Cooking for your Health

If you grew up in any decade since World War II, you found yourself in the midst of a pre-packaged and convenience food phenomenon (1).  Up to date, companies have been able to recreate stir fry, mashed potatoes, rolls, rice, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, pizza, pasta dishes, Thai dishes, Asian dishes, beef stew, chili, soup, cookies, cakes and you name it, all the while adding preservatives, salt, sugar, dyes, and a whole host of chemical flavors and food additives no one knows the origin of.  These quick and easy meals and desserts are packaged in pretty boxes and marketed with misleading advertising at discount prices.  It’s no wonder why Americans are sick.

When I first started combating poor health in my late teens, I could not tell the difference between rice mixes and regular brown rice.  It took a friend to explain to me the difference between the two, that difference between processed rice and real rice, and then pointing out the real rice hiding on the bottom shelf with the discrete label.  Now, when in doubt, I look at the label.  If the label lists rice alongside other additives, it is processed rice. If it lists rice and only rice as the ingredient, it is real rice.  Another kind of rice to avoid is Precooked, or Instant, because you want the rice to retain its natural vitamin and nutritional content by cooking it yourself in a sauce pan or rice cooker.   

For me, other alternatives to pre-packaged food were more straight forward, so I began implementing changes over time.  Instead of buying frozen lasagna or canned chili, I made it myself.  I swapped TV dinners for real dinners—buying meats to bake in the oven and vegetables to steam.  I began experimenting with various stir fry recipes. When I wanted rice with some flavor, I created a base of coconut oil, minced garlic, chopped onion, green (or any color) pepper, and spices in a skillet and added cooked rice to it.  I swapped instant mashed potatoes for real ones and hash browns for fried potatoes with the same base ingredients I used for rice.  When I wanted sweet baked goods, I began baking breads:  banana bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, carrot bread.  Options for baked breads are endless, and you can add a variety of fruits, nuts, and sweet spices to them.   

The great thing about baking is you control how much sugar you add, and what kind of flour you use.  There are a variety of flours available made from a variety of whole grains (not just wheat), some of which I listed in my post about Breakfast. Instead of adding sugar for sweetness, you can try substituting vanilla or plain yogurt, or sweetened or unsweetened apple sauce.  You can experiment over time to add less and less sugar to your baked goods. You may not even notice the difference in taste of your baked goods as you begin to add less sugar.

Making these changes for me was a complex and timely process.  Not only did I have to learn to eat healthy, but I had to learn to cook.  I checked out healthy recipe books from the library, searched for recipes online, and combed the grocery store aisles for ingredients I had never heard of before. Many ingredients I also left out, especially corn starches, bouillon cubes, and broths. I bought basic cooking utensils for my kitchen, and turned my kitchen into a welcoming place that I could work out of every day. 

I do want to emphasize that I started out small. I started with cooking one meal per week, usually on a day off to put what I learned into practice.  Over time, cooking and eating well became a habit and a hobby that helped me transition out of many of my health problems.

http://academicearth.org/electives/how-the-end-of-world-war-ii-made-us-fat/