The Love in Your Food
The quick answer: At the end of the day, if you want to be healthy, you have to cook (or be on good terms with a cook). Cookin' is how the love gets into food.
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Little House on the Prairie
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), she of the Little House books about the homesteading era of her childhood, made a visit to her daughter in San Francisco in 1915. Her daughter, I surmise, had a home with running water, a gas stove, and maybe even an electric toaster. Laura is moved to exclaim: “Aladdin with his wonderful lamp had no more power than the modern woman in her kitchen . . .”
Yet this is the 20th century irony, seen clearly now in history’s rearview mirror: The more convenient kitchens became, the less they were used. Once you start down the laborsaving pathway, there’s no logical stopping point. The Industrial Revolution provided better kitchens, but it also provided an alternative to cooking—factory food. Whether the factory was a flourmill in Minnesota, or a fast food restaurant down the street, we slowly lost control of how food was made. Have you noticed how factory foods are more often addictive than healthy? It makes a good business.
Now in the 21st century we have a new goal: Use modern means to reinvent traditional home cooking. It’s a new menu now, more about soups (including stews and chili dishes) salads, vegetables, and whole-grain breads. It’s about fruits as our main sweet, and a little meat for flavor.
A Food Hero
In the last post we introduced Barbara Reed, PhD, once Chief Probation Officer for Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Drawing on her own experience with ill-health, Dr. Reed theorized that criminal behavior came from bad thinking and wondered if poor nutrition wasn’t more the cause of crime, than any inherent evil in young people. She started a program of testing young people entering probation, using tests that looked for hypoglycemia and lead exposure (both causes of bad decisions), but also assessed dietary habits. Based on their findings, young delinquents were counseled on diet, exercise, and given needed treatment.
This was an unusual approach. Concerns about crime in society have made harsher punishment a popular remedy but this hasn’t reduced recidivism. The United States, the land of the free, has the highest percent of jailed people in the world. Dr. Reed’s probationers were likely familiar with handcuffs but no one had taken them by the hand before and tried to understand the cause of their behavior. The exceptional results of her innovative program made her famous. While 2/3 of young criminals are typically back in jail within three years, only 11% of Dr. Reed’s kids got in trouble again.
So I consider Dr. Barbara Reed Stitt—she later married nutrition author Paul Stitt—a nutrition hero. And I love that her solution to crime was found in a kitchen, rather than a jail cell.
Staying Alive
In a prior post I told how my Mom—some years ago—remarked that her friends had all stopped cooking. They had worked hard in the kitchen all their lives and as their husbands retired from work, they retired from their kitchens. Now they ate out, or got some take out; they would warm food in the microwave but they didn’t cook. It didn’t take too long to see the result. Her friends and their husbands are all gone now, excepting one who has dementia. Mom, in her 90s, is still chugging along, managing her home, driving her car, organizing old pictures into scrapbooks, and exercising when she can. She’s cooking for one now, but she’s still cooking.
Saving Money
It’s often claimed that it’s cheaper to buy factory food than to cook your own. Don’t believe it. You’ll always save by buying whole foods and cooking them yourself. Fast food doesn’t save money—it just saves learning how to cook. I’m not even sure that fast food saves time, once you consider the time spent driving to and fro and waiting in line. And we haven’t counted the medical costs yet.
The Family Circle
Love is what glues a family together. And when families get together, it’s most often around the dinner table. While you’re sharing food, you share your lives. This is where the daily happenings are observed and celebrated. This is where traditions are born and preserved. And it’s where day by day we polish the bonds that bring us together.
Think back to your childhood. How many memorable moments happened around the family dinner table? The family I grew up in swelled to ten children but we never gave up the smallish dinner table with built-in benches on two sides. Dinnertime was the best part of the day. That’s when the daily cares were set aside and the family was safely together again.
The love within the family, I believe, begins with the love cooked into the daily meals. Cooking is a form of caring. Mom, or dad, busy in the kitchen, is a sign not only of something for dinner—it's assurance you’re a family.
Cooking 101
This year the weekly posts include a menu and a recipe. We’ll share 52 recipes that have this goal: Rediscover the traditional diet of our ancestors using the best of the modern improvements. For this reason we call them gateway recipes because they introduce us to the new dietary of Word of Wisdom living.
Please comment: Share what works best for you in home cooking. What are your best new ideas for cooking? How do you get your family to help with dinner?
Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.
