Strong Opinions @marksbirch

Paula Deen is not the reason that 65% of Americans are obese, despite Anthony Bourdain’s recent ravings.  Without getting into who is or is not the cultural elitist, Anthony Bourdain made a good point recently; there was a time when everybody cooked.  Whole families would come together to make food.  There was no Food Network, Joy of Cooking, Julia Child, recipe websites like Epicurous and Gojee, or the hundreds of thousands of recipe books and magazines.  They simply figured out how to create something edible and sustaining with the ingredients available.

For all the resources we have these days, does anyone actually cook anything?  Do most people even know how to cook?  When do families, including the kids, ever come together to cook a meal?  And even if we make the effort to prepare a meal, does it involve pans and pots, or is it simply a ready-made pack ready to serve or heated in a microwave?  People may tune into Paula Deen’s cooking show, but they certainly are not doing much cooking.

So if we are not actually making food, what are we eating and from where?  I figured it was simply a symptom of being in New York City that many people I know go out to eat every meal.  You know the cycle; start with the café bagel, grab a sandwich or hit a food truck during lunch, and pick up take out or dine out for dinner.  But this cycle is also often repeated across the country whether a big city or a small suburban town.

The common complaints are that there is no time and that quality food is expensive.  Both reasons are quite frankly is a complete load of crap.  Just doing a cursory search of FreshDirect or another online grocery site shows that one pound of fresh or frozen vegetables are in fact cheaper than Doritos, Big Macs, or a slice of plain pizza.  Chicken and pork can be had for less than $2 per pound.  So the issue must be time.  The thing is however is that if immigrants coming over to America and working 12 hour plus shifts found time to cook, what exactly is preventing today’s generation from cooking?  Even in the midst of a horrible economy, I think we can spare at least a little time to cook a real meal that does not originate from the freezer or ready-made sections of the supermarket.

Simply put, Americans have become lazy.  There is no other way to describe it.  We seem to enjoy watching others cook food much more so than having to cook food ourselves.  In an excellent New York Times Magazine article back in 2009, Michael Pollan explores this very question of what is happening to cooking in America.  Just a few tidbits from the article clearly show that our lack of cooking is affecting our health as a nation:

• Average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation
• Less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up than when Julia Child arrived on our television screens
• Amount of time spent on food preparation in America has fallen at the same precipitous rate of about 40 percent since 1965
• Amount of time Americans spend cooking has dropped by about half, the number of meals Americans eat in a day has climbed; since 1977, we’ve added approximately half a meal to our daily intake
• More time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity
• Amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income

The obesity rate in this country is appalling and is poised to get worse.  In nearly every food establishment I came across on my recent vacation in the south, everyone was overweight.  At one Waffle House I dined at while driving back home, at least half the patrons were morbidly obese.  If the economy picks up again, watch out as those waistbands (and health bills) expand even more with expanding discretionary income.  I would posit that if we simply got more people to cook, we could start to see a significant decrease in obesity rates and the costs of medical care in the US.

If there is one positive change you can make to your lifestyle, it is this: replace one entire day’s worth of meals with home cooked food that is planned and made by yourself.  If you already do this, then add another day.  Then week by week, you can replace one outside meal or pre-processed, packaged food monstrosity with a home cooked meal.  See how far you can get and I am going to bet that you feel significantly healthier and fulfilled in the process.