Tuesday, January 22, 2008

New theories on food

My new theory on food is that anything bad for you (cookies, cake, candy, etc) should be DIY. If you want a chocolate, chocolate chunk cookie, you need to fire up your oven. Anything that is good for you should be pre-done. You want some strawberries, open the fridge and eat one, no cleaning required. Alternately, all food should have to be worked for. While that wouldn't deter hard core eaters, I knwo I would eat a crap load less if I had to cook everything all the time. Open a bag, eat cookie? Yeah, I can manage that. Stand over the garbage can for 20 minutes shelling walnuts? Doubtful, I might eat one or two and then either find something to distract me so I wouldn't eat or move on to something easier.

I also think that healthy foods should be cheaper or at least equally priced to unhealthy alternatives. We buy poptarts, milk and cereal bars, etc because to buy a whole box of them is cheaper than a dozen eggs. We buy plain jelly because it is cheaper than the smashed fruit stuff. I could make a million examples but it seems to me that a start toward winning the war on obesity would be to make foods that are good for you easily accesable to everyone.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

This is a very interesting post. I have been thinking a lot about this lately as I have been trying to loose weight and cook most everything from scratch.

I tell you though - when I bake something I am just not as hungry. Maybe the smells are enough for me?? I wish!!

I totally agree on the price thing. White bread is so much cheaper than Whole Wheat bread. I don't buy bread but I see why people do. The list goes on as you said. And now with Organic foods, etc. Ugh... that is what we need in our society - cheap food that are really good for you.
Especially fast food. There are days I would love to stop and get fast food that is good for my kids. I know meals have come a long way with apples, etc. but I want a cheap, fast, healthy kids meal!!!

Jenna said...

Unfortunately, when I bake cookies, I eat not only several warm cookies, but the dough too. I'll eat only 1 or 2 store-bought ones. But I do cook a lot...its cheaper, healthier, and gives a sense of accomplishment.

The price of healthier foods is a huge issue and clearly contributes to the leap in obesity. How can poor families eat better? WIC gives you white bread and sugar peanutbutter. I wish I could afford organic...but no way.