Monday, March 12, 2012 at 2:23PM | by Skip Hellewell | 14 Comments | Share Article | in cooking, dinner, healthy change | Email Article 
Reader Comments (14)
Great post! I'm working on being healthier and making healthier choices for my family. One choice that I made early in my marriage was to not buy "mixes". I can honestly say that I try my hardest to make our food from scratch for the most part. I've never bought a bag of bisquick. I try make cakes from scratch, cornbread, and even occasionally homemade egg noodles. My mom taught me well ;). It is a lost art, but something that I'm so grateful that I caught onto early on. One of my latest home cooked meals that I'm happy to say is a constant is the granola recipe that you posted. We love that! It makes me happy to make my family granola from scratch. I'm living with my in laws right now while we are looking for a house and have taken over dinner. It's been a challenge for me to find stuff to make because everything is in a box or a bag. So I'm trying to convert my in laws, not sure if it will stick. But for now we are all eating good food made with love and it feels good!
As my children have become more aware of the difference between processed foods and home cooked foods, they have also developed an appreciation for home cooking. They served burritos as hot lunch at their school the other day (the microwaved variety) and we had home made burritos with beans I refried myself using tallow. My 3rd grader raved about my burritos to her friends as they ate the nuked stuff. They asked why she was always talking about my cooking/baking. I think she does it because she feels the love that comes in a home cooked meal. It is great to see the appreciation my children have for all the hard work I spend in the hot kitchen!
I'll have to think about your questions but had to smile when I read this post because we believe in love in home cooking so much that we often list it as an ingredient when our kids ask what's in something we've made and now they'll list it too!
This is my favorite post of yours so far! I've been reading for a long while now and have shared your site with others. We love Katie's Granola. Thank you so much for sharing it. And for all your thoughtful posts!!!
Our youngest is 2. She helps in the kitchen by taking the veggie scraps and mixing it into her own bowl of "soup." Adding S&P here & there. She doesn't eat it but is getting a good experience in the kitchen - homemade food love.
I used to hurry and get the table all set and everything ready before the grandkids arrived for Sunday dinner...now I wait so that they can set and get chairs and pour water...etc. They can really put away the food too!
We just tried a recipe for baked oatmeal - with fruit and nuts and sort of a custard over the top. When we get it perfected, we will share. Trying new recipes is always fun and a topic of conversation at the dinner table - "try this next time or it needs a different seasoning or..." etc.
Learning to cook and stop using the convenience foods was difficult at first. When I was newly married I made awesome sandwiches and spaghetti and fried rice. That was about it. I had to call my mom to learn how to make a casserole. Cooking never interested me very much when I was a teenager so I never paid attention! I've come a very long way in 8 years. All I have to say is Thank God for Youtube, Google and my mom!!!
The first thing I learned from youtube was how to truss a chicken and the second thing was how to cook stir fry, the third was how to not overcook pork. I think I'll always remember those first three things. I first took a trembling step into baking only last year because of the bread recipe on this blog. Now I'm trying to figure out how to make pasta. Thanks for all you do skip. I love to read and re-read all your posts. They make me think about how I could do things just a bit better.
I love that idea! It is amazing to think and see the changes our world--even just our own communities--would see if more people to care in preparing yummy wholesome food. It is simple enough to see that good food propels us to having more energy to get out and do things. This helps us to feel happier, to actually be happier! It is very simple. Some things we are trying in our own home (with two little kids) to eat good food but still keep it easy prep and less time is to have a weekly scheduled meal. For example, our girls favorite dinner is chicken crepes so that has become Sunday dinner every week. One night we have fish, one night we have left overs and one night we do breakfast for dinner. It makes menu planning and shopping simple. Prep is easy and a lot of stuff can be cooked in larger batches and saved for later use.
I don't agree that modern time savers are a slippery slope. There is a lot to be said for labor saving kitchen appliances. Some of my household appliances give me the ability to do the healthy cooking I desire. With two small kids, an electric wheat grinder enables me to make homemade bread, my food processor helps me slice vegetables so that they can be the main ingredient, and my bread mixer frees up my hands to help my kids. Without those devices I'm sure I wouldn't make homemade whole grain bread or have as many veggie packed meals. They don't change my resolve to eat healthy and not give into "mixes" and processed foods. Maybe you have the time and free hands to grind wheat and knead dough by hand, but I don't.
