Interesting thread .. as a child in the 50's I had a stay at home mom who loved "processed food", she never met a can she did not like. Now she did have a couple or more of good dishes that she could cook ie: her stuffed cabbage, chicken and dumplings, paprikash (sp?) but I always thought a cake was "betty in a box". She never baked from scratch except on holidays, and even her stuffing was premix.

Nope, for her it had nothing to do with the "women's movement" :)

OTOH, I have always cooked .. even as a young woman, and tried to interest my children in these skills. They are just not interested, unless of course I cook/bake it.

LOL! This is getting to be one of those classic GW threads! The news was so ugly today that a little CF tonic really helped.

: )
lyra

This is just my opinion, OK? Not mad at anybody.

I am not a purist by any means, but I just don't see that it takes much time to hardboil and peel an egg. ;) I prefer my hardboiled eggs to have their shells intact until right before I'm ready to use them. And I abhor things that come in extra packaging. If you carefully place your refrigerated eggs into a saucepan so as not to crack the shells, then cover them with hot water out of your tap and then put them on to boil, they will be easy to peel when you are ready to do so. I would never buy an already peeled egg. Did whoever peeled it wash their hands first? How long has it been since the egg was cooked? Was the egg dipped into some kind of chemical after peeling to retard spoilage? Too many questions for me.

I am a member of the middle class, but I am not a "have not". (and it kind of saddens me to see people labeled as "have nots".) I have what I choose to have. I do, however, see a lot of people using food stamps to pay for convenience food. The "Haves" are not the people to whom this stuff is marketed. The "Haves" pay someone to shop and to cook for them, or go to restaurants to eat, and either way, those people who cook for them cook from scratch.

Middle and Lower income citizens are the marketing target of pre-prepared food. Marketers try to change attitudes about cooking so that less people will do it, and they can charge more for less food and litter the country with all their little containers and boxes. Not everyone has access to a recycling center and when they do, not all of these products may be accepted. The educated as well as the uneducated fall prey. The educated get the message, "your time is worth so much more than anyone elses" and the uneducated get the message, "Cooking is hard and this is easy and doesn't really cost any more than buying all those spices." Marketers message to kids is, "Everybody buys these and if you don't have them you'll be DIFFERENT". We're being brainwashed and have been for so many years we don't even notice it any more.

Using convenience food is worth it if you're actually using that time to generate income. Since nobody spends 100% of their time actually generating income it's kind of hard to say that ALL your time is worth what you earn per hour. A better way to compute it would be to take what you earn per day and then divide that by, say, 16, or however many awake hours you have in a 24-hour period. Oh, and then you'd have to factor in weekends somehow. I've done a lot of time studies where I used to work, and have come up with a lot of time-savings plans. Do you know what most employers say to you when you come to them with plans to save time? They say something to the effect that the employees will just use that extra time to surf the internet or something and they are not interested. Talk to them about saving money, and then they listen. Saving time is only important to employers if it means they can eliminate an employee. In your kitchen, you usually don't have that opportunity.

There are times when "convenience food" IS less expensive than "the real thing". The first thing that comes to mind is boxed macaroni and cheese. To make the real thing is a lot more expensive because you're using real cheese. But you're also not feeding your family artificial coloring and flavoring. Still, kids love it and college kids exist on it.

I guess what I'm saying is that, with all convenience food, you are paying a bigger price of some kind. And yes, there are things that I buy that my grandmother probably didn't. I can do so, but I usually don't make my own pasta. I grow a garden and have a few fruit trees, but I do buy some canned vegetables and fruits. I buy strawberries in season and freeze them myself. I bake my own pies. I do buy sandwich bread and hamburger/hotdog buns during the summer because it's too hot to run the oven. But in the winter I bake those myself. I do not buy canned cream soups as they are nothing more than white sauce, flavored with chicken, mushroom or celery. I can easily whip up my own while the pasta cooks. I do buy some boxed cereals, but not the sugary, green-pink-yellow kind. I make my own pickles and jams. All this, and I am a reasonably intelligent person and I live as well as I want to. I have worked outside of my home for most of the time that I have been raising my family. My daughter and my son both know how to cook. So what do you think? Am I a "Have" or a "Have Not"?

I don't find working in the kitchen to be drudgery. I enjoy it. And I don't think I'm alone in this, otherwise why would this forum be here? I enjoy the idea of preparing food for myself and my family that is free of chemicals, trans fats, artificial colors and flavors, and high-fructose corn syrup. I have raised children and grand-children on my good home cooking and they have all had friends that have loved to come to my house to eat.

My grandmother worked in a candy factory, hand dipping chocolates. She was an excellent cook and proud of it. She was a single mother. To take to work a hard-boiled egg she'd bought already peeled, a bagel full of artificial colors and flavorings and chemicals to retard spoilage, and orange juice made from concentrate in a cardboard box or plastic bottle would not have appealed to her and probably would've made her a laughing stock amongst the other women. Oh, yeah, I can almost see her reaction to it. (she had a great sense of humor)

ilene, you just brought up another of my issues, the over packaging of all that convenience food. I do recyle anything that the recycling center will take, but what the heck do I do with all those ziplock bags? At least my homecanned vegetables use the same jars, year after year. I'm still using some of Grandma's, at least 30 years old. When they break or chip, I can recycle them too.

You did bring to mind one of my grandkids' favorite treats: Lunchables. Now where the heck did these come from and how hard is it to give your kid a slice of cheese, a slice of ham and some crackers? Sigh.

Yes, I know. I'm hopelessly out of touch, far too concerned about the environment and all the herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and other "cides" we're dumping into our bodies and the bodies of our children and grandchildren, even our pets. If it means spending more of my time doing whatever I can to protect my family and my world, then I spend it. That's MY lifestyle choice and I don't expect anyone else to do it or think they are better/worse than I am because they don't.

However, this is America (at least it is where I live) and everyone is entitled to my opinion, LOL, so I will try to convince everyone who will listen to buy their food locally, support their local farmer, try to go as organic as possible and stop drinking bottled water. (grin)

Oh, and I intend to NEVER buy my grandkids Lunchables, no matter how much they want them. I can usually distract them with a swim in the pool (good exercise), a walk to the playground (more good exercise, mostly for me, LOL), and the prospect of baking a batch of oatmeal cookies. Hey, we've got to keep up our strength somehow, after all that good exercise.

And I still can't think of a single good use for a canned (not pickled) cucumber.

