Inconvenient Food – Are We Ready to Cook Yet?
Are they really that good?
In a recent New York Times article it was reported that when food outbreaks occur in frozen meals, it’s very difficult for manufacturers to determine the cause. That’s because, with over two dozen ingredients, it’s hard to track down the suppliers of the individual ingredients. Consequently, manufacturers have been forced to put the responsibility on consumers to cook their meals adequately to kill all possible pathogens.
However, in order to follow these instructions, consumers will need to know the wattage of their microwaves and test their meals with a thermometer in several spots. And it turns out that in order to cook some of these meals to a safe temperature, parts of the meal are burned or turned mushy.
With all of that trouble and uncertainty, it certainly makes frozen meals appear to be a lot less convenient than they initially appear. How hard is it to stir fry a few ingredients, or toss a half dozen into a slow cooker in the morning? At least we’d know where the ingredients came from, and they would be evenly cooked. It’s just a thought.
The Final Crazy Dinner Night… For Now
Not My Favorite Dinner, But It Was Healthy and Homemade
Today was the last night in our crazy week of dinner on the run. Tonight I prepared a pasta salad before we headed to the soccer field for Louisa’s dinnertime game. When we got home after the game I tossed together the pasta, arugula, toppings and dressing. It took about two minutes.
So what did I learn? Simple – it’s still possible to eat home cooked meals no matter how crazy your schedule is – if you’re really motivated. It takes extra planning, it requires cooking and preparing hours before you plan to eat. And, for me, it requires compromising on my meal preferences. I don’t love cold dinners, but it’s certainly one way to have food waiting when you walk in the door.
I certainly understand why so many families succumb to the drive-through if they’re involved in work and after school activities. But I like the drive-through even less than I like cold dinners. So it’s possible, but I wouldn’t choose this as my regular lifestyle, if given a choice.
Is this Any Better than Restaurant Food?
The buttery crust was worth every bite.
As part of my insane dinner week, last night I took Zoogirl’s suggestion on this blog, and made a quiche for our dinner. It was a Ham and Asparagus Quiche and it was wonderful, especially the butter pastry crust. But after eating it, Joe raised the question in the title of this post. So let me attempt to explain why I think it is, despite the yummy fat.
I’ll begin with a little background on my current reading material. A few weeks ago I heard about a new book called “The End of Overeating” by Dr. David A. Kessler. In this book Kessler explains why, in his opinion after studying a lot of scientific research, he feels Americans have become conditioned to overeat. At the root of his thesis is the fact that our commercial food producers, both restaurants and processed food companies, have loaded our food with sugar, salt and fat to make it irresistible to the human palate, to make us crave their food, and to make us eat more than our biology requires.
With that in the back of my mind, we had dinner last week at the chain restaurant, Chile’s. Louisa and I ate the “Old Time” burger, Joe had their version of sliders, and Annie had some kind of chicken strip dipping concoction. That evening I checked the nutrition facts, since Chile’s so kindly makes it available. Unfortunately, we didn’t check it before we ate there. Let me say that none of us had a very healthy meal with a minimum of 800 calories in our dinners. But Annie’s choice served up 1750 calories! A whole day’s worth of calories for any grown woman, plus approximately 70 grams of fat. Thank goodness she’s young. I’m not sure if we’ll ever go to Chile’s again, but if we do it will be armed with nutrition information.
So, back to my original question. I think our dinner, despite the buttery pastry, was still better than our Chile’s meal for a few reasons. First, I didn’t serve us more than a normal size portion. When restaurants serve you huge portions, it’s too easy to eat more than you need, because it’s sitting right in front of you. Next, there were vegetables on our plate that hadn’t been deep fried – both the asparagus and the salad – and not a french fry in sight. Finally, aside from one-half teaspoon of sugar in the dough, there wasn’t any other sugar, and the only salt was in the ham and the one-half teaspoon in the dough. So although the fat content was probably more than we needed, the dinner didn’t have the triple threat of sugar, fat and salt. This isn’t a meal we should have every day, but it’s a much better once-in-a-while indulgence than a chain restaurant meal that doesn’t come from their healthy selections.