An older mother recommended putting dishes in a bottom drawer so my 2 year old can help with setting the table. I did it and now she loves doing that. She also helps unload the dishwasher. At 2 years old, it warms my hearts that she knows every night we have "dinnow time!" with all four of us, at the table, at once. I hope I can keep it up! My big struggle is getting her to eat vegetables. My hope is that she'll eventually catch on that this is just how we eat. Any tips on getting little kids to eat vegetables without trauma?
Jodi, what a wonderful idea, to put the dishes down where the children can reach them to set the table for dinner. About those laborsaving devices: I really am wary of them for there truly is no logical stopping place once you start down that slippery path of avoiding use of muscles. Perhaps you're distinguishing between laborsaving and time-saving. Some devices save serious time that can be better spend, as with your children. That's wise; they'll soon be gone.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Sacramento, a drive of 450 miles. We'll take the car and be there the same day, but I could get there in three weeks walking, or one week riding my bike. The car is a big time saver. On the other hand, we have a food processor, but I'm never sure that I save time once I get it out, figure out which attachments I need and how they fit together, and then get it cleaned up and put back away when done. It's a nifty toy, but may be more justified in a restaurant. I think an electric wheat grinder would be 10 or 15 minutes quicker than my hand grinder. But I need an hour of serious muscular activity each day so all thing considered, I save time by combining exercise with milling wheat.
Bottom line, there's something of the Amish approach to farming in this that's worth reflecting upon. Each person has to figure out what works best for them. But I think as a society we must thoughtfully reevaluate all those motorized toys for the house and kitchen. Hey, did you hear there's a car now that will parallel park itself? Best wishes.
Skip, I love the way you write - it comes from the heart and that is absolutely clear. Ever since I discovered your blog it's been an inspirational read, and a necessary one when things aren't so hot and the day just goes pear shaped.
I've never struggled with excess weight, however looking back at my lifestyle before getting married it hasn't been the healthiest one (all due to lack of awareness). My family never made food something of value - it was more the thing that kept us alive :) (although i must say the generic diet in Russia - where I grew up - 20-30 years ago was still a pretty good one compared to other places. I realized that after living in the States for 12 months when I was 16 - what a change!)
My husband however grew up in a family where the entire family gathered for dinner (precisely at 5:30pm) with great wholesome home-cooked meals made every night. It must have created such a strong basis that after a few bachelor years he just had to learn how to cook because spaghetti out of a can just wouldn't cut the mustard! :) He taught me that having lots of veggies cooked into a meal is a must, and I am so grateful!
Now with two little ones (4 & 2 yo) and observing other families with children we find just how important it is to start them off right. We may have been lucky to have two kids that aren't fussy about food (although they both have preferences), or it may have paid off that they simply didn't know what processed food and drink taste like.
It's a concern however that as they get older and start visiting friends' homes they'll be - and already have to a point - exposed to highly processed, sugary, artificially flavored foods, but I just hope that the head-start we've given them and the passion for cooking, bread-making and growing our own - that both me and my husband share - will lean them towards better choices later on in life.
Here! Here! I just have to tell you....I LOVE your blog. I so enjoy reading everything you write. And share many articles with others. Thank you , thank you.
Every night around the dinner table, we ask our 3 daughters "what was your favorite part of the day?" Most of the time, their answer is "right now." :)
I've noticed something in my own journey. I use to lean on convenience foods alot. Mom raised us on canned soup based casseroles (which I think were great in the fact that we ate very little meat that way), and I took it from there. The thing I'm realizing is that when I leaned on the convenience foods, I hated cooking, and the more I leaned on them, the more I hated cooking.
This year we made the switch to a more vegetarian diet, cutting back seriously on the meat we eat. I've also cut back on the convenience foods over the last couple years. No more canned soups (homemade instead), for example. I'm making more and more things from scratch and spending lots of time looking for good meatless recipes. The thing I'm finding is...the more I use real, natural foods, the more I enjoy cooking.
I forgot the part about how to get the family to help. When my children were younger I tried to have them help make dinner. Get one of them and me in the kitchen together so we could work together and they would, hopefully, learn as we went. As they grew, the lessons became more complex, until they have been able to take over and do all the cooking when it's their turn. Now they are teens the lessons include menu planning and grocery shopping. My goal has always been to prepare them to live on their own. Two sons have successfully lived as bachelors for 2+ years and are comfortable in the kitchen. Both made bread while serving missions for the church. Son number three and our daughter are well on their way to being comfortable in the kitchen.