to fail.')

My perspective is that most problems are caused by the government, after which (all too often) many people turn to the government for a solution to which the government only screws things up worse. Each step down the road to more problems is often a step further away from true free market capitalism.

 

[Krugerrand]

That is a book that every school should have. Maybe they should have a class in which the kids have to prepare their lunches for a week, and NO microwaves allowed. And a field trip to a store to shop for and buy basic kitchen gear. They could tie in science (how/why heat affects the ingredients, etc.), math (measuring the ingredients by weight and volume), social studies (other cultures/foods), history (what they ate during the Civil War, eg), and of course, health!

Building on my previous post, "Every school should have" gets right back to Government School which teach what government tells them to teach ... which goes back to classes teaching what money and power wants children to be taught.

If you have government schooling children learn what the government wants them to learn and nothing else. (Always ask yourself, how much I trust the person I voted against deciding what I want my children to learn?)

 

[Molpet]

Delia is convinced from the questions she receives in her postbag that people are no longer handed down the basics

My youngest niece came to visit when my mom moved in (2004) . Niece was 14.
I asked her to cut up an onion. She was surprised that she was allowed to handle a knife and was clueless about peeling. Or cooking from scratch.
I asked my brother why her education was lacking. He said they were afraid she would cut herself. . I think they didn't cook from scratch, just opened cans and boxes.
I started helping cooking at 10 and was doing almost all the cooking at 12. He gave me my first pocket knife at 10. Not sure why such a disconnect from our youth.

 

[Perris]

Just a reminder that this is a thread about nutrition not politics.

 

[Daisy June]

Them fightin words.

Chicken skin, and the fat from beef and pork are my favorite parts of the meat.

I'll take the burnt end. But seriously, there is no doubt in my mind that the processing and such can be a big health problem. For me, and speaking as someone who has battled cancer for over five years (colorectal--mets to lungs), my belief is that since I must live in this world I make the most of it by eating as healthily as possible when it is possible. But when it is not possible, I partake in fun foods. My chickens have taken on that same philosophy because they want to give me their best eggs, but they want to have fun, too.

 

[Krugerrand]

Just a reminder that this is a thread about nutrition not politics.

Sorry. I slipped. I'll be good!