Monday, September 15, 2008

Food 4 Thought...

A week or so ago, I asked for bag lunch ideas and on the go breakfasts. I got about 34 responses. Unfortunately, most of them were admissions of despair or confessions of a love of buying lunch. Yet, some were suggestions! Yeah! So, now I am on a mission to beat the lunch lady wars: in the .003% of my day that I have time to squeeze this into. I'm going to reference the comments in a future post and research some answers myself! Stay tuned. (Long term.) There WILL be experiments at my house. Watch out, family!

I'm also thinking, after reading reports on hurricane victims, that we all need to have our own Emergency Food and Water stash, that can help us survive a week or so instead of 3 days. It seems like you'd want to cram the most nutrition into the smallest space AND be pretty easy to store. So, what of the fad for super foods? Every week there seems to be some new miracle food out there that will cure all ills. I'm sure they are healthy, but isn't it pretty gimmicky?? Are these really just ads for barley growers or whatever the latest craze is?

And now, a few questions on food in your life. What kinds of food do you like to eat the most? What are your comfort foods? How important is nutrition to you? How important are fresh foods to you or how important are processed foods to your life? I often think our culture is just a bit bizarre. We have unprecedented wealth, and excess amounts of food. We waste food all the time. My fridge is truly a scary place. We throw away perfectly good food all the time too. But we as a people in general are really bad about eating healthy. It's as if the availability of unhealthy but yummy foods is impossible for us to resist as a nation. Ironically, really healthy fresh food is often pretty expensive. How much do you think diet has to do with our different physical, mental and behavioral ills? And why don't we take better care of ourselves?

Recently, I saw a discovery show about food. This "expert" was spouting out food advice. It was pretty much just common sense. One interesting comment was that if great grandma didn't know what it was, it probably wasn't healthy. Well, yes and no. Great grandma didn't travel around the world, she knew what was healthy in her own backyard. Also, things like lard were used which are supposedly taboo now. Is it because our lifestyles are also so much more sedentary? Really, more consideration should be made with that in mind when talking diet. In general, though, maybe it's not a bad rule of thumb. It eliminates Twinkies and all. In the end, Mr. know it all said something I just found so silly, I can't forget it-"It's up to YOU the EATERS to defend FOOD!" I'm not sure I can put into words how that just seems to sum up our bizarre popular culture. Any help? What do you make of that?

11 comments:

Pancake said...

I LOVE steamed veggies. LOVE LOVE, and my teenaged son cant get enough veggies that way! (So my suggestion if you dont have a steamer, try one) Love grilled fish! But, dont get me wrong.. I love my choc!

4boyzmdmom said...

I'm not sure what that guy meant about defending food. I think one thing you said was right on the nose...we have too many unhealthy, convenient options out there. For me, I like junk food once in a while--really like salty things like chips--but I prefer healthy food most of the time. The problem is...healthy food often takes more time. And it can be expensive! It's just easier (and cheaper) to make some mac & cheese from the box or to boil some hot dogs. I love fresh fruit and vegetables, but they wreak havoc on my food budget. In the summer, especially, I buy lots of the yummy fresh fruit that's available. It's healthy, but not for my budget! Why can't they make healthy food more affordable? As far as time goes...well, being over scheduled is one of the big difficulties in our society. I think I am much less "over scheduled" than a lot of people, and it's still hard to take the time to really cook every day. (And I feel guilty that my kids are going to grow up to be untalented people with no interestes or self esteem, because I don't have them signed up for very many activities....) To top it off, most of the things we are so busy doing are not offering us real exercise. I've never heard of anyone losing weight from driving their kids to lots of activities! Too bad driving doesn't burn any calories!

MamaGeek @ Works For Us said...

I recently read that bestseller In Defense of Food and have since tried to change our ways.

But I'm not sure what to make of that!:)

Gloria said...

For health reasons I have eliminated most processed food and do my grocery shopping from the outer perimeter of the grocery stores. I would rather spend my money on fresh fruit and vegetables, hopefully avoiding illnesses that require costly medications.

We're getting better at gardening and growing our own veggies. Next year we plan to increase the size of our garden.

Warm Regards!

mommeeof10 said...

My kids go through unbelievable amounts of fresh fruit. I know they waste some, but they eat most of it. 15 pounds of apples a weeek, minimum, plus a large box of naval oranges from costco (28 large oranges), 6 pounds of grapes, bananas, a whole watermelon, etc. They don't like most vegetables, at least not cooked. I rarely buy junk food, except for the frozen meatballs or chicken nuggets for those nights hubby cooks. If there are only healthy foods in the house, they will eat healthy stuff.

Jennifer @ Fruit of My Hands said...

We are trying to get the processed stuff out of our diets and increase our fresh produce and whole grains. Trying.

Gerb said...

I'm finally starting my "bagged lunches" series... or whatever you want to call it... on my blog. Check it out! And I can't wait to see what else you've come up with re: lunches.

Anonymous said...

great post Shellie!!!! :)

i love food so much...i will DEFEND food!!!!

The Cranes said...

I have no idea what Mr. Know-it-all was trying to say. Funny, I was thinking about food recently because of my talk with the nurtition person at Jeremy's dr. appt. She suggested I substitue "whole wheat" pasta for the regular kind. I was thinking about this and wondering why in order to be healthy, we have to eat "healthy" stuff that didn't exist in my grandmother's day. The regular pasta was fine for them, why not for us? But then I thought that perhaps we need that stuff now because of all the other stuff like twinkies that we have now and they didn't have then and also because we are so much more sedentary than they were.

Carrie and Troy Keiser said...

My biggest problem with food is that the good for ya stuff costs twice as much as the junk! I'm sure it's a conspiracy !

Unknown said...

Some of my favorite power foods that can be stored well for emergencies are nuts and dried fruits.