Let's All Cook! Our Lives Depend on It.

Once again, the amazing Michael Pollan has written a highly compelling piece about how our relationship to food must change. The article, titled "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" ponders how it is that most Americans spend less than 27 minutes per day on food preparation, and instead spend hours watching cooking shows on TV. As he puts it: "What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for."

Another shocking tidbit from his lengthy article is "the more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower it's rate of obesity....the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force...income levels or class." This is the kind of stuff that makes my blood boil, when I think of all the McDonald's or KFC advertising targetted to low income families. Their malevolent promise is: "we'll save you time and money so you can give your family delicious comfort food." Meanwhile, these fast food companies are serving up empty calories while leading small children down the path to obesity.

Here at BEYG we make no apologies for being lazy - and not terribly talented - in the kitchen. We won't win any awards when it comes to style or diligence in the kitchen. But our message is always the same: if you want to be healthy, you need to eat meals made from fresh, whole ingredients, as opposed to pre-packaged, convenience foods. You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen to serve up a healthy meal; but you do need start with real food, and some effort will be required.

I'll defer to Michael Pollan's words: "the path to a diet of fresher, unprocessed food...passes straight through the home kitchen." This message is becoming urgent now and we at BEYG want to shout it from the rooftops. Eat food, real food, as much as you require. Take the time to prepare it in a way that is enjoyable, and digestible, for you and your family. But make sure that food came straight from a tree, from out of the ground, from the sea, from a real chicken. That's how we were designed to eat, and eating that way is the only way we will survive.

Dish of the Day: Rice Porridge

Today at a parent drop-in I met Shirley who graciously invited me and the Bug back to her house for baby lunch. She's from mainland China and makes her daughter rice porridge every morning. She makes her own stock with beef bones and a chicken and then very slowly simmers the rice in this broth until it is very soft. Then she adds dried Chinese cabbage and chicken meat.

Shirley's porridge is absolutely delicious and I can't think of anything more nutritious for a baby, except maybe using brown rice instead of white. At first I thought "here's an example of someone from the Old World who does things the traditional way" and that made me envious and appreciative of what she's doing for her baby. But when I probed further about the ingredients of the porridge I realised that this was a true Superfood created by a discriminating cook with a true knowledge of how to nourish someone.

Shirley uses organic whole chicken bought directly from a farmer and the marrow and concentrated chicken give the stock a huge amount of vitamins and minerals. But even the addition of vegetables is a nutrient-rich decision because Shirley's cabbage is picked in China and hung upside down to dry, and then sent to Canada by her mother. When rehydrated, it still contains a decent percentage of vitamins and minerals. She spends 4 hours each day making this nutritious dish!

Shirley's baby is a lucky girl. And Shirley herself is an inspiration and a reminder of a fading tradition of homemakers who don't just feed their family but who take the time to nourish them. I wonder how much time many of us spend on tasks that are less important than nourishing ourselves, and what do we really get for our labours?