What's In the Fridge? Three Reasons To Cook Your Own Meals
"What's for dinner?" A lot of us ask that question right before popping our head in the fridge to see what the options are. If nothing edible is found in the house, three options with rather high probability of being significantly less healthy than the home-cooked-meal come to the table.
1. Hungry trip to the supermarket. We've all experienced this. With all the good intentions of buying the staples, we grab a bag of chips or box of cookies because our stomachs and brains were freaking out until we gave them something instantly satisfying. Those cookies are history five minutes after check-out.
2. Delivery menu scramble. Pizza, Thai, Chinese, Burgers, oh my! This rarely ends well.
3. Going out to eat. If you live near a restaurant that serves simple, organic, fresh foods, you may be ok. But that isn't the case for most of us. Even if there is a healthy joint nearby, when engulfed in a hunger rage our brain chemistry and psychology can turn us into zombies making our way to a not-so-healthy eating establishment.
If Michael Pollan and our parents (assuming they had a little common sense) have taught us anything it's that preparing our own meals is so much better than the other options for many reasons. We can create our portion size, know all the ingredients we are eating, and will probably enjoy our meal much more because we took the time to make it.
Sure, it's cheaper to eat at McDonald's. For $1.99 a day, you can become obese, get diabetes, and keep the pharmaceutical industry in business. Organic foods can become less expensive when there is more demand. We can decide to spend either on healthy foods that will keep your body working efficiently for a long time, or cheap foods that will make you sick and cost you much more in medication and hospital costs. As for time, there's always time to do what's important to you. Make it important!
So what's in the fridge? Go take a look. You can save yourself now, while you're not starving, with a trip to the farmers market or grocery store. When you're done with your fridge, go check out your neighbor's, your family's and your friends' too. Swap healthy recipes. Take your farmers market and grocery store trips together. Then have your friends over for dinner. You'll eat better, feel better, and probably have a good time while you're at it.
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Great post, but you can't eat at McDonalds for "$1.99 a day."
I can feed my family of 5 for much less than they can eat at McDonalds or anywhere else by fixing simple but healthy foods at home.
Most of our meals are vegetarian, with some milk, eggs, and cheese, and some occassional meat (a turkey for holidays, canned salmon and tuna a few times a week).
We eat veggies and pasta, beans, lentils, lots of great whole grain bread, and whatever vegetables and fruits are in season.
We grow a lot of our own fruits and vegetables, all of which are practically free because we are increasingly saving seeds for next years crops also.
It takes some time, but we make gardening and fixing meals family time, and every one is healthy, happy, and well fed for far less than the cost of eating out even at a fast food place.
I thumb through my cookbooks or look at online recipe sites for dinner ideas a few times a week. It really gives me some good ideas and can keep things interesting by cooking new things. Even if I don't make a shopping list, sometimes I don't have time, remembering back to those recipes helps me when I am at the store and some websites let you print out a shopping list.
www.recipe
www.bbcgoo
Because I live in an inner city neighbourhood, even of a small city, I'm aware of a problem most nutritionists and healthy food promoters don't think of:
Many low-income neighbourhoods do not have a reliable grocery store or supermarket. The one large grocery store left in my neighbourhood has wonky freezers and often bruised produce that I suspect is rejected by the stores in "better" neighbourhoods. Two other low-income neighbourhoods in the city have no local grocery store at all.
The big chains keep moving their stores out to the suburbs and big box/parking lot zones. What's left are convenience stores that cannot stock fresh foods at reasonable prices. And many people do not have a car, or the family rustmobile goes to work with the breadwinner and isn't available to the homemaker.
There are a work-arounds, of course. My sister was involved for a while before retiring with a program teaching young inner city moms how to shop and cook. They had to show them that sharing a taxi halfway across town to bring home a week's worth of groceries was more cost effective than fast food or the nearest convenience store. There's also a cooperative community food store open for a few hours, one day a week, where families can buy fresh produce, bread and milk.
However, the opportunity to buy good food on a convenient, regular basis is increasingly a prerogative of those who can afford a better address.
Main ingredient in fridge:
PLASTIC.
Those boxes of salad should be outlawed.
I've never understood why people act like take out, delivery, or fast food are instantaeous ways to get food. Every place I've ever had deliver food took at least half and hour. Take out, even if you are passing by the place on your way home, will take 20-30 minutes.
It's perfectly simple to prepare real and inexpensive food in that amount of time.
It would probably help if the media would stop reinforcing the belief that fast food is actually fast and that cooking at home is a horrendous time consuming task.