Annie

I just have to comment that I really wish that I had learned how to cook when I was younger -- I was raised by my grandmother, who was a wonderful cook. Why didn't I learn from her when I had the chance?? Now that I'm trying to learn how to do it, it's a bit of a struggle. I've been subsisting on prepackaged meals, and very simple things (pasta, scrambled eggs, etc) that can be cooked with minimal effort for years.

I made a vow earlier this year to try to stop eating so much prepackaged crap, which has involved signing up with a CSA, and learning how to deal with vegetables that I've never seen before in my life. And cripes...there are things that are required of me in recipes that I have no clue what I'm supposed to do. All these terms that seem so obvious to the recipe writer, but I'm totally clueless. Thank god for this forum, and for the internet in general -- it's made the learning process a lot easier! We're at the point right now where I'm making a dinner from scratch with fresh vegetables (we're vegetarian) 2 - 3 times a week. I'm pretty happy with that -- it doesn't feel like I'm slaving in the kitchen every night (doing it every night would just be too darn hard for me, after a day at work), and yet it's often enough that we're not constantly eating prepackaged crap.

And I have to say, my husband gets so darn excited at having real food for dinner, besides TV dinners. A few of my dinners so far have not turned out well, but he'll still eat them. And since I make it, he gets to do the dishes :)

rivkadr: There is a wonderful book that is out of print but frequently available in used book stores. The Kitchen Primer, by Craig Claybourne. He was a wonderful food writer for the NY Times in the 70s (and probably earlier). The book was given to me when I was first married. Besides learning what a lot of those annoying recipe words meant,I made my first souffle from it, following the step-y-step directions. That was a New Years Day accomplishment that impressed my husband, his sophisticated city friends and most of all myself.

It is really worth the search to find that book.

The Washington Post's Food Section this week had an article pointing out that our buying frozen fish produces a fraction of the emissions (IIRC, one tenth) than buying fresh fish because fresh fish is usually flown in. That same article said that the amount of greenhouse gas from transporting our food is larger than that produced by our cars.

While I do not know if the article is accurate, it is food for thought. How much of those fresh "real things" we buy are brought in from a considerable distance so we can have them available out of season? If we were going to make our food choices solely based on environmental factors, we'd have to limit ourselves to what's in-season locally or else use canned and dried foods because they are environmentally kinder than refrigerated and frozen products.

Back to those peeled hard-cooked eggs, which fascinate me even though I haven't actually seen them (or more likely noticed, since I don't spend much time in supermarkets) yet. It's hard to imagine that they would use more packaging than raw ones. Since they wouldn't be as fragile I would assume less packaging, less wasted space in shipping, less need for careful handling. Add to that saving the cost of fuel and water for cooking (and washing the pot and storage container afterwards), it's possible that the cost is competitive even if you don't put a value on the cook's time.

If it's only about money, it isn't just whether you'd be earning it with the time saved, but also if you could use that time to spend less. Do you pay others to change your oil or repair your car? Paint your house? Clean your house? Trim your trees? Cut your lawn? Cut your hair? Clean your gutters? Hem your pants? If you do any of these -- and how many of us don't? -- the increased cost of buying convenience foods is small compared to what we are paying to not have to do these other things ourselves.

If environmental and economic issues are not the whole story, I'll ask again: what makes some processed foods appropriate while others are appalling? Why is it okay to buy pre-ground wheat berries (AKA flour) but not pre-shredded cheese? What makes some chemical additives bad while others (such as those in ham or bacon) acceptable? What's inherently wrong with buying a package of the exact amount of what you need for a recipe rather than having to make several stops in the store, and then deal with extra perishables at home?

As far as I know, those peeled hard boiled eggs are found in places where people need something to eat on the run and are packaged 1 or 2 in a pack. I don't think they are found in a typical supermarket or meant to be served at home. You know, when you are about to get on an airplane or sit through a presentation at a conference or a meeting late in the afternoon. I rather like that there are things for grab and go that are essentially healthy actual food. An egg packs a lot of nutrition. Sure it is nice to pack and carry a nourishing meal from home, but if you are staying in a hotel or conference center or about to board the train or plane, an individually wrapped hard boiled egg is an excellent option. And that is my less than humble opinion!

I grew up in the 40's and 50s'...I remember getting our first TV set and Kulka Fran and Ollie on Dumont, to New York on the coaxial cable...that's the time frame I am dealing with.
Some of my friends had workign mothers....in fact before 1946 or so...almost everyone's mom worked....either in the Curtis Wright plant or as a teacher or in a hospital or a Dr's office or a desk clerk in the police office etc...men were in short supply and women filled in.
AND....without any exceptions, every woman, everyone's mother could put a meal on the table. No one's mom picked up something on the way home! Sure we sometimes had "Deli" for Sunday night supper, but on a daily basis everyone's mother cooked.
Then came TV dinners, pizza parlors with take oput...Chinese take out. But all those things were a huge luxury. It was a splurge to pay for Chinese take out....or for a TV Dinner! The Dad in one family we were close to was a VP in the Waldorf Hotel and cafeteria chain (that was after he got out tf the navy during the War) and she was not much of a cook at all, because he always brought restraunt food home....even to a whole roast turkey at holidays...but that was the exception.
Food cooked outside of the home was expensive! No matter that mom worked and didn't get home until 6, dinner was not from a box nor was it from the Chinese place on the corner. That was an expensive luxury that we didn't often indulge in.
Now somewhere along the way, we have become "Privileged"! We no longer want to eat food we have prepared, it has nothing to do with time. I can put a quick dinner on the table in about the time it would take you to go get a take out dinner. I can put a piece of meat in a fry pan. slice up some veggies on top, slurp on a bit of wine and sprinkle some herbs, put a potato into the micro and have dinner in about the same time it would take to open a tray of frozen some whole meal or another....perhaps a very little more time, but the cost would be less than half....and the tasteis 4 times as good.
I think wes tarted with the prepared stuff because "we were worth a treat"....and then, 2 generations later, instead of people feeling they are "worth" a precooked meal....they feel it's the usual thing....and the meal from scratch is special.
60 years ago, pre-prepared food was special because it cost money. Today homecooked food is special because it costs time.
We have more time today that 60 years ago when we washed clothes by wringer washer and hung them out and didn't have non-stick pans, nor cell phones. When the speed limit was 50 MPH and almost all lawn mowers had to be pushed, there weres till 24 hours in a day. People didn't telecommute. Where I lived, people left home at 7 to get to the city and didn't get home until 6...if they had a basic office job.
Yeah, people are busier these days.....doing what????
Linda C

What a great bio lindac. I love hearing about the old days - no offense. I think more older people should talk about what things used to be like.

