The Future of Food

I didnt know whether to put this in food or predictions but anyway.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that with how American society is moving more and more to preprepared meals such as tv dinners and those leancuisine microwavables that in maybe 20 years it might not be odd for a family to only eat preprepared meals.

reply to post by Vegemite

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Oh God, I hope not.

We've already seen an increase (in the past 20-30 years) in the "convenient" foods and "fast foods". It's really sickening actually... I like when I go to visit my grandmother, and I can look in her pantry at any one time, and see flour, rice, and self-canned foods. I hate going to the grocery store and seeing people with cart-fulls of instant, boxed and pre-made stuff. I literally makes me sick. I avoid the center aisles.

You're only as good as the fuel you put into your body..

I've taken on the natural approach to food and avoid processed, pre-packaged, convenient and fast foods... I hope the rest of the world wakes up soon and realizes the crap that's being passed off as food, isn't all that good for anyone.

I'm a fan of cooking, and would rather spend an hour making dinner, then eating something that took 10 minutes to cook in the microwave...

But hey, that's just me and my paranoid self kicking into gear (I despise microwaves).


- Carrot

yea, the hard part is getting over the convenience of it. AFter all it only takes about two minutes to microwave some personal pizzas.

and thats fine from time to time. but I never thought it would ever start replacing the place of homecooked meals. Until I met my girlfriend.

She literally doesnt know how to do anything in the kitchen that doesnt require a microwave. From boiling water to making cookies. I always though baking cookies around christmas was a timehonored tradition, but she's never made any herself. It made me sad really.

Here is a link to a National Public Radio (NPR) radio broadcast on the subject of what the current economic downturn is doing to people's eating habits:

www.npr.org...

According to nutritionists, for example, frozen meals are more expensive and considerably less nutritious than similar fresh homemade meals. Other recent news reports focused on the fact that many of these package sizes are also shrinking, while the listed price stays the same.

The other day I learned that the reason commercial frozen vegetables are less nutritious than fresh vegetables is that they are treated with a chemical called EDTA before being frozen ... the idea is to preserve the color of the veggies, but the problem with this is that the EDTA also removes some of the nutritional quality of the food.

Many of us learned little or nothing about cooking from our families, but the story doesn't have to end there. There are cookbooks in libraries and in bookstores, written for many different audiences. For the teen and 20s crowd that doesn't know where to start, many like the beginners cookbooks such as the America's Test Kitchen series, which assumes no prior cooking knowledge. That series of books includes a great many step-by-step photos, detailed instructions, to get you going. Cuisine is All-American, but if that is not your thing, there are other beginner cookbooks out there. There are also some good TV shows that demonstrate preparing a particular dish from start to finish. Some chefs have websites.

One of my favorite recent cooking topics is fermentation, by the way, which doesn't even involve much in the way of cooking (pickles, for example, and much more).

Convenience -- there are lot of different ways to look at this concept. I also have limited time to be in the kitchen, but I find it convenient to feel better from eating high quality fresh food, rather than worry about eventually getting sick from all the weirder and weirder things that are getting put into commercially made food.

Where to start? Lots of people get started in the kitchen by learning to make one particular item ... just look around at the next party you attend, for example, and ask someone how they made a particular dish. People love to share cooking methods, and you will learn something that may prove useful to you down the road. And just think, then you will have something that you can prepare the next time you get invited to a pot luck event. -- Hope this helps

[edit on 3/13/2009 by Uphill]

Convenience food can do nothing good for anyone except the manufacturers and the health sector.
What a waste of time and resources to try to make a load of chemicals taste like food.
Wouldn't the easier option be to eat the food in its natural form...............

Sorry but I have too much fun cooking!

Bad TV DINNERS!

Okay folks, it is now official. Amy Goodman interviewed former FDA Commissioner David Goodman on the DemocracyNow! TV show and website, and he tells Amy that the multinational food industry is deliberately coming up with food formulas that are most addicting, such as combinations of fat, sugar, and salt. Here is the link to that free interview transcript:

www.democracynow.org...

Over my last 2 years of natural foods cooking, I actually have not spent massive amounts of time in the kitchen. Planning ahead a little bit (such as setting a portion of grain in a jar of water, and letting that soak overnight in the refrigerator) turned out to be easier to get used to than I had thought it would be.

It is already happening and not just in America

Remember Jamie Oliver showing vegetables to school kids in the UK and them not having a clue what they were I'm serious- they didnt know what a potato was

He also set out to get an entire town to cook and eat properly, some of the people had never cooked a meal in their entire life, one girls kids had NEVER had a home cooked meal, they lived on t/away- she didn't even know how to boil an egg

We do have America to thank for all the fast food thats killing peeps world wide, I mean do we really need another MacDonalds when there's one literally one minute up the road? crazy its such crap food and almost impossible to avoid, especially if you have kids then there's KFC HUngry Jacks..just goes on and on



[edit on 4-8-2009 by lifecitizen]

I was totally shocked when I saw that episode, he asked one of the kids where potatoes comes from and the kid says from the supermarket.

On the bright side, "grow your own" is seriously taking off in the UK, thanks to people like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. Waiting lists for allotments have rocketed and the average wait is 3 to 6 years in some areas. The problem however is that people are keen to jump on board when new trends like this pop up and don't realise the hard work and committment involved and tend to give up before they have really started.

It's amazing how many people lack skills in the kitchen, and they think it's normal.

I personally do as much cooking as possible, and as a family we try to eat out very little unless it's a special occasion. Even when we travel I bring a cooler with sandwiches and fruit, because fast food makes you feel icky and it's expensive.

It's just more cost effective to spend some time in the grocery store, plan your meals and actually take the time to consider what you're putting into your body.

The only "props" I can give to some of those frozen dinners like Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones is that they are portion controlled and still cheaper than stopping at McDonald's. I think they have their place once in a blue moon, but to eat them every day would be very, very wrong.

I have to admit, I dont really make anything from scratch... I usually "semi" home cook. You know Take a few shortcuts like using canned sauces, or some premade materials. I've never made anything from scratch actually.. And these days, I eat canned soup, and frozen meals. Its scary I didnt even think about it until now.
About the Lean Frozen meals... Usually they are small portions, not very filling for the calories you consume. Also taste awfully funny.
I've thought about making meals ahead of time and freezing them in Plastic dish-ware. Easy, thaw it a bit, put it on a plate and micro wave it.

I've never had a ready meal that actually tastes that nice, so I have no idea how people live from them.

The thing I find dissapointing in the uk, is that the traditional sunday roast, it has gone down the pan, hardly anyone bothers anymore, such a shame imo, i've had one every sunday without fail since I remember.

My mam taught me to cook from being young, so i'm pretty comfortable in the kitchen, still didn't stop me from reaching for sugary stuff and other crap though, but home cooked all the way.

[edit on 7-12-2009 by valiant]

The problem with cooking "fresh" is that you'd often be making store runs. Maybe you have more self-control than I, but I always spend more loosely when shopping for a couple of meals, than I would if shopping for a week...and from a strict and planned list.

I do try to include a salad within a couple of days of going shopping, but otherwise, I tend to get frozen or canned veggies, just for the fact that they keep.



There are some good ones. Stouffers is routinely one of the best for me. I mostly do these as lunches at work, but they are pretty tasty....albeit expensive (but still cheaper than fast food)....