Why We Need to Rethink Home-Cooked Meals

[fizzgig]

The amount of time Americans spend cooking meals at home has fallen by half since the mid-1960s, leading some influential voices to worry that—given the plethora of options we have to make quick, inexpensive meals—we have forgotten how to cook.

Mothers have reduced the amount of time they spend in the kitchen since the 1960s while fathers have almost quadrupled their time (even so, mothers still spend twice as much time cooking). Yet, despite this, today’s parents are not better off financially than they were five decades ago—and parents actually have less free time these days than did past generations. When families are squeezed for time and money, the gold standard for feeding the family is home-cooked meals made from scratch.

In 2012-2013, our research team interviewed a diverse group of 150 mothers of young children about their experiences feeding their families. We also observed 12 of these households as they shopped for, prepared, and ate food. The mothers in our study were cooking on average five nights a week. Many were prepping vegetables and cooking in bulk on the weekends, using crockpots to save time, and getting children involved in cooking, in an effort to make sure their families ate a good meal at the end of the day.

Yet despite these and other impressive efforts, mothers felt they were falling short. Many said there was never enough time in the day to do it “right.” And contrary to rosy images of everyone sitting around the table enjoying a hearty, wholesome meal, for most families, cooking was filled with time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others. It became clear to us that the solution to feeding American families can’t just come from individual kitchens.

the rest from national geographic

we went through some lean times when i was a kid, food stamps and food banks, but mom always had something on the table for us. between our work schedules and our budget now, there are times it's hard for us to have anything more than beans and rice or noodles and garlic butter, but i can't imagine the pressure that some of these families are facing.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I raised 4 kids as a single, working mother. Due to finances, I had no options but to cook at home.

I used all the time and money saving techniques I knew to put a good meal on the table after work, but there were times when I reached for that box of Hamburger Helper, too. It's a struggle and I don't see how things have gotten any better in the last 20 or so years, especially with a lot of parents working more than one job.

[AwakeAtLast]

4. I find nothing wrong with the occasional box of HH

It's the people who rotate through all of the flavors in a month that are doing a disservice to their families, and I know people who do that.

My daughter will request it sometimes, just like the good ole Kraft Mac and Cheese.

I try my best to cook as much from scratch as possible. I know I cook more from scratch than my mother. I never saw her use a mire poix - ever. A lot of what I cook (usually in the winter) starts with that.

[Warpy]

2. Everybody I know cooks breakfast, at the very least

The people who can't cook are generally the people who won't cook, as though it's one of those jobs better done by invisible peasants. They're the ones on HGTV who demand acres of granite and stainless steel and sniff that they just never cook and you know all that stuff will go to waste as the only things in the fridge are beer and wine and takeout menus stuff one of the kitchen drawers and the freezer is packed with TV dinners for the kids.

The main problem getting people to cook better is money. People just aren't paid enough to feed themselves and their children. The cheapest convenience foods and takeout menus become the standard fare and everybody feels like crap without realizing it.

I'm surprised their study group didn't figure that part out, but I guess the corporate suits didn't want to hear that part.

[fizzgig]

5. the financial aspect was mentioned briefly in the article

it just doesn't go that in depth on it.

i think another issue is, given how common it is to work multiple jobs, is the time aspect.

[mopinko]

3. we need to rethink making moms the fall guy for everything.

they are comparing to a time when more families had the option to have one wage earner. who had that any more?

how bout an article about how men refuse to step up to the plate.

[fizzgig]

6. the amount of time that dads spend in the kitchen has increased

but the social norm does need to shift toward a more equitable split of the kitchen hours and away from cooking being woman's work. and i don't think they're making the moms the fall guys, the women themselves feel that they are failing because they think they should be more like those tv moms always in the kitchen.i wish we need to show them it's ok that they're not.

[Major Nikon]

8. Some people are very comfortable with the social norm

It just makes sense that in a two person relationship with children, one of those will have the primary responsibility of spending more time on the job and having inflexible work hours and the other will have a more flexible schedule. The idea that both people, regardless of gender are going to have the exact same roles just doesn't work for many, if not most people. What we should be showing is that it doesn't matter which person fulfills which role.

[mopinko]

9. we've been rebelling against that norm my whole, long life.

there is just no reason to use, especially over and over, the word mom.
and i have really had it up to my eyeballs with feeding women's guilt like this.

[Major Nikon]

7. Neither gender should be the fall guy

Regardless of how times have changed, men still spend more time on average in income generating activities and women spend more time with domestic duties. When you balance the two they come out almost exactly equal and neither should be devalued.

[mopinko]

10. except in this article, only one is.

really, this shit should stop. it's just offensive and archaic. we dont need any more articles about how guilty women feel that it isnt the 50's. this isnt news.

[blackcrowflies]

12. You do realize you're perpetuating stereotypes, right, Major?

[Major Nikon]

13. No more so than the BLS

http://www.bls.gov/tus/

[blackcrowflies]

11. I didn't realize that only women cooked. Nobody ever told my Dad that, fortunately.