As to what are people doing these days. All I can tell you is that I live in a small town outside of a large city. I don't work currently but I used to and hubby still does. I would leave my house at 6:15 and not get back until 6:30 on a good day. Throw in an accident or rain and it would take longer. My husband gets up at 4:30 a.m. leaves at 5:30 a.m. and is home by about 5:30 p.m. most days. His commute is easier because he's ahead of the main rush. Back when I worked, Saturdays were spent running errands, grocery shopping, etc. And Sundays were spent working in the yard, cleaning house, and making a few meals for the week that I could add to or turn the left overs into something else.

Even when I worked 40 - 50 hours a week plus the commute I've always cooked every day. Now, let's look at that a bit closer... I don't have children to shuffle to every soccer game, ballet class etc. And I can't imagine doing all of the housework, laundry, cooking, working AND kid related things. But, in the old days, you had to have clean clothes, etc., so you just made yourself do it. These days, women don't have to. If they can cut some time they do. But, even most women I know who don't have kids and live in apartments won't cook. Most women I know that are my age (30's) seem to find cooking demeaning. Like they are a slave to their man or something. This may just be a phenomenon in the area where I live, I don't know. But, it is definitely a cultural attitude here.

My point is that it all depends on where you live and how things are in that area. I love cooking and always have. For me it is not only a way to save money (and time, for us, we live so far out and have always had different schedules... To drive 30 min. to the nearest restaurant is more trouble than cooking at home.) It is also a way to travel and experience different cultures right in my own kitchen. And reading through an "exotic" cookbook that talks about the culture is the next best thing to going when you don't have the time or money to do so. I also view cooking as an art form, that is rapidly dying, so I feel strongly about encouraging people to do it. I hate to think that some day all of the traditional dishes of the world will have disappeared and only micro wave stuff and McDonalds will remain. And I agree that we have far too many additives in our food these days. Although, the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way and I hope it continues.

So, I will never be able to fully comprehend how life was back in the day. But, I can understand how working mom's just don't have it in them at the end of the day when ready made food is right there for the taking. I've chosen to live a different way and I applaud all others who do so as well. Like you said, we can all just whip up a meal quickly or put something in the oven and walk away. It's not like we have to stand there for 3 hours. But so many people just don't understand that. I wish more did...

Just my 2 c.

Every generation sees the conveniences of the next one as signs of laziness and loutishness. But really, we are so much better off than our grandparents. There are choices available to us that were not even imagined even as recently as the 1940s (yes the 40s are the recent past). We can go around the world in a day or stay home and watch it on TV in real time. I can talk to my 3 sisters and my mother (west coast, east coast and other side of the world)all at once on Skype while I make dinner. I can get home at 6:15, defrost a whole chicken by 6:45, roast it with potatoes by 7:45, in the meantime steam a bunch of asparagus and toss together a fresh salad, pour a glass of wine and eat. The dishes can be in the dishwasher by 8:15. Or I can stop on the way home and pick up a few things in containers, eat at 6:30 and spend the rest of the evening sewing, reading, going to a movie, visiting a friend, helping my kids with homework(but they are all grown so that is no longer necessary)attending a class or a meeting at my synagogue... I get to choose. Can someone please tell me what is wrong with that?

My main objection to convenience foods (apart from their relatively high cost compared to from scratch cooking and their often "fake" taste) is the amount of chemicals in them. I prefer to limit my chemical intake, though I know it's not entirely avoidable unless I go totally organic. There's also a shipload of salt in most of those, as well as hidden sugar. Apparently we are eating so much in the way of preservatives that people don't decompose as quickly as they used to. Food for thought.
It's all down to personal choice though. If you want to kick back and have a convenience food dinner, that's fine (but don't invite me that evening :-) ).

Try having a kid with A.D.D. and the doctor tells you to eliminate artificial flavors and colors and other additives. What can your kid eat? Next to nothing. Can he eat in the school cafeteria? No. Can he buy something out of the vending machine? No. So, because it is so difficult and it makes your child feel like an outcast, you end up putting him on medication, which increases his blood pressure and heart rate and who knows what the long-term result will be? And this is not the only example. High fructose corn syrup is in practically everything. They are finding, now that we've all had a steady diet of it for years and years, that it contributes to obesity because it inhibits the ability to know when you are full and increases your appetite for more sugar. Some states in our country are now banning trans fats, which has been in convenience and fast food for years. These are all valid arguments and none of them have anything to do with money.

But, in our country, doesn't everything, eventually, come down to money? Many, but not all, people are poor because they don't know how to get the most out of what money they have, how to save, and how to resist marketing techniques. Everyone would live better if they had these three abilities, even the well-to-do. Think of all the good that could be done with the money that is blown on self-indulgence in our country. But, ah, that's another soapbox.

I agree with Colleen, and I'm on the same track with Linda. Mimsic, I understand what you're saying. And trsink, I get what you're saying, too. Livingthedream, I guess what you're saying is, how does one determine where to draw the line? I don't pay someone to clean my house, do my gardening, wash my car, etc., etc. I do pay someone to change my oil because the difference in cost is not that much and I don't want to skinny under my car and get oil in my eyes. BUT, if the cost went up to twice what it would cost for me to do it myself, I'd do it. I cut my own hair and that of my grandson and husband, although there are times when I will pay someone to put in a perm or repair a mistake I've made on my own head (cause I can't see the back! LOL). But this is not about the money, or about convenience. I do know people who grind their own wheat. In order to grind my own wheat, I'd have to have a source for wheatberries that would be cheaper than buying flour, and I'd have to have a wheat grinder. If flour gets to be expensive, I will probably look further into that. But as of right now, wheatberries aren't available to me except by mail. Then I'm paying shipping, too. However, to grate my own cheese doesn't require anything but a 99-cent grater and I'm able to find cheese in block form in my local grocery store, for less per pound than the grated stuff. So maybe where the line is, depends on availability of the base product and the cost of equipment to prepare it or the level of expertise necessary to know how. And I don't buy ham or bacon often because of the chemicals. Pork roast and pork loin are always in my freezer, though. Another factor would be in how often you have to do something. I need to change my oil only periodically. But I need to cook daily.

