DIY redux

So somebody I follow on Twitter griped that FDA doesn't do enough to regulate processed food, so they have too much sugar, sodium, fat, and other bad things in them.

You know what my answer is. It's the answer that consumer reporters have been giving for over 40 years. Avoid processed food as much as you can. Here are some facts.

1. Plant-based meat substitutes are all processed food. Look at the nutrition panels and compare to USDA recommendations. Beyond Meat is losing customers, maybe because it has stopped trending, or maybe because it has more sodium than you want in your diet. Other lurkers: PFAS in the packaging; emulsifiers which promote obesity; guar gum; allergens. Cell meat is even worse; it is processed food from beginning to end, requires energy input, and doesn't provide the same nutrition as on-the-hoof meat.

2. Soy. This may be in your meat substitute; it may be in your tofu, soy sauce, your cooking oil or the part-soy cheese on your pizza. There are a thousand and one uses for soy but the bottom line is that soy production is promoting deforestation, according to Greenpeace. You want olive oil, corn oil (I buy Mazola), sesame or canola oil if you are going to saute or fry things. And of course, you fry things as little as possible because of the fat content.

3. Almond milk. One website swears by almond milk yogurt but stop a moment. First, the writer admits she has to milk her almonds herself. Store-bought almond milk won't cut it. If you're using processed food to save time, this is not the way to go. Second, she admits she can't chain yogurt batches like you can with cow's milk. She has to have fresh culture for every batch. Almond prices are rising due to the collapse of bee colonies, but she is spending even more because she just has to use those almonds to make yogurt.

4. Cow's milk products. If you think you are saving the planet from methane by not using cow's milk products, you don't know what you think you know. You need to start a project to convince farmers not to feed soybeans to their cattle, kind of like the one that has reduced the use of anti-biotics and hormones in meat cattle. It will help prevent deforestation as well as cutting the methane output of cows. Second, if you destroy cow culture, you lose natural fertilizer as opposed to manufactured fertilizer. And how do they manufacture fertilizer? Using fossil fuels. 

5. Restaurants. Ever since I got out on my own, consumer reporters have been saying the same thing about restaurants. They are too expensive, they promote obesity with portions that are too large and contain too much fat and sugar as well as too much salt, they don't serve enough vegetables or variety of vegetables. Add to that the woody veggies you get in a restaurant cos the sous chef shows the microwave to them instead of cooking them properly. And the shortcuts that restaurants take, including using MSG when they say they don't. Or the cost cutters like part-soy cheese, to which people can be allergic (I knew somebody once who was). Or the menus that say "gluten free" but it really isn't (I have a relative who knows all about that). 

6. Food recalls. In 2019, the top two food recalls were allergens hidden in the "other natural ingredients" or just not reported, and listeria. I remember one Passover when there had just been a recall of pre-torn romaine lettuce for listeria. The veggie guy at my kosher market could not keep ahead of the demand for heads of romaine lettuce, while the pre-torn stuff languished in the cooler case. It probably got thrown out after Passover started cos it passed its freshness date. I'm over 65 and I can still tear my own lettuce, thank you.

7. Exercise. You say "but I'm too tired to cook when I get home". Exactly! You can't whine about having no time to exercise because you have to cook, because cooking is exercise. You stand at the counter while you cut veggies or mix sauces, you stand over the proverbial hot stove while you saute and simmer, you put a lid on the pan and turn off the heat to let the juices absorb and then if you sit down to read Twitter, you have to get up to plate the meal. You can put a healthy hot meal on the table in less than half an hour -- FROM SCRATCH -- and that's half an hour of exercise every day, sometimes two or three times a day. And don't use the microwave. You can microwave frozen veggies, with their lower sodium content, but read the package. It takes almost twice as long to nuke them as to start a little water boiling and cook them on the back of your stove while you make the rest of your entree. 

8. Trash. Meal-in-a-box doesn't cook faster than scratch and doesn't always have enough of the seasonings or sauces; even if they make the packaging from recycled something, you might not be able to recycle it. Kind of like paper towels; you HAVE to throw them in your kitchen waste because they can't be recycled. You can learn to cook just enough food for a single meal -- or you can always cook enough to deliberately have leftovers for another day. Leftovers are famous for tasting better than the original meal. They can also be converted into other dishes -- spaghetti into frittata, potatoes into latkes or boxty cakes, rice into fried rice, macaroni into chili mac. And you can learn how to NOT burn food by turning off the burner before it's done, putting on a lid, and letting the juices soak the bottom of the pan.

9. PFAS. Pizza, take-out, meal in a box, are infamous for containing those forever chemicals that are ruining our health and our environment. 

10. Sodas. All sodas, diet or not, contribute to obesity and diabetes. The studies are sure about this result but aren't sure why, unless the sweet taste on the tongue starts the pancreas working, ultimately wearing it out. Sodas generate trash. Canned sodas are getting more expensive as the world shuts out Russian aluminum to punish them for attacking and committing genocide in Ukraine. Sodas also contain gum arabic to keep the flavors in solution instead of precipitating out. Gum arabic is another conflict product; it's how Sudan funds their wars. There are recipes for making your own syrups to mix with carbonated water, but they all contain large amounts of sugar, which is more unhealthy for you than fat or salt.

Here's how you save time cooking for yourself.

1. Buy a week's food at a time. Pick ingredients not pre-made food. People talk about food deserts; frozen veg can be better than fresh cos they are frozen at the farm with all the natural sugar. Buy dried fruit; it's a healthy snack with a long shelf life and you can rehydrate it in boiling water. Canned fruit is always packed in syrup or some form of sugar, and you don't need that. Yes, you have to plan, and you may have to change plans if you can't find all the ingredients -- or you could improvise. Learn to play with your food.

2. Buy things that have more than one use. I buy cinnamon to bake and cook with, and to sprinkle in my coffee. Buy 5 minute oatmeal; the instant stuff makes cookies turn out like they were made with sawdust. The big canister lasts a long time and doesn't put as much trash in the landfill as those packets. Buy raisins for your oatmeal, and for baking, and my sauerbraten recipe calls for raisins. Your 5 minute oatmeal with raisins will be done before the water boils for your coffee or tea. Instant coffee is much cheaper than those little K-cups, and I have several recipes that use it for flavor or coloring. Get yourself a thermos for your coffee and a microwavable dish for your oatmeal, and you can go straight to work and nuke them while all your friends are wasting time in line at Dunkin or McDonald's. 

3. Cook your starches in bulk. Potatoes, spaghetti, rice, and so on can always be reheated and sometimes they are the long pole in the cooking process. I know that when I switched to brown rice, I used to cook a cup of rice at a time and that was enough for 3 or 4 meals. 

4. Make big batches. Most cooked food will freeze well. If you don't want to eat the same thing twice in a week -- and if you're eating fast food every day, how can you gripe about that -- then freeze some of it in microwavable boxes to take to work.

5. Trawl the web. There are tons of websites with shortcuts and time savers, as well as recipes. I have collected some 500 recipes off the web, lots of them for ethnic comfort food that goes beyond what you will find in restaurants, as well as for things you won't find in ANY restaurant no matter how diverse your region is. 

6. Invest. In a slow-cooker you can make stews, but you can also make a roast or a poulet en cocotte which has a yummy vegetable sauce. I bought one of those multi-function boxes when my baking element broke; it runs on a lamp outlet  and it has been great, not just for toast or air-frying, but also for roasting meat and incubating yogurt, which takes all day anyway, and for baked eggs in ramekins which make a perfect Egg o Muffin substitute. I bake most of my own bread, including English muffins, so I get more bang for my buck from that box than you might. Speaking of which a bread-maker is not a bad idea, but making it yourself from scratch manually gives you more, what class? EXERCISE.

This is only the start. Read my DIY page for basic cooking instructions and calculations about how much you save if you learn to do things for yourself instead of, like the Twitter person, expecting somebody else to do everything for you.