I agree. I can make pretty good hearty soup out of left-over chicken or meat and fresh or frozen veggies in 20 to 30 minutes.
Read "Animal, vegetable, miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. She's not a big fan of McDonalds's or Whole Foods (Whole Paycheck). She spent a year growing her own food and buying only local produce. Support your local farmer markets folks. Money is a huge issue with families. We like to eat out and we will pay the price , now or later...
I prepare my own pre-cooked or ready-to-cook meals, package them in individual serving portions and stack them in the freezer for future eating. This sharply curtails impulse buying at the grocery store and reduces waste. If I see something tempting when shopping, I just stop and remember the home-cooked goodies waiting for me at home in the fridge or freezer.
Actually, McDonalds has a decent cup of coffee.
A darn good latte...be
How about the Taco Bell Chicken soft tacos fresco style? What's in the chicken? Is it decent?
There'a good book about eating out that tells you the healthiest food son the menu...."E
Damn...can
Not to dis the restaurant industry, but how well do you know who prepares your food when you eat out? Do you know what you are eating?
No, you don't.
I have cooked every meal for myself for the last 6 months.
You can't really buy cheap healthy food without preparing it yourself.
A lot of unexplained illnesses in our society comes from bad diets and no exercise.
robbyj, I'm envious.
And please don't believe everything they peddle. Alot of foods labeled healthy are simply not. Many are loaded with carbs and sugar. Read labels, check everything. The simpler the product the better. Like plain corn flakes, regular oatmeal, Sometimes the fewer ingredients, the better.
Carbs aren't the enemy. If you don't eat any carbs your metabolism slows and you get fat. You have to fuel the engine.
I totally agree. I was thinking too many carbs or bad carbs.
I am currently on a low-carb diet and have lost 15 pounds in the past two months. No meal or snack must exceed 45 grams of carbohydrates. I've learned to read labels when grocery shopping and am actually enjoying the reduced intake of carbs. My energy level has soared and I don't miss what I used to consume. I certainly do not recommend a diet of no carbs, but reducing them is very beneficial. The worst carbs are the refined ones, like white bread, white sugar, bleached rice, and white pasta. Complex carbohydrates, like those found in whole grain items, are better.
I think that I shop better when I am hungry. Otherwise I have no interest in looking at food, and I am likely to leave the store empty-handed.
Nobody knows whats good to eat like someone with the munchies.
It depends on the individual. Some people go impatiently to the prepackaged stuff.
Other people need to be a little hungry to get a decent stash of fruits and veggies.
I always go through the produce section first when I'm hungry.
I would like to believe my family eats healthy. We buy staples and make most of our food from scratch, including bread. We always have tons of veggies and beans. Now....hav
I yelled at a family member today for eating there. I used to eat there when I was running 7 miles a day. It's still bad it makes your blood sugar crash.
We're like you. Except I don't make our bread (we buy Matthew's). I teach my kids that McDonald's and Burger King are "once in a while" foods. So once in a while I stop in and get them Happy Meals. With fries. We pass a McDonald's all the time and they barely even notice it or ask for it.
I have learned that the forbidden fruit is the sweetest. So we balance our healthy home-cooked meals with junk. That way, everyone's happy.
No harm in eating McDonald's every two months or so.
everything in moderation, right?
Why are people always giving McDonald's a bad rap? They don't make people order the supersized meals or add extra ketchup and mayo. I know it may boggle minds, but there are ways to go to McDonald's and eat a healthy meal. It's all about portion control. If you want a Big Mac, buy it but split it in half and give the other half to a friend that way you save on calories and take care of your craving. Burger King you can opt for the apple fries with the low fat caramel sauce instead of the real fries which are fantastic. Point is that you don't have to completely cut it out, you can eat half and be ok.
Read the book "Fast Food Nation" and you'll understand that it's not about what you eat at McDonalds, rather it's about supporting a cooperation that will do anything to make it's bottom line larger, that includes basically not giving a rats ass about what they put into the food.
The biggest culprit in the American diet is lack of portion control. Actually, McDonalds has some good items---eaters just need to learn to control themselves and make better choices.
i take the Shopping list with me , but I never ever stick to It (hubby does , but he rarely shops unless im too sick to go out ) i tend to buy more items than the stuff on my list . but nowadays i do shop healhty , and i go shopping after i have eaten . I avoid the bakery section and i refuse to look at desserts nowadays (trying hard to shop healthy and eat healhty )
My fridge is full of stuff , crammed with healhty stuff , i think I shop too much (and i shop daily too it is an addiction , i think, i tried to change it but very difficult .
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