Rivkadr, I can see that if one has never learned how to cook, doing so can be a little daunting. But often it is because "newbies" actually think it's harder than it is. There are some things that are hard, like making a souffle or a two-crust pie, or a seven-layer cake. I'm here to tell you that most of my cooking is not like that. I don't sift flour, I don't always saute, when I bake a cake it's usually in a 9x11 cake pan, and I frost it and serve it right out of the pan. I do like to cream the shortening, egg and sugar together when making cookies, but I discovered when I made cookie mix in a jar one year that even that is not absolutely necessary in turning out a product that's as good or better than something you can buy. I do a lot of tossing things together in a skillet, or in a casserole. If you're interested, I could share some of my family's favorites, that are also easy, either by posting here or you could e-mail me. I bet others could do the same. The rules would be ease of preparation, good-tasting, no expensive ingredients, no fancy equipment required.

Things ARE different now than they were when I was a kid in the 1950's and 1960's. We lived in a small town and I wasn't on any teams, I don't even know if they had organized sports for kids in our area then, other than that offered by the school. I went to church and youth group and the Friday night ball games at school and I was on the pep-squad. I walked there, or rode my bike, usually with several others that lived along the way. If we had a game out of town, the school bussed the pep-squad and the team there. My mother would never have even considered driving me to the next town so I could chase a ball around with a bunch of other kids, let alone put her life on hold for my social life. (ah, but that's another soapbox too! ;)

Heck, I don't care if anybody wants to buy a peeled egg, and I do see their place. But I don't see how making your own can be that expensive. I can get six eggs in a small saucepan, cover them with water and boil them for five minutes. How much energy does that take? I don't have to stand there and watch them while they cook. When they're done they go on the counter to cool, five of them go in the fridge for later and one gets dropped in the pocket in the front of my tote bag. The shell keeps it clean and pure till I'm ready to eat it. The pan, well it's just had boiling water in it, you could just wipe it out and put it away if you wanted to.

I don't think that cooking is demeaning. I think that having to work when you'd rather stay home is demeaning. I worked for some years because I wanted to, and then I worked for some years because I HAD to. We could not afford for me to stay home. It's a luxury to me to be able to stay home, putter around in my kitchen and garden. I feel really blessed to be able to do it. If I wake up with a cold I don't have to call anyone and make excuses, wondering if they believe me, and know that if I'm not better in two days I've got to go to the doctor whether I need to or not so I can get a release to prove I was actually sick. If I want to stay up late and watch a movie on TV I can, and then the next day I can sleep late or have a nap in the middle of the day. What makes staying home and taking care of your family demeaning when going to work for some stranger, who pays you only a small portion of what he makes as a result of your labors, is not?

This has been a fun discussion and I'm really proud of all of us that we've been nice to each other and all. Truly, we older gals have a different perspective on things. But this is a good bunch and if y'all weren't interested in cooking, face it, you wouldn't be visiting this forum. ;) --Ilene

Its having the choice that matters most in this whole thing. Remember that ad for Mounds Bars or Almond Joys: "sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't" - well, sometimes you (some people) feel like cooking, sometimes you (some people) don't. Good for us that there are lots of alternatives when we don't or can't. And that's all there is to it.

FYI - those already peeled, hard cooked eggs are in sturdy plastic see-thru containers and they are in the egg case along with their raw brethren. Usually 4 or 6 in a carton? This is in an upscale Harris Teeter store in my mid-sized town.

And to save money and the environment, I wash by hand most of my plastic bags, especially the heavy freezer bags. I hang them up to dry in the laundry room and I re-use and re-use them until they get a hole or tear in them. I'm sure there are some of you that can't imagine doing that, but it is a little thing I can do.

Lunchables - my kids used to beg me to buy them for their lunches. One time I did. They came home so hungry from school that they wanted dinner 3-1/2 hours after lunch. The next time they wanted one, I took a Tupperware container, put in some crackers, chunks of cheese and lunchmeat, and stuck that in their lunchbox. I gave them about twice as much plus their usual "dessert", fruit and drink. They thought they'd died and gone to heaven - one of them called it, "Mom's Lunchables!" How hard was it? It took me about 2 minutes to prepare their lunches instead of 1. Geesh.

I admit to taking convenience foods for my own lunches a bit: a frozen Lean Cuisine, a carton of Yoplait, and a fat-free pudding. Sometimes I make my own fat-free puddings, and I always include some sort of fruit - whether it be from a can or fresh (depending on what's available and reasonable).

To Teresa_nc7 - one of the things that "gets" me about the plastic bag issue is a health law. I teach Music...every semester, I put a freshly laundered and folded choir shirt in a brand new clean zippered bag with a child's name on it. The shirt goes home, and when it comes back a couple of months later, it's supposed to have been washed and neatly folded. Of course, being a somewhat persnickety person, I always take all the shirts (40+ tux shirts) home and wash them again before folding them and putting them in the shirt box. Now here's the rub....I'm supposed to throw that bag away and not reuse it. One exception: I can reuse it for the same child the following year IF that child joins choir again. Can I recycle that bag with grocery bags? No. Can I recycle it in our blue-recycling bin? I don't think so...I'm actually not sure. Anyone know?

DonnaR/CA

Unfortunately, I don't think zip bags are recyclable. You could wash some of the bags and reuse them yourself? I think they meant that you couldn't reuse the plastic bags the next year to contain the choir shirts.

That is really a waste. I feel that if I wash the bags in hot, soapy water and let them air dry, then they are as clean as I need them to be for my own use. Works for me, and I am never sick.

I have been reading this thread with interest, and it actually prompted me to post on this forum for the first time (usually frequent the decorating & real estate forums). Triciae and others have already said most of what I would have said, but I wanted to share my perspective.

Lindac asked what people are doing these days that takes so much time. In my experience, and that of my friends, the answer is work and commuting to and from work. According to my parents (who are 66 and 70) careers and "jobs" today expect more of your time and life than they used to.

In the DC area -- which is where I live --- and particularly among lawyers (I am an attorney), getting home at 6 or 6:30 is a luxury. On an average day I leave work between 7 and 7:30, and arrive home around 8, and I frequently bring work home with me. In fact the reason I am still up tonight is that I had work to do this weekend. Since my husband works an earlier schedule and needs to go to bed by 10 or 10:30, we usually need to eat within 15 minutes of when I walk in the door (and I am not a fast cook!).

I enjoy cooking, so I have found ways to squeeze it into my schedule. Sometimes I cook dinner at night after my husband has gone to bed, and refrigerate it, so we can reheat it the next day. Other days I will go to work a half hour or 45 minutes late and cook in the morning (easier for me to start late than to leave 'early'). Also am getting better about cooking large enough quanitities to have leftovers for a few days. "Fresh" meals, cooked shortly before eating them, are reserved for Sundays.

