I watched Food, Inc. last night and was utterly and completely disgusted, appalled, and saddened. What are we doing to ourselves? Why was simple not good enough? When did we insist that everything we eat must be FASTER? I think I have had enough with fast, processed, and crap we tend to happily put into our bodies, and worse, our children's bodies.
They showed a family on the film who were struggling financially. They go through the drive-through OFTEN for dinner. It broke my heart when the two daughtes in the backseat ate their hamburger dinner. No table. No vegetables. No health. The parents were both overweight and the father was struggling with diabetes. What the fuck? Then, they showed the family complaining that: a) they don't have time to cook (bullshit); and b) fresh produce is too expensive (the father is shown gasping at the cost of fresh broccoli when they can buy two bags of chips and four bottles of soda for the same price!)
They Don't Have Time To Cook...
Really? Even if you have to both work and you both leave the house at 5am then you either a) prepare something the night before so when you get home it is ready to put together quickly; b) you wake up fifteen minutes earlier and put something in the crock pot.
Look, I wasn't always at home taking care of my children. When Larry and I were first married we worked full-time and both went to school full-time and while there were a few nights I packed sandwiches to take to school with me, the other nights I became intimate with my crock pot. Everyone is busy. Everyone struggles with time. You just have to do it not only for yourself but for your kids. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE TIME.
I can throw in a crock pot: chicken breasts, a packet of onion soup mix, and a can of cream of whatever soup and turn that on all day. In the evening, make some rice or noodles, add some fresh veggies and you have a fairly healthy (AND FAST) meal. I buy a 10lb bag of chicken breasts for twenty bucks. I can get at least eight meals out of that bag which calculates to only $2.50 a meal (for FOUR or FIVE people and not just little wee children, but two teenage boys!). Throw in a bag of pasta, which is under a dollar and that is for whole wheat which is all I buy now, and some frozen veggies, another dollar, let's say, and you are at an entire meal for under five dollars. That family in the documentary spent just a tic under twelve dollars for their burger-crap dinner.
Here's the thing about time: we make time for the things we want to do. I love it when I hear people say they don't have time to read or time to scrapbook or time to cook. Do you watch television? Do you sleep in? Do you waste time on long phone conversations? Again, we make time for what we want to do.
There are those days when I come home tired and am faced with three hungry children. Here is what I keep in my back pocket for those nights: omelets, grilled cheese sandwiches, chef salads, tuna casserole, pasta with fresh vegetables (I always have green beans, broccoli, or peas in my freezer), eggs with polenta, baked potatoes, or a bag of something that is already cooked in the freezer that I bagged up when we cooked extra. It all just takes a few minutes to prepare.
If you are one that doesn't have much time to cook dinner you just have to think ahead a bit. I plan my menu a month out and I know that most people don't do that but it works for me. However, if you only plan a week in advance, plan your menu with a calendar in front of you so you can see where the busy nights appear. I know to throw something in the crock pot if I am going to spend the day running errands or if the kids have activities late in the afternoon.
Fresh Produce Is Too Expensive...
I agree, it is. But, what does it cost to see the doctor and fill medicine for high cholesterol or diabetes?
The family in the film had no problem spending almost twelve dollars on fast food crap but gasped at broccoli that cost a few dollars. You couple that with some fish or pasta or chicken and they will still spend less on the meal (and it will be so much healthier!) than what they spent going through the drive-through. They argued that they could buy chips or soda for cheaper than vegetables. I agree. You can. But why do you? I don't buy chips because of course my kids would prefer them to carrots (me too!) but I can buy carrots and some fun dips the kids like for the same price, or cheaper, than a bag of chips and bottles of soda. I think you just need to make the decision to buy LESS of the CRAP and therefore free up more dollars for the healthier alternatives. I can buy whole wheat pasta for the same price as the regular pasta and even though the whole wheat variety contains less product it is ultimately better because then we actually eat less quantity. Win, win.
I don't buy all my produce fresh. I buy a lot of stuff frozen (like cauliflower, beans, brussel sprouts, corn, peas, etc.)because it is cheaper but also because it is better than fresh. Frozen foods are packaged immediately after picking while fresh gets picked too early, gets loaded onto trucks, and then spends days or weeks traveling to your favorite store.
