Up until about 30 years ago, people had to cook their own food if they wanted to eat. Since the 1980s, more and more convenience foods became available, and more and more people could afford freezers and microwaves. The food industry started advertising their products as timesaving blessings that would allow us to put our feet up while still feeding our families and ourselves.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2016, and many of us have forgotten how to cook a meal from scratch. Through aggressive advertising, the food industry has succeeded in making us all believe that cooking is an arduous and time consuming task that in this day and age, we no longer need to burden ourselves with. But is this true?<\/p>\n
Yes, ready meals seem to fill the gap when we\u2019re hungry, but they don\u2019t really nourish us. Mass-produced products need additives such as colourings, emulsifiers and stabilisers to resemble something edible if the packet is opened weeks after the product has been cooked. To make ready meals palatable, flavour is \u2018enhanced\u2019 through the use of \u2013 well \u2013 flavour enhancers, salt, (trans-)fat and sugar that have ruined our taste buds as we are no longer able to really enjoy the more subtle and varied flavours of natural foods (don\u2019t worry: You can retrain your taste buds!). Yet only natural foods actually supply the nutrients from fresh ingredients that our body needs to function properly.<\/p>\n
You may think that you have no time to cook. We are all leading very busy lives, but make no mistake: So did the housewives of times gone by. They just didn\u2019t have a choice. They couldn\u2019t go out and buy a ready meal or get a take-away, so they found the time to cook. Needs must. And although we CAN go out and buy \u2018food\u2019, but for the reasons stated above we shouldn\u2019t. We should still cook from scratch.<\/p>\n
If we have time for Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, we have time to cook. If we have time to watch television, we have time to cook. We find the time to shower, to wash and iron our clothes, the time to clean and tidy our house. Whatever needs doing, we find the time for, even if we don\u2019t particularly enjoy the activity in question.<\/p>\n
Preparing your own food from fresh ingredients is not as hard and time-consuming as you might think. Chopping and stirring can be quite relaxing, a good way to relax at the end of the day. There are many meals that take hardly any time to prepare or are at least not much slower than thawing a frozen meal in the microwave. Whiz up a soup, a quick-stir fry, or use your slow cooker to have a stew waiting for you when you come home. Cook larger batches, while you\u2019re at it, and you\u2019ll have lunch for the next day, too.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll know exactly what\u2019s in it and when it was prepared. You\u2019ll get to enjoy the varying flavours of different fresh and seasonal ingredients. You\u2019ll learn. You\u2019d give your body what it was designed to digest and what it thrives on.<\/p>\n