No Time To Cook? I Don’t Believe You
If there is one complaint about eating healthy that occurs with the same—or greater—frequency than the cost of the food, it’s the amount of time it takes to prepare it. With all of the time-saving gadgets we have these days, designed to lessen our loads and make things so much more efficient, it’s amazing that no one seems to have the time to prepare a home-cooked meal anymore. In 1900, the average American woman spent six hours a day on meal preparation. In 2008, that number was down to 31 minutes.
When people tell me they’d love to eat better but just don’t have the time, I think: “You’re lazy and full of shit.” This is a bit hypocritical—I, myself, am lazy and oftentimes full of shit—so what I actually say is, “I don’t think that’s completely accurate.”
Unless you’re working 18 hours a day, you’ve got time to cook. The Duggar family eats home-cooked meals every day and they’ve got NINETEEN kids. Nineteen! And while Michelle is cooking dinner, there’s a 98% chance she’s either pregnant or actually in labor. If you can watch your favorite TV show, surf Facebook, or chat with your best friend on the phone, you’ve got time to cook—which can usually be done concurrently with any of those activities. When people say they don’t have time to cook, it just means cooking isn’t a priority for them. The Bachelor is more important than a home-cooked, healthy meal.
But, if you’d like to get your priorities in order, it won’t take a major life realignment. Girlfriend and I both work full-time jobs (which often become more-than-full-time jobs), have a dog, a commute, and generally active lives—yet still manage to cook at home at least six nights a week. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. How do we possibly have time for all that?
Every Sunday morning, with a pot of coffee and a sleepy pug between us, Girlfriend and I menu-plan for the week. This takes, at most, an hour of surfing various websites, saving links to recipes, and writing up a grocery list. As an added time-saver, if you use the same website for all of your recipes (ie, cookinglight.com), they can usually combine everything into a grocery list for you. All you have to do is print it out.
After the menu for the week is set and the list is written, we head to the grocery store. It usually takes us anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, but only because we’re food nerds who like to browse and examine all the cool produce and meats and fish. Also, our Whole Foods has a tavern—there’s no time waster like beer and wine at the grocery store. But, when we’ve been in a hurry, we’ve made it through and entire week’s worth of shipping in less than 45 minutes. So far, we’ve used two hours of our time and the hardest part is over.
Check back later this week for a few quick and easy ideas for each meal of the day. Also upcoming this week is a rundown of all the amazing food we had in Canada. Stay tuned!
