The first question everyone asks us when we share what we're doing with them is "so how hard is it?"
It's ridiculously hard.
No, actually it's not. For some reason people think it takes a lot of time and effort to eat real food that we prepare ourselves. I wrote a post about time management over on Dog Island Farm that can give you a peek into just how much time we spend growing/raising food.
In all honesty, we do spend quite a bit of time preparing food, whether it's for dinner, or creating handmade snacks and baking. But I don't see it as spending too much time on it. What else are most people doing with their time? Watching TV? Playing video games? Surfing the internet?
I recently came across this article thanks to farmCurious. The premise is that studies have shown that the harder we work for food the better we perceive it tasting and therefore the more satisfying it is so we eat less of it. If you consider the obesity problem in the U.S. and how it correlates today to how accessible food, particularly unhealthy food, is to us now it make sense. We can just throw something pre-processed into a microwave or pick it up through the fast food drive thru window. We keep eating it because it's just not satisfying us.
There are other benefits to preparing our own food of course. We know what's in it. We can avoid corn, soy and all of their derivitives. No need to try and pronounce the names of the chemicals, preservatives, flavors or colors.
Another bonus is that I'm becoming a much better cook and baker. Nothing like actually doing it to learn how to become good at it.
So for us, the little bit of extra time we spend preparing meals is more than worth it.
Great post and how true it all is. We are one of those few and far between freakish families who eat together and prepare meals 3 times a day. I realize I am a dying breed. I'm always amazed at the millions of dollars we spend on ridiculous studies like the one that showed that children who eat dinner with their families do better in school. We have gotten so far away from common sense in so many areas in our society that we have a generations of kids who have no idea what hard work, good food and healthy relationships are all about.
ReplyDeleteThe premise is that studies have shown that the harder we work for food the better we perceive it tasting and therefore the more satisfying it is so we eat less of it
ReplyDeleteI agree with that statement except for the, "so we eat less of it". In our house it seems that I can never get a step up. Bake 2 loaves of bread really translates into Mom, you should have baked more bread we're out already.
In reality scratch cooking isn't as hard as people perceive it to be. What's hard IMHO is making the components like grinding grain to make the bread.
But see, they aren't the ones putting all the hard work into it, so they eat more. Have them help you and it might help make that bread last longer.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think if we teach our children and grands to cook they will realize that convenience food is not that convenient. Think about how easy it is to make your own salad dressing. or wedge cut potatoes. Can you believe that frozen ones are that much more convenient? It takes maybe 5 minutes to cut the potatoes!
ReplyDeleteMy grandkids love to try new recipes and I give them the choice of what to make. Their parents are so busy, but now their kids can make them dinner!
Change the world one kid at a time.