Cooking...

I have in recent months found my ramblings being ever more connected to food. It may not always be so but...

I have suddenly(though I love food)regained an interest in attempting to create and/or cook more variety of dishes and flavours either of my own or adapting recipes of others that I come across.

Also, the Government is making a lot of the fact that as a population more of us are "Fat" and that we are storing health problems for our later life and the real reason for their concern is not our well being but they are scared of the cost of looking after us and how the economy will be affected.

It will always come down to money.

There will always be lazy people but I have said before that many of the youngsters they go on about as being obese and at risk do seem to be out playing games and exercising as they always have even though we are told that they are all sitting in front of a computer or a games console.
Every two or three years we are given a different term that is more acceptable than the last in case it offends or upsets...you must not use the word "fat" It will be seen as bullying. So they use the word "Obese" now in some cases that word is no longer acceptable so we have to look for another.

What is important is whether being "Fat" is due to being lazy, eating too much and/or illness. Do I look down on someone who is fat? Not automatically(I am slightly overweight myself)If it's due to illness, medication I will offer all my support, I may only take a negative point of view if it is due to being a slob. And it has been allowed to continue to get worse so that the medical profession has not stepped in much sooner and the victim is so overweight, they cannot even move around their own home.

We are told that too many people live on junk food but allowing for some items being high in sugar and salt, even quick food does not necessarily mean it is unhealthy or will harm you. Probably anything would if you ate it every day and almost every meal. That film came out a few years ago called "Super size Me" where I understand the presenter ate meals from a well known fast food chain every day for a month or two and then talked of the effects on his body. Hardly a surprising result.

Even vegetarians if they do not get certain proteins and minerals into their diet would find their bodies lacking in certain nutrients and they would have to be supplements in some way.
Then we are told that the young no longer can be bothered to cook or learn the basic cooking skills and knowledge of food and newspapers can always find a survey to suggest how ignorant children are. Some may be but I am sure that some children still learn to bake in the kitchen with Mum or Dad and if they had to they could still put together a meal of some sort.

I am more likely to blame the work culture we have today...long hours...often long journeys to and from places of work, then when you are at work many jobs require you to sit behind a desk for hours. It's all well and good suggesting exercising when you get home or going to a gym, if you've been out of the house for up to 10 hours a day and still to have a meal and think about going to bed early to be rested for the next day it doesn't leave you much time to do anything for yourself.

Count up all the time you spend going to and from work, preparing to go to work, travel time and actual time spent at work(add your time spent sleeping etc...)you'll probably find that each day you only have around 4-5 hours which is your leisure time)

Within that leisure time you probably are also having to think about having breakfast or an evening meal. For quickness is it any wonder that takeaways are so popular?
It may be wrong to assume that teenagers and young adults are not interested in cooking, it could be that in time as their lifestyles change, they will take up cooking and actually find the taste for it(like me)circumstances have as much to do with whether you bother in the kitchen. It could be for economic reasons to keep costs down and if you have a family to feed. Or you simply find it enjoyable. I think many people return to cooking in later life.

I notice that many of my friends when we discuss food and cooking are 40+ but even if the young are not cooking meals they are happily enjoying what is being served up to them by others such as parents, grand parents or friends.

I'm not so sure that I am as pessimistic as our Government and experts would have us believe the situation to be but their policies do not necessarily help, when I was at school, basic cookery was taught for at least one afternoon a week but that was in the days when probably some subject was seen as appropriate for boys and another for girls. And today there are so many websites and programmes on tv or articles in magazines, instructions on purchased food and once you've cooked say a Chicken Breast, the basic rule of where to set the ovens controls and how long to cook doesn't really change, you can see if it's cooked and if you use a skewer and find the juices run clear(or there isn't any)you know it's safe.

It really is hard to accept that you could not manage to feed yourself and that you'd starve.

I've just heard that a well known supermarket is now selling packages of eggs already hard boiled at 50p per egg! That is just crazy. But again, its another way to feed yourself.