Cooking is only one of my hobbies; I also love gardening, decorating, reading, and playing tennis. Errands and chores all need to be done on the weekend too. So something has to give. I use some convenience products to reduce prep time (e.g. canned salmon for salmon patties vs. cooking a fillet and flaking it myself; rotisserie chicken for enchiladas and burritos vs. dicing/shredding and cooking chicken breasts first, corn muffins are usually from a mix). I primarily use frozen vegetables, vs. fresh, so that I don't have to worry about throwing out produce that has gone bad because I didn't have time to cook it that week. I may doctor up a premade pasta sauce instead of making my own sauce if I'm really in a pinch. And if I'm spending a lot of weekend time on one of my other hobbies (like spring/fall garden work), or work I brought home from my job, even Sunday dinner has to be something I can whip up in about 30 minutes (or stick in the oven after minimal prep time), and is more likely to include some type of prep shortcut.

Sometimes (but not always, depending on the product) these preparatin shortcuts mean compromising a bit on taste, so that the food is a B+ vs. an A. But I have recognized that, to remain sane and have a little bit of time to rest, I can't expect every meal to be perfect, and/or elaborate. And by reading labels and experimenting, it's actually not hard to figure out which of these time-saving products (like trader joe's frozen french green beans or specific stores' rotisserie chicken/turkey breasts) are a good substitute for more labor-intensive but 'authentic' ingredients. And which are not (prepackaged frozen chopped onions usually are too mildly flavored for me, so I chop and freeze my own).

As someone who really loves to cook (and reading recipes and cookbooks), it is a challenge to make dinner the 2-4 times a week that I manage to cook. If I did not enjoy cooking as much as I do -- and most people don't -- I would probably use more convenience products, like the premade roasts or heat and eat side dishes.

Very few of my close friends from school and work cook. Some have husbands who cook. And others mostly eat take-out, frozen food, and prepared (or pre-seasoned uncooked) foods from whole foods or other nice grocery stores. It works for them. I don't think cooking would be an efficient use of their time, since it is not something they enjoy or particularly want to do, and there are plenty of things they do enjoy that they wish they had more time to pursue.

Also, not all pre-packaged foods are less healthy than scratch cooking. I've seen several pre-packaged mashed potatoes that are lower in calories and fat than any home-made recipe I've seen (even in cooking light). Trader joes and whole foods sell lots of frozen and refrigerated prepared food that has no preservatives or artificial flavors. There are even health food versions of boxed macaroni and cheese (although I've never tried them; just too different from the southern style macaroni and cheese that i grew up with).

I choose to cook, sometimes entirely from scratch, sometimes not, mostly somewhere in the middle. But that choice comes at the expense of other things. I can understand why other people choose differently. I admire the people on the forum who have time, and have decided to, do 100 percent scratch cooking, and I enjoy reading the recipes and looking at pictures. But that doesn't work for everyone.

Ilene wrote: Many, but not all, people are poor because they don't know how to get the most out of what money they have, how to save, and how to resist marketing techniques.

This is true. Because my mother was a divorced, sole-custody mother before it was fashionable, we were quite poor in terms of finances, but for the most part (aside from a few, really lean years in the beginning), we ate quite well because she was educated, intelligent, and concerned about nutrition.

I had friends who's families were on welfare that always seemed to have more cash and possessions than we did, and they very often ate over priced junk. $1.50 for a sandwich from the local convenience store sounded cheap, unless you realized that you could buy a chicken for that price that could provide more than one meal for one person.

One of the difficult things about being poor, is that you really can save more money if you have a bit to spend...or rather, invest.

I save us amazing amounts of money by buying large quantities of items I know we use on a regular basis when I find a good deal. If I had to buy these items one bit at a time because I couldn't come up with the cash to buy a lot of them at once when they were on sale, I'd end up spending a lot more money in the long run.

Welcome to the cooking forum Robin dc. My experience here leads me to believe that just about everyone on the forum cooks like you do, "...sometimes entirely from scratch, sometimes not, mostly somewhere in the middle...". Its just that we also tend to be 'sometimes entirely understanding and fair, sometimes not, but mostly somewhere in the middle' when it comes to judging what others do with food. Often times I find myself to be pretty judgmental at first then read other posts and see the beauty in different ways of doing things.

I hope nobody thinks anybody is being judgmental here. We are all just stating what works for us and what our opinions are. :) I certainly can see that there are situations where one must make choices; however they need to be informed ones. Someone who has not read this forum before can read this thread and see that we are a diverse group and that no one person's opinion is quite the same as others; therefore whatever path a person takes is not to be looked down upon just because it doesn't conform with someone else's. Just because I wouldn't buy something doesn't mean I ridicule someone else for doing so. My main point is, know what it is you're getting, read the contents label, if you're paying extra, know that and be OK with it. Too many people just grab something without thought. Too many people buy things because they have been so bombarded with marketing that they think it's a wise choice when maybe it isn't, or because their kids are clamoring for it. And many people think cooking from scratch is so hard and so time-consuming that they couldn't possibly do it, which is not necessarily true.

Donna, I loved your home-made lunchables!

Teresa, I think plastic bags are recyclable in some places, but in my area, the only recycling center is run by people with disabilities. They only take cardboard, plastic containers (but no plastic bags of any kind), newspaper, magazines and office paper. No glass, no styrofoam. When people leave bags and other stuff they don't recycle, they have to throw it in their dumpster and sometimes it actually costs them extra to get rid of it, which is a burden to them.

Being a "scratch cook", more or less, I do take some shortcuts. I have a chest-type freezer and after having had one all my married life I just don't know how I could get along without it. It's full all the time, with meats I have bought on sale, vegetables and fruits I have grown myself, shelled pecans from a friend's tree, and things I have bought in bulk, like baker's yeast, flour, dry milk (yes, that's a shortcut I take, I use it to make some of my own mixes, such as cornbread, biscuit, pancake, pudding and sauces. I keep those on a shelf in half-pint or pint canning jars, reusing a flat and a screw band. I figure I have to store the jar anyway, why not have it full of something?). But where I was going with this is that when I cook, I nearly always make extra. The extra meal(s) go into the freezer, either partially prepared (potatoes and rice change in consistency when frozen)or totally, and sometimes in individual portions, sometimes not. Right now, my freezer contains: 24 plate-sized baked pizzas, 1 cabbage roll casserole (add rice and bake), a 5-qt ice cream tub full of chocolate chip cookie dough, 1 tamale pie casserole, a bag of cooked meatballs, a bag of homemade noodles, uncooked, cooked brisket in one-pound packages, cooked turkey breast in one-pound packages, and some chicken enchiladas. There's a chocolate twinkie cake baked in advance for an upcoming event. I also save the liquids and bits and tads that remain after cooking a vegetable, adding layer after layer into a half-gallon-sized freezer container kept in my kitchen refrigerator/freezer until it is full. During the winter I make a lot of soup and one of these is my base.

