#BOPO

[Twed]

Also, who is well informed?

Indeed. When Flora stops being a product... or shit, when Flora stops sponsoring the British Heart Foundation, maybe we can start talking about education.

[Blue Jam]

The area where I work, it's a shitty area. There's a McDonalds, couple of cafes serving slop. The convenience stores are packed with chocolate, crisps, fizzy drinks, bacon and eggs, frozen pizza, pies - the "essentials". There's a chippy. It's not easy enough to eat healthily, especially in poor areas. It should be easier, fresh healthy food should be available everywhere.

I work at a university campus based around an NHS hospital, where the WH Smiths doesn't do meal deals and has three aisles of healthy snacks- protein bars, yogurts with muesli, baked-not-fried crisps, sugar-free sweets, etc. The M&S Simply Food sells their ranges of healthy ready meals and loads of fresh fruit. The hospital cafe and the workplace canteen all provide healthy options and make sure that fresh vegetables and high-fibre bread are always available. There is a weekly whole foods market. All of this is down to NHS healthy eating initiatives and university policies. I appreciate that someone who works as a lorry driver may have their options limited to whatever they can grab at whatever service station they pass, and that I am very fucking lucky here.

[Fonz]

How much less?

How much do you reckon?

Try 'a little less', and if you start losing weight. Fantastic. If not, try 'a lot less' and see if that works.
Own it.

[Endicott]

There's also that oft-parroted bit of received wisdom, "Cooking from scratch is healthier and cheaper". Anyone who actually cooks from scratch with fresh ingredients on a regular basis will know this to be bollocks- home-cooked food isn't necessarily healthier, and is sure as fuck isn't cheaper than buying ready meals.

Speaking as someone who used to exist on ready meals, and who has been cooking from scratch for every lunch and evening  meal for the last 18 months, I've lost a stone and a half, cured my irritable bowels, and I spend less money on food than I used to.

[Twed]

How much do you reckon?

Try 'a little less', and if you start losing weight. Fantastic. If not, try 'a lot less' and see if that works.
Own it.

I wonder if you think this applies to anything in life that is done to excess, and if you think there's anything you don't need to "own".

[Huxleys Babkins]

How much do you reckon?

Try 'a little less', and if you start losing weight. Fantastic. If not, try 'a lot less' and see if that works.
Own it.

Mate, that's not how nutrition works. At all.

[Lemming]

The big problem is that processed foods are generally delicious, while home-cooked vegetables generally taste like awful shit if you've been raised on hyper-palatable processed foods like many of us have.

Back when I still ate cheese, I'd have about three or four frozen pizzas in the freezer at any given time. If I tried to cook any kind of vegetables from scratch, there was about an 80% chance they'd end up in the bin after a few bites while I put an objectively delicious frozen processed pizza in the oven instead. Tried roasting, steaming, frying, whatever else, tried a massive variety of vegetables, always just tasted so much worse (sometimes to the point of making me feel sick) than my favourite processed foods and ready meals that it just felt pointless. Even now, roast potatoes and roast swede are the only vegetables I actually like.

The other big thing is that whole home-cooked foods are a complete ball-ache to both cook and eat. Why spend literal hours chopping and peeling vegetables and fucking around with 700 different pots - then rushing back and forth to the kitchen like a blue-arsed fly to make sure everything cooks at the right time - only to end up with a hideous, shit-tasting sauce-based mess that requires cutlery to eat, when you could just shove a pizza in the oven effortlessly for 20 minutes, eat it with your hands, and it'll taste nicer and leave you feeling fuller?

So, food companies should try and start finding ways to bring the ultra-palatable flavours of people's favourite processed foods to vegetable products instead, and deliver them in easily oven-cooked forms. I don't know what Innocent smoothies are doing (other than charging a horrifying amount of money for their products), but they've managed to make pure fruit smoothies that actually taste nice, unlike the acidic tasting dogshit you could whip up in a blender at home.

Here's my idea. Everyone likes Doritos, right? Get a fuckton of fresh vegetables, mash them into oblivion, coat them in so much Doritos Tangy Cheese flavouring that it's impossible to taste anything else, cover them in breadcrumbs, freeze them and sell them to people as Doritos Veggie Bites. Obesity solved, and now everyone in the country is getting like triple their 5 a day. Thank me later.

[Endicott]

10 min to chop veg, 10 min to stir fry veg, 10 min to eat veg. if it tastes shite then you're doing it wrong.

[Lemming]

No offence, but that's exactly the kind of thing that just doesn't help. As Blue Jam was saying earlier, Jamie Oliver tries that and gets nowhere. When people tell you they're either disgusted by home-cooked vegetables or incapable of cooking them, you can't just respond with "but it's delicious!" and "but it's easy!" and expect them to suddenly have an epiphany and change their diets then and there.

Even if you think vegetables are ace and anyone with an aversion to them is a hapless dork with malfunctioning tastebuds, we can see from the prevalence of processed foods in people's lives that an increasing number of people either won't or can't prepare and eat home-cooked vegetable meals. It seems to me like the way to address that is to start increasing the nutrition and health of processed foods, and reducing sugar and salt and what-have-you.

[Blue Jam]

The big problem is that processed foods are generally delicious, while home-cooked vegetables generally taste like awful shit if you've been raised on hyper-palatable processed foods like many of us have.

Yep, a bit like the way that if you try cooking everything from scratch for a while you start to notice how much salt and sugar is added to processed food. I remember when I used to make big batches of tomato and red pepper soup and how all shop-bought fresh soup started to taste of nothing more than sugar.

Also parenting is hard work and a lot of parents who start off vowing that their children will only eat homemade baby food made from pureed organic vegetables and then be weaned onto a fresh home-cooked meal every evening eventually find that it's easier to just cave in and give their fussy eaters whatever the fuck they want as long as they just stop screaming and fucking eat it. On top of that, a packet of Mars bars is cheaper than a pack of apples (and processed food being cheaper than fresh food seems very wrong, but that's a whole other thread), and more likely to keep the kids quiet.

So, food companies should try and start finding ways to bring the ultra-palatable flavours of people's favourite processed foods to vegetable products instead, and deliver them in easily oven-cooked forms.

Sainsbury's do crinkle-cut butternut squash "chips" that are piss-easy to oven cook (they don't even need parboiling) and which taste not unlike sweet potato fries. Just brush them with a bit of oil and sprinkle on some seasoning mix and you've got a less carby alternative to regular chips.

[Lemming]

Sainsbury's do crinkle-cut butternut squash "chips" that are piss-easy to oven cook (they don't even need parboiling) and which taste not unlike sweet potato fries. Just brush them with a bit of oil and sprinkle on some seasoning mix and you've got a less carby alternative to regular chips.

That's exactly the kind of thing I mean, I've had swede chips before from some brand (maybe Aunt Bessie) and they were delicious. Tesco do some beetroot burgers that are really easy to cook and taste fantastic, but unfortunately cost £2.50 just for two of the bastards.

[Blue