Posted on 05/12/2013 7:38:23 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Pay People to Cook at Home By KRISTIN WARTMAN
THE home-cooked family meal is often lauded as the solution for problems ranging from obesity to deteriorating health to a decline in civility and morals. Using whole foods to prepare meals without additives and chemicals is the holy grail for today’s advocates of better eating.
But how do we get there? For many of us, whether we are full-time workers or full-time parents, this home-cooked meal is a fantasy removed from the reality of everyday life. And so Americans continue to rely on highly processed and refined foods that are harmful to their health.
Those who argue that our salvation lies in meals cooked at home seem unable to answer two key questions: where can people find the money to buy fresh foods, and how can they find the time to cook them? The failure to answer these questions plays into the hands of the food industry, which exploits the healthy-food movement’s lack of connection to average Americans. It makes it easier for the industry to sell its products as real American food, with real American sensibilities — namely, affordability and convenience.
I believe the solution to getting people into the kitchen exists in a long-forgotten proposal. In the 1960s and ’70s, when American feminists were fighting to get women out of the house and into the workplace, there was another feminist arguing for something else. Selma James, a labor organizer from Brooklyn, pushed the idea of wages for housework. Ms. James, who worked in a factory as a young woman and later became a housewife and a mother, argued that household work was essential to the American economy and wondered why women weren’t being paid for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That is true. I had a tyrannical mother who wouldn’t let me into the kitchen, ever. I left home and taught myself. And became a fantastic cook.
Good for you-when I was young, moms who worked would have been shamed and looked at as not the best mothers if they fed their kids fast food and boxed just-add-water/frozen crap-and if you were single and looking to get married, guys looking for wives weren’t interested in a woman who did not know her way around the kitchen...
When the burned their bras and walked out of the family picture in the 1970’s, <<<<
not to mention that their boobs drag on the ground now...
I have never understood the fascination with eating out. I do it sparingly also. I only go to places that serve food I do not have time to cook. (ie barbecue, etc.)
Those were the days! Today, I find that the single girls go to the gym, skip dinner and don’t learn to cook, therefore...married working girls expect their husbands to get carry out or take them out to dinner most every night, and divorced mothers feed their children nothing but fast food on the run. I’m sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, cooking seems to be a thing of the past.
Haven't watched calories, skimped on portions, or modified my physical activity, and I'm down 15 pounds.
I'll also say something about organic vegetables: they taste better. Lots better.
Haven't watched calories, skimped on portions, or modified my physical activity, and I'm down 15 pounds.
I'll also say something about organic vegetables: they taste better. Lots better.
Boil or steam until tender. Toss with a diced shallot that has been carmelized in olive oil (and the oil). Add salt and pepper to taste. Alternatively you can add a piece of crumbled bacon and a little butter. I like the shallot version better.
“could be financed by taxing harmful foods...”
A woman who expects to be paid for household work should also expect to be billed for room and board....And the extremely heavenly experience of being serviced by me. And the soap and water afterwards. Thank you, thank you.
I just think this is all so ridiculous. Yes I was born in another time but all my female friends and I worked full time, prepared a hot breakfast for the entire family, packed everyone’s lunch, had a hot dinner on the table by 6:30 p.m. - without having a microwave, made most of their own clothes, cleaned their own home and did the laundry and ironing. On top of that we shuttled kids to bowling, baseball, football, basketball, swim team practice and meets, dance classes, music lessons, supervised homework time, took everyone for doctors and dentists visits and went to PTA and church and Sunday School.
What we didn’t do was watch TV - unless we had hand mending or sock darning to do, go to the gym or yoga or spend evenings out with the girls. But this was just a temporary thing - kids do grow up and leave and then you can have lots of time for other things, like catching up on your sleep.
I have does exactly that. I cook breakfest for my DH 4 or
5 times a week now. I always did dinner but retirement was
the only way for breakfest to happen.
I live in a little time warp-a somewhat remote rural area that was a summer resort, and commuter community in better times. There are just a couple of dollar stores and a general store for fresh produce, but we are within 35 miles of the suburbs and supermarkets of a large city.
There is no fast food-just a couple of restaurants serving meat-potatoes-salad type meals, sandwiches and Tex-Mex. Kids get homeschooled or go to school as many as 18 miles away-parents either own small businesses nearby or a few still commute to work in SA-a lot of moms stay at home. You can smell suppers cooking/grilling in the evenings if you step outside...
Seriously.
A raw roasting chicken is cheaper than the over-brined rotisserie chicken in the deli section. Prepared the right way, it is MUCH tastier and provides more servings.
So (if you added a fruit and nut filling), you have in fact prepared a Lady Baltimore Cake?
There are not many obese people here, compared to the city. I’m pretty sure since life here requires a bit more physical labor-mowing, doing your own maintenance, and most people grow gardens and keep livestock of some kind-it is due to a more active lifestyle. There are also plenty of places to hike-practically every neighborhood is at the edge of woods.
And I think they are mainly talking about welfare moms who have nothing to do but watch TV all day (which is a contributing factor to their being so obese).
Good for you! I was brought up in the natural lifestyle and I’ve remained committed to that way of living and eating. No one in my family who continues to eat healthy is overweight or chronically ill.
And chicken breast is cheap when it's on sale. Get a bunch and freeze. When you want to cook it, cut into thin slices across the grain, fry in a little olive oil, put it on top of spanish rice, quick meal.
“welfare moms who have nothing to do”
Take away their EBT cards and tell them they can’t have them back unless they get off their fat asses and start seeking a job appropriate to their skills, attend some nutrition and meal preparation classes. That should break the Little Debbie cycle and separate the real women from the weak sisters...
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