A Good Rant

I was inspired by a blog that I sometimes follow. While I disagree personally with the food philosophy behind the blog, I'm all for whatever works for people. The blog can be found here: http://tastesgreatnofat.blogspot.com/ The blogger references a great article found in the New York Times by my favorite food writer Michael Pollan who authored The Omnivore's Dilemma. Here is a link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?ref=todayspaper

The article gives a lot of facts, such as the average American spends 27 minutes a day on food preparation. We average somewhere around 4.5 hours watching TV a day. 27 minutes?! There is so much emphasis on time saving. I remember deciding that I wanted mashed potatoes and I was shocked to find out that it took to make mashed potatoes was boiling some potatoes, adding milk, butter, salt, and pepper and smashing them. But surely it's much more difficult! There are boxes and boxes of instant potatoes, containers of pre-made mashed potatoes that cost $3.50 for 2 servings! Surely we wouldn't be spending so much time and effort on avoiding something so easy and simple! Alas, this is the case as evidenced by frozen PB and J sandwiches. Really? Really?! It's that hard to slap some peanut butter and jelly on some bread?! How much time are you honestly saving?

People will say "I don't have time to cook". That's untrue. The truth is that you chose not to have time to cook. Yes, it might take a little planning ahead, but you do have time. Like any new habit it can be hard to get into, but you can do it just like you stopped chewing your nails in 11th grade. It can be done, but you have to want to do it. Reference to my last blogging post, right now I'm spending 40 hours a week working, 12-16 hours a week in rehearsal, coordinating selling a house and buying a house, and I'm going to be moving in 3 weeks. I work from 9:00am until 6:00pm and then go straight to rehearsal from 6:30pm until 9:30pm. No time to cook right? My only option is fast food, right? WRONG. Last night I made my Crazy Good Veg-tastic Pasta for dinner and made enough for 3 additional meals. I made zucchini muffins for snacks and breakfasts. Last week I made 6 servings of carrot soup and froze it. I also sliced up cucumbers, carrots, and watermelon and put it in baggies for a quick snack. I bought lunch meat, cheese, and rolls for on-the-run meals or snacks. It takes some forethought but it's 100% possible to be busy and still cook for yourself.

People will say "It's cheaper to eat out". Bullshit. Plain bullshit. I even saw a commercial for KFC where a family of 4 were trying to make a fried chicken dinner for less than what they could purchase it for at KFC. Usually when you cook you have leftovers which are good lunches for the next day, so boom, so calculate in the $6.50 you'd normally spend for a Wendy's number 1. Plus, the cost to your health is unmeasurable! How much would you pay me if I could magically whisk away 20 pounds of fat off of your body? $100? $500? $1000? People spend $50 a month for Alli, a weight loss pill that makes you shit your pants if you eat fat. Why not spend that $50 on some damn broccoli? Plus, the increased health care costs you are going to pay over the course of your life, not to even mention pain and suffering from health problems! Eating poorly is hugely expensive when you take into account the entire cost of it which includes health care costs, time off of work, medications to lower your skyrocketing blood pressure and cholesterol, etc. Eating at home is not expensive. A bag of apples costs around $2.50 and can be eaten raw, simmered with some butter, sugar, and cinnamon to make dessert or a side dish, or minced and stuffed into chicken or pork. Bananas are less than 50 cents a pound. A carton of eggs can be purchased for under a dollar. You can shop the chicken sales like I do and freeze the chicken you can't get to this week.

You think about the energy people spend on keeping themselves germ free- the antibacterial soaps, gels, foams, paper covers, etc., and yet people will shove Taco Bell into their mouths?! Taco freakin' Bell. You KNOW that shit is going to make you sick, but golly make sure to wash your hands before you eat it.

My absolute favorite response is when people say "I don't cook" as if this is some sort of feminist statement or something to be proud of. Cooking is beneath these people. I get it if someone says, "I don't like to cook". I don't like to clean, but like cooking, it simply must be done in order to live well. I know lots of people who enjoy cleaning, but I HATE it and maybe someday I can pay someone to do it for me, but right now I have to do it myself. The same with cooking. Why are you buying into this idea that a corporation can feed you better than you can feed yourself? Why is what goes into your body such a low priority to you? What can possibly be more important than keeping yourself strong and healthy and whole?

I understand when people say "I don't know how to cook" or "I'm a bad cook". Practice, practice, practice. How did I learn to cook a chicken breast? I tried it and did it. How did I learn to chop onions? I picked up an onion and a knife and I pressed the knife against the onion again and again. Are some people better at cooking than other people? Yes. Can any adult with an average IQ learn to cook many different dishes adequately? Yes.

This is my favorite passage from the Times article: "The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not." I feel like I'm in a black church choir-HALLELUJAH! PRAISE JESUS! PREACH IT BROTHER POLLAN! Can you be healthy and eat out a majority of the time? I don't know, but if it is possible, it's going to be really hard and really expensive.

If you read the article, one thing I disagree with is the vilifying of Food Network. I'm one of those people that Pollan says don't exist- I learned to cook watching Food Network. More than that, I learned to be passionate about food watching Food Network. Growing up, cooking consisted of opening a can of corn and "zapping" it in the microwave. I had no idea you could grill corn. I had no idea peas were actually delicious, not the sad mush that comes out of cans! Watching Food Network showed me that cooking is real, do-able, fun, and accessible. I'm inspired by Iron Chef. I love that 30-Minute Meals exist because that is Real Cooking despite what Pollan says. She chops her own garlic, sweats onions, and makes her own salad dressings. If everyone would make 30 Minute Meals the world would be a better place-or at least Americans would be less fat.

Or maybe this is my favorite passage which perfectly sums up a big part of food philosophy. “I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”