I always keep cookie dough in my freezer because when I run my oven, I don't like wasting a shelf. I've got a casserole on one shelf and I pop a tray of cookies on the other. Sometimes I can bake 4 dozen or so while the main dish is baking. If my family doesn't inhale the cookies right away, I can always freeze them for later.

I don't know how it is where all of you are, but where I am there are lots of places to eat. I always go check out the restrooms before we sit down to eat at a place we're not familiar with. If they are not clean, we don't eat there, and believe me, we've walked out of quite a few places without ordering. The problem with restaurant eating is that you don't see in the kitchen. You don't see if someone sneezed over the tomato sauce pot or if the guy standing at the grill has his hand down his pants, scratching. You sit down at a table some stranger sat at moments before you and you don't see if their little boy picked his nose and wiped it on the table while they were there, or know if the table was properly cleaned off before you sat down. If you pick up fast food, you don't know if they have mice or roaches or even whether they dropped your hamburger on the floor before they put it in the bun. And you paid more for your meal than it would cost you to make it at home.

Being poor DOES make it difficult to save, but I've been poor and my family never went hungry. It's pure drudgery getting out of the rut, and I remember wondering if things would EVER get better. Every penny I could pinch from buying basics went to pay off debts and buy tools that would help me be more economical. Rachel, you made a good point about watching someone buy a sandwich for the same money you could buy a whole chicken with. The mentality is, "It's only a buck-fifty, what's the big deal?" But if you do that on an ongoing basis (and lots of people do, especially the under educated), over a period of a month you could probably squander away a lot of money. I'm adding a link that expounds on that very subject. This guy is making a lot of money teaching people that very concept.

This is long and I apologize for it. I also apologize if I've hurt anyone's feelings as I've never had that intention. --Ilene

The "Latte Factor" seems like such a simple thing, but it's very true. During my years in the restaurant business, the servers who complained often about being broke and begged extra shifts off other servers because they had to pay their rent or whatever were almost always the ones who ate their meals at the restaurant instead of going home to eat (we got half price, but half price fancy restaurant meals are still not cheap), came in with a Starbuck's in hand (though we could drink all the coffee we wanted) and routinely sat down at the bar after their shift for a cocktail or six. Sometimes, after a slow night, I know by the time they paid for their meal and their drinks, they would go home with half or less of what they'd made that shift.

I'm not saying that I never ate or drank at work, but it was the exception, not the rule. We got free salads, soups and bread in any case, so if you didn't want to go home or were working a double you certainly didn't have to go hungry.

But it was as though these people didn't make any connection in their minds between the thoughtless way in which they spent money and the fact that they were broke half the time.

I have a tendency to think of luxury purchases in terms of work hours. That fast food meal, that foo foo coffee, that glass of wine = what percentage of my earnings per hour at work? Would I be willing to work that amount of time in exchange for that item if things were done on a barter basis? If the answer is no, then I go home to eat or drink.

Thinking this way, I look at the time spent grocery shopping, prepping and cooking meals as earning money for things I want more than I want the burger and fries that isn't that great anyway. The money I save by my effort at cutting up a chicken for it's parts instead of buying them pre cut is going for the downpayment when my husband and I finally buy a house. The money I save by repairing our own clothes instead of throwing them away or paying someone else to do it will help buy that keyboard my husband has been wanting.

I have often thought that public assistance should come with a requirement of financial counseling of some sort. No, I'm not saying that everyone who has gone through hard times is a spendthrift or anything of the sort. I'm just saying that a good many people who are on public assistance could greatly benefit from some education/training on how to get out of that rut, as Ilene put it. It isn't easy at all, but it can be done.

Because my mother had the education and understanding of how to do it, we went from having those days at the end of the month where dinner was peanut butter sandwiches or spaghetti noodles with butter, salt & pepper to purchasing a home in about 5 years. There was a lot of self denial on her part to get us there, but she did it.

I'm a devoted lurker and seldom poster but I have to jump in on this conversation because "Lunchables" has been mentioned several times.

My niece was in first grade and Mother's Day was coming up. The teacher had them write a short essay describing their favorite meal their mom made for them, including ingredients and instructions. You guessed it ...Lunchables! Funny but so sad.

Quoting: "Hey gardengrl-- there are people out there who have never ( and don't want to know how) peeled or chopped a vegetable."

To that I must add my shock upon hearing from a dear friend that she had NEVER eaten a fruit or vegetable right off the vine, the tree, the bush. This came up when some friends offered her peas fresh from their garden and she watched carefully to learn HOW to pick them! She had never picked a berry from a vine while walking a country lane, nor picked a cherry or apple from an abandoned orchard tree.

As for canned vegetables: My brother and I LOVED canned spinach w/ lots of vinegar --- but canned peas are just about the worst thing I ever had to eat ....... not that I appreciated lima beans or creamed (fresh) celery, either.

This thread is a huge, insiteful education!!!!!!!

Agreed, both emmisme and rachel.

Rachel, yes, you certainly can dig yourself out of the rut. When I married my husband, 40 years ago, he had been married before. We had one child born to us, adopted my nephew and bought a car and then the debt collectors from his previous marriage found us. We went from "squeezing by" to "in the hole". It nearly ruined our marriage.

I had no homemaking skills except for a little learned in high school Home-Ec. I began to educate myself with library books (there was no internet then). I learned to cook and manage money, and I had to use some pretty strong-arm tactics to re-educate my husband!

By the time our children were grown, we had paid off our home in advance, saving $17,000 of interest on the mortgage, and we had no debts. We have been totally debt-free for years and we can't imagine, now, living any other way.

If I could say just a few things to young couples just starting out, it would be, "Get out of debt and stay out of debt. Don't buy anything on impulse. And show respect for the hours of toil that it took to be able to purchase what you have by taking good care of it."

I used go to yard sales a lot, back when gas was cheaper. Sometimes I still will, and I consider it a recreational cost because I get to visit with people I didn't know before. Sometimes I'll find a great deal on something that will make it worth the cost of getting there. But I notice how much "stuff" people are selling for pennies on the dollar. And some of it, you can tell, was an impulse buy. It might've been Benjamin Franklin who said, "If you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves."