This issue between processed crap foods and fresh foods is the primary problem I have with couponing (a whole different post) because most of the coupons are for items in the middle of the store and we try hard to shop the perimeter and you don't find coupons for bags of carrots, broccoli, fruit, or lettuces. So, you may be "saving money" but you are only buying processed crap food.
Another hot button of mine is when I hear that "my kids won't eat (fill in the vegetable blank)". Here's my take on that. If there are bowls of carrots and bowls of chips on the counter the kids will always (me too) pick the chips...which is why I don't buy them. I make every vegetable under the sun for dinner and my kids will eat them all. Do they love them all? No. But, I insist they eat them. Period. And, I have always done this since the time they were little toddlers in high chairs. My daughter hates kale but she plugs her nose and eats it. Whatever. If there is crap in the house they will almost always pick the crap. I think if they eat a lot of fresh fruit that is great but I am kinda a stickler that they eat a lot of vegetables too, maybe more than fruit, since it is healthier and has less (natural) sugar.
The high price of produce is the main reason I grow a garden. I have saved at least twenty dollars this month on lettuces alone. And, when my zucchini is ready to be harvested I will buy LESS frozen vegetables and eat fresh zucchini. Will we all get tired of it? Probably. But, I will then attempt different recipes so we aren't eating it the same way every night and we will save money by not buying bags of frozen vegetables. And, because I am growing a ton of tomatoes I will include them into many meals per week and freeze the rest so they can be enjoyed LONGER than just summertime (which means in the dead of winter I will still be saving money on "fresh" produce!).
Another trick to saving on fresh produce is to buy when they are in season only. I never buy watermelon in January. Or peaches in February. At the end of the season when those produce items are at their lowest I stock up and freeze them. We enjoyed corn I bought fresh in October, all winter long. Last fall I bought bottom of the barrel peaches for pennies and cooked them all into a spread and bagged them up and popped them into the freezer. A few weeks ago I made a pork chop dish that called for peach preserves and used a bag of my fresh peach spread.
Larry will be traveling across the country on Saturday and we talked a long time over what he should bring, food wise, on the trip. He plans to do a full day of driving and I told him that he can't bring a (cheap) bag of chips and think he can drive for twelve hours. Instead, he spent a few dollars more and bought things like dried fruit, almonds, popcorn, tuna, peanut butter, apples, bananas, and energy bars. He is naturally a soda drinker but he picked up a case of water for the trip instead.
Bottom line: you can make time to prepare dinner for your family and what kind of lesson are you sending when you don't? I feel the most cherished time we spend as a family is around the dinner table and I am a HUGE advocate for dinnertime. Plus, I believe that meals become memories. I cooked swiss chard over the weekend and my first bite brought me back to my grandmothers house and sitting around her table and it made me smile and feel good. My kids may roll their eyes because I promote healthy/no pre-packaged crap in our home and we rarely go out to restaurants to eat, but I feel one day they will be glad...they will be healthy and have the ability and knowledge and desire to pick healthy foods instead of running to a drive-through for dinner.
Throw something into the crock pot. Prepare a weeks worth (or even a few nights) of meals over the weekend. Wake up a little earlier. Prep the next nights dinner while you prepare tonight's to get a head start. Have the children help with prepping dinner. Create simple meals that are healthy and use as close to whole ingredients as possible. Take those few extra minutes to cook something at home and if you aren't able to then maybe your schedule needs adjusting...because clearly if you don't ever have time to prepare a simple home-cooked meal then you have too much on your plate and everyone wins if you scale back.
Don't assume that you can't buy fresh ingredients. Cut back on half of the processed crap you buy: chips, soda, crackers, boxes filled with nothing beneficial (my kids are always trying to get me to buy those fruit snacks and I absolutely refuse. I tell them to eat a piece of fruit instead. Give me a break...those fruit snacks are full of preservatives and sugar!) and instead take that money and buy as much whole foods and fresh produce as you can.
Why have we allowed ourselves to become little robots in this society? Going through fast food because it is the quickest solution? Running around constantly to the point that you can't ever make time to cook a meal at home and sit together at the table? Cut back on all that pre-packaged boxed food and stick to more whole foods. Go out less, save more, and eat better not just for you but for your entire family.
