Another Reason To Cook

Tufts has just release information from a study that shows restaurants average understating caloric values of their foods by 18%, but some items were under by 200%.   The same study shows frozen foods consistently being understated by 8%.  http://nutrition.tufts.edu/docs/pdf/releases/100106_Calorie.pdf

Add this information to what David Kessler has already told us about what the food industry is doing to restaurant and packaged food (I call it pre-digesting), you have a very strong case to stay home and COOK.

Of course, cooking doesn't mean opening a can, or plopping a frozen dinner in the microwave.   It doesn't mean opening a plastic tube of boiled egg whites.  Yes - can you believe it, we can't even boil our own eggs now.

Cooking is not hard.  It can be complex if you want it to be, but it doesn't have to be.  My partner and I have a home cooked meal every night.   During the week he spends, at most, an hour on prep.  Usually its' about 30 minutes.   We have roasted chicken,  hamburger steaks, steamed broccoli, braised brussel spouts, mashed potatoes, etc. on a routine basis.   On the weekend, every now and then, we'll have a more complex dish.  But the ingredients are whole, real food.

I typically make my own yogurt.  We make our own salad dressing.  I'm considering making my own peanut butter.   Sometimes we even make our own butter!

Those are weekend chores when there's more time.  But the sense of satisfaction I gain from knowing that I've made myself a staple food (yogurt) is worth the time.   I don't need to worry about what guar gum is.  Or why carrageenan  is in my yogurt.   Those are mild additives.  But I get worried when I start seeing yogurt packaged in plastic and branded Go-gurt.   What have they done to this pure, wholesome food?

Anyway, that's my rant for the day: Let's COOK. Real food.