Well now I am 'way off topic.

When I lived in NH there was a special summer program for inner-city kids designed to put them in touch with their food supply. None of those kids had ever seen where their food came from. They went to farms & picked veggies & fruit then made their lunches from the haul. They toured small animal farms (chickens, goats, lambs). Most of those kids had never seen a farm animal before except in books.

Sadly, due to budget constraints the program doesn't exist anymore.

/t

There's nothing new about people not wanting to know where their food comes from. I had a neighbor who was horrified that I bought vegetables at farm stands where they could have dirt on them, instead of cellophane-wrapped stuff from the supermarket. The year was 1971, and we lived in a new community where the farm stands were closer than the nearest supermarket.

All of my sons know how to cook. One of them actually did food prep at a catering business while in high school. But now he pretty much lives on fast food and occasional restaurant meals. It clearly isn't lack of skill, or because of advertising, just that he doesn't much care about food until he gets hungry, and then anything will do. But he's a good sport with the rest of us when we talk about food (just about all the time -- anything from growing and shopping to wonderful things we have eaten, with lots of discussion of recipes), and he's great at cleaning up when we cook. But I wouldn't be surprised if he really thinks we're nuts for spending so much time on food, while we think he's wasting his money because he doesn't.

living the dream wrote: I had a neighbor who was horrified that I bought vegetables at farm stands where they could have dirt on them

Way back in the early 60s we lived in No Hollywood but I would spend all summer up here at the lake. From the time DD was old enough to talk I would play a game with her coming down the grape vine into the San Joaquin valley turning off at the Lamont, Arvin exit. It was and still is field after field of vegetables, cotton, grapes, and fruit trees for about 40 miles to the mouth of the canyon. She could name every plant by the time she was 4. I would stop so she could see how it all grew. Her favorite was to stop and pick cotton so she could take it to school for show and tell.

When she got older sometimes she had a friend come with us and she played the game with them and was always surprised that everybody didnt know all about this. Once I took her Blue Bird group out to the west valley, when it was still farms and ranches, to buy pumpkins and not one little girl in the car knew, but my DD, what the corn was that was growing in the fields along the road.

Her best friend, Stella, spent a lot of the summers with us and she just loved fried cat fish. One day she asks if I would make it for dinner and I told her if she caught it and cleaned it I would cook it. I took the girls out on the lake fishing and they caught a couple of cat fish. Well needless to say they wouldnt even tough them no way was they going to kill and clean them. Those poor fish lived in a big bucket in the garage until XH got there on Friday. I cooked then but Stella hardly ate anything. When I ask her about it she said she could never eat anything that was that ugly. LOL

DD played the game with DGS and her DH. Stella died in a car accident when she was 22. She was a great person and I still think about her when I drive though Lamont and Arvin. She always got excited when we could smell the onion fields before we could see it.

Claudia

Livingthedream, I laughed my head off when I read a letter a woman had written in to the newspaper complaining that she had seen fruit and vegetables being transported to the markets in open trucks, and the dirt and flies could get on them. Dunno where she thought they came from in the first place :-)
I used to go through the fruits and vegetables in the shops with DD and learn the names of them all, and take some of the unfamiliar ones home to try. When she was older and had a high school job as a check out girl, the fruit and vege manager thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread because she knew all the products and could spot the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini. When I'm shopping now and the young operator doesn't recognise something, I tell them to give it their best shot- I figure they're more likely to remember it if they have to think about it than if I just say "It's a Jerusalem artichoke".

"The best thing since sliced bread" I wonder if there were folks back then who thought 'sliced bread' was a decadence reserved only for the rich and the lazy!!!

Touché, mimsic!

I saw bags of pre-peeled boiled eggs at the store tonight (two different brands). Turns out a dozen pre-boiled eggs cost only 10 cents more than a dozen regular store-brand large eggs (cheaper than brand name eggs). I'm now quite curious!

Bags? Eggs in bags?

I'm wondering how many customers would be likely to buy a dozen hard boiled eggs at one time? I mean, I suppose there are times when one is going to make deviled eggs for a potluck or something but otherwise why would you want a dozen hard boiled eggs?

I think the funniest convenience food ever marketed was the plastic bowls full of dry cereal that came with a spoon and a small carton of milk. The marketing idea behind it, as I recall, was that the kids could get their own breakfast, saving Mom all sorts of time and trouble! Of course, it was never explained why, if a kid could figure out how to open the package and the carton, and pour the milk on the cereal, said kid couldn't just pour some cereal from a box into a bowl and pour some milk onto that from a regular carton. Nor was it explained why Mom couldn't do the same for said kid (assuming the child incapable) in about 30 seconds.

They weren't on the store shelves for long. I imagine that the marketing whiz who promoted the idea ended up working in the modern day equivalent of the mail room.

Rachelellen,

We LOVED those individual packages of cereal with the milk!

They were perfect for on the boat. Quarts of milk in the galley frig were always being knocked over in rough seas & we didn't use enough for it not to go bad. Also, large cereal boxes take a lot of locker space. Putting the cereal in ZipLock bags didn't work 'cause they got crushed.

We miss those things...no more cold cereal on the boat. We do use those individual packets of instant oatmeal sometimes when we're underway & want a quick breakfast. I don't like having boiling water on the stove while we're moving so I just heat the water in the microwave.

/tricia

Who remembers those little boxes of cereals that had the perforations for opening up one side?

They were lined with waxed paper and once the 'doors' were opened you poured the milk in and ate up. I loved those. I never added milk to my cereal when I had it in a bowl - hate milk, always did, always will - but it was such a challenge to tear those perforations just right and get the milky cereal eaten before the container leaked that I had to try.

ROFL!

There's always a use for anything they come up with. I can see the convenience of having them on a boat. But people taking cereal on boats hardly makes a viable market, which is why, I suppose, they aren't available anymore.

My grandma used to get the little boxes lined with waxed paper because when we came she could give us cereal without ending up with the better part of a box that would get stale before the next time we came.

Nowadays, I suppose that isn't necessary, since plastic food containers are so ubiquitous.

tricia, have you tried taking milk in plastic bottles? I should think that a sports bottle would be ideal, since it could bounce around all day without spilling, and the little spout would make for a fairly neat pour even in choppy water. Then you could even pack the dry cereal in those zip-lock bowls...you know, the ones that are meant to be disposable but which everyone washes anyway? Really, they are inexpensive enough that you could throw them away and so not have to deal with washing dishes on the boat.

