April's CR Diary

Work hard, live frugally, don't have kids. Gives you free time up the wazoo.

I think many people are intimidated by the very idea of cooking something because they assume it will be time-consuming and complicated. And, in fact, if you go by what you read in a lot of cookbooks, you would certainly have good reason to think that.

People need to learn how to cook good, simple food. They need to know that you don't have to spend hours assembling a million different ingredients to make something for dinner. Just about everything I make takes less than half an hour to put together. Now that I'm gearing up for work, I'm also preparing a lot of things in advance and freezing them so that I'll be able to put dinner on the table, literally, within minutes after arriving home from work.

And you know, you don't even have to cook all that much. This week, I've been feeding the kids things like raw baby carrots with hummus, sliced cucumbers and squash, and fresh cantaloupe or watermelon along with some whole-wheat pita and, say, a few boiled eggs. Easy-breezy.

Meal preparation doesn't have to be a big ordeal. This is the one thing I wish I could get across to people.

Dont know, but here in Europe people do cook, and a lot. And when they don't they eat out. Frozen dinner is rare even in the grocery store.

Also, obesity rates are much lower.

Brandon, I cannot let your comment go by without a response. When I got married, I couldn't cook worth a damn. My mother had all the cooking and hadn't taught me! I learned that if you can read, you can cook. For many years, I worked reasonably hard, lived somewhat frugally (out of necessity), had 3 kids AND cooked. For many years, I simply didn't have the money to eat out more than once a month or so but somehow, I MADE the time to cook really good, nutritious meals almost every day. Sure, occasionally, I'd get really lazy and make grilled cheese sandwiches or some such semi-gak but as MR will affirm, I cooked proper meals for my kids AND worked full time AND ran them to extra-curricular activities and still found time to do fun things for myself.

For me, it's a core value. I hold a strong belief/value that if you're going to produce children, the very least you can do for them is nourish them properly. I chose to have kids, so I nourished them. Seriously: how long does it take to cook some meat/fish/poultry, steam some veggies, slice some bread and toss a salad? Not long, when you strongly believe (or get it through your head) that your kids NEED that, every single day, in order to be healthy children and grow up to be healthy adults.

I have no kids at home any more but I still cook nutritious meals every day, much better meals in fact, now that I have learned more about nutrition and figured out how to work C0M! But do I have any more "time"? No, not really. I just want to be healthy and I love delicious food. And you can't be healthy and enjoy the pleasure of good food living on gak.

hi, april
I don't cook much but i often prepare salads from fresh veggies. Raw food is better for health.
Paul Bragg (life extension specialist) recomended to eat 60% of food raw and the other 40% lightly cooked.
fortunately, on labour day here we will have a free barbeque, organized by unions -- so i wouldn't cook at all on monday.

I love how we can find excuses for our population and their need to stuff their faces; I have one as well. 1. Crank your car up. DRIVE to any city. 2. Look out your window. You will be bombarded by fast food signs everywhere, yet any one place hasn't anything really healthy. Even the salads are loaded (unless you pick all the "goodies" off). 3. Enter the common grocery store and randomly pick up foods. Do you see "partially hydrogenated oils" and "high fructose corn syrup"? 4. Go back outside the store and look around. How many sidewalks do you see? How many people are walking (and not just to their car)? How many are biking? While in Germany, we saw a lot of people biking and walking...and not too many obese people (and I think they were American tourists!). 5. Finally turn the T.V. on and count how many ads about greasy unhealthy food is targeted at us...and our kids!

Cooking or lack of, can be just as emotional hot button issue as war for some people. We can sometimes put so much meaning into it as nurture, etc. So eating out seems to be self nurturing to people who don't feel cared for, and it's darn convenient to those who work long hours and would rather spend time with family than cooking and cleaning. Toss in after school activities for the kiddoes, and there goes family dinner. This does depend if you have more money than time.

But for our family. we try to cook together as much as we can. I want my sons to be able to put together healthy meals, and we can visit and talk while the meat is grilling and the veggies are steaming. It really helps with kids who can't really talk "face to face" but can open up while doing parallel tasks.

Just my two cents...

Illiah,

How old are your kids? At what age did you start having them help you cook? I sometimes let my 4-year-old help with meal preparation but the toddler seems a bit young. I'm always a bit nervous, though, that one of them will end up getting hurt around all the knives and the stove.

R

Hi April: If you have time would you write about bone maintenance, what supplements you take? Need advice as to bone loss. Despite being mindful about calcium (dietary intake), not supplements, I'm now losing bone density, which is very scary, and my lastest BD test shows me at a slight risk of fracture. Hip bone density has declined since my benchmark test taken when I was 46.

Background: 51, experienced relatively early menopause around 48/49. Come from big boned, heavy set family, but have been careful about my diet most of my adult life (am the only slender one of six siblings), but was overweight as teen (150 pounds). My adult weight has ranged between 135 to 140 pounds.

I started CRON Feb. 07, and went from 135 to 117 pounds over a period of four months, losing about a pound a week. Have maintained very easily at 117/118 since then, but my family doc disappoves of me being this thin. My husband, an internal medicine doc, thinks the weight loss is great. (Most of the really sick patients he sees are overweight.) He's naturally slender, and not doing CRON, but has lost 10 pounds due to my good influence and cooking.

I walk regularly with my dogs, about 30-40 minutes a day, and take 3 yoga classes a week. Am considering taking a supplement with MCHC, but am concerned about the source and the dangers of BSE.

I had a hard time figuring out what this website was about! I was first looking for information about curbing my appetite with vinegar, thought I'd stumbled upon a pro-ana site, then found some good recipes to my surprise, then thought, "this is a hell of a lot of emphasis to put on food and diet" (albeit extremely important I agree but daaaang, this is a lot of talk about food from one person!), and now, I've concluded, I spend so much time obsessing about my weight and food in an unhealthly way (namely in a lifelong struggle with ED), who am I to judge this woman on her obsession? At least it is healthy...I think? Oh well, I dunno, it is all interesting nevertheless.