WELL,

We love to cook from scratch....I've even seen pre colored eggs for Easter. LOL
If they think someone will buy it they will put it out there.
I love standing in the kitchen talking and cutting up the veggies for salads, etc..
I got my DD a childrens cookbook when she was 11 and she loved to cook!! She can't understand why anyone can't cook..she says all you have to do is follow the recipe in the book. LOL

Linda

My two cents:

Grated cheese is cheaper per pound than block cheese. I think they use scraps from the blocks for that. I buy it for cost and convenience, in that order.

Pre-chopped veggies are a healthy way to save 30 minutes. My 7-month-old son is awake for 2 hours of the day that I am home right now, so I'll take that 30 minutes if I can afford it. When the price is too high on those, I chop at night for the next day after he's asleep. Which isn't better than buying the pre-chopped, as I am exhausted and cranky all the time and I have the same product to show for my labor as I would if I bought the convenience item.

In fact, I realize as I type that I think it's worth it to start forgoing other luxuries to buy the pre-chopped veggies. Healthy convenience, woo hoo!

Other convenience food prices aren't rising as quickly as raw foods. My previous $20-a-week grocery plan has been blown to Hades. $2 for a half pound of dried pinto beans in the grocery store last week!!! The canned beans were slightly cheaper per oz, though I forgot the price.

I think that my generation (I'm 28) is very aware of nutrition and incorporates those concerns into our convenience food choices. I think our parents did the same thing, too, as a result of the late 1970s. Or maybe it's just that I run in health-conscious circles?

Anyway, most of my friends, like me, started out making our own baby food and we realized that the stuff in the jar is probably better economically and nutritiously. Pre-made organic baby food is not significantly more expensive than buying organic (or regular, for that matter) produce and steaming and pureeing it myself. It only contains water and the single food listed, which was processed in-season. I don't have to take up freezer room with the jars because they have been processed in a sterile environment I can't recreate in my home kitchen.

I know someone claims to like overcooked broccoli. Anyone want to help me find it so I can test this canned broccoli business? (Maybe buried in a cheesy rice casserole?)

~Amanda

mimsic--yes, both brands packaged the boiled eggs in a resealable thick plastic bag a little smaller than a gallon size ziploc.

I'm not sure why they're sold by the dozen; maybe the idea is that you'd eat a couple a day for a week?

Here's another scenario. Our mother abandoned my dad and us children (7 of us) when I was 13. (Yes, lots of therapy and I'm grown and fine now).

But I can remember standing around with hotdogs on forks over our gas stove. We threw countless pot pies in the oven. I can't tell you how many times we'd peddle to the store and buy a box of mac and cheese and that was dinner. My dad simply couldn't do it all and he didn't know how.

All of us are now great cooks including my brothers. Any one of them could put on a full Thanksgiving meal that would rival my grandmother's (or my mother's for that matter. For all her faults, she was a great cook).

So necessity is the mother of invention. Even if there's nobody to teach you, you can teach yourself, IF you're interested. For my brothers and sisters, nobody ever wanted to be hungry again, and we'd had enough boxed and canned food to last a life time, so we all hit the kitchen with gusto in our early 20's.

It's funny though. My husband, who's also a wonderful cook, still says that I make enough to feed an army. There's a reason for that - I never want anyone to be hungry. We both work full days, but our girls know how to make reasonable meals. They've been taught to make some of their favorites such as fettucine alfredo. Sometimes, we'll simply say, you two are in charge of dinner tomorrow night and it can't be pizza in the oven. So they make a simple pasta and that's fine. Two nights ago, they made Ina's French Potato Salad with herbs. They can make fresh pesto with our garden basil. When they're grown, if they want everything out of a can, that's their choice, but at least they will have been shown the basics. My oldest can out bake me every time, including breads. She has a gift, so I'm just not worried about it. They'll figure it out, just like we did!

And who knows about canned cucumbers! I have a boatload of fresh that are bound for bread and butter pickling this weekend!

... and speaking of eggs, those large jars of pickled eggs you see in convenience stores scare the heck out of me. What is in that brine and why pickle eggs? Ok, I know why pickling is done, but ewwwwwwww. Who needs preserved eggs in this day and age? Truth be told, I've not tried one and never will (never say never), but I'll take a pre-peeled one over pickled any day!

I used to shop at this general store for my molasses & dried beans. They have a 50-ga. wooden barrel with the molasses. There's a stack of Mason's jars next to the barrel. Just dip into the barrel & fill as many jars as you need. Great molasses; but I always wondered about what might be lurking in that barrel...?? lol

/t

ok yall, i still love spaggetios with meatballs.... :-)))

however, it is a rare treat...we eat everything homemade.

Hey many many years ago I lived in a country where fresh food was hard to come by. If we got a chunk of cheese or some "fresh" beef/poultry/fish or whatever it was only once or twice a year, was frozen and came by ship. We could not even consume the locally grown fresh produce because of the lack of sanitary conditions. If we dared to eat local produce it had to be soaked in a bleach solution for 24 hours and then peeled and cooked. When we got a few cans of tomato sauce or macaroni and cheese and such stuff, my parents stocked up on it and we kids threw a party.

Sometimes it isn't laziness that forces us to eat canned or other prepared foods - it's sometimes a necessity.

Stinky McGee

I should add that once back here in the States I stood beside the stoves of my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and learned to cook like they did. I have a garden, can with a boiling water canner and pressure canner, drink filtered water, married a former chef (yay me!) and at the moment am making Kosher dills, sweet gherkins, and my own sauerkraut. The other day I canned some green beans and as soon as the farmers market prices come down I will do all the tomoato sauces, ketchup, salsa, etc. My hubby and I decided to soon get rid of the microwave oven and only eat organically. He has mercury poisoning and is detoxifying so his nutrition is a priority. We have learned sooooo much about what is in our food. I recoil when I think of what we have been eating that we were unaware of :(.

So what are we supposed to do about that?

A responsible dentist doesn't use mercury amalgum fillings any more....and a responsible dentist doesn't avocate removing all amalgum fillings and replacing with porcelain, because that will release more mercure into your system.Those of us with a mouth full of mercury are best to sit tight....and not grind your teeth!!

I average about a dozen hard-cooked eggs a week and would probably use more if I didn't have to peel them. Hard-cooked make the fastest and easiest meals and snacks, nutritionally better than most of the alternatives. Plus there are loads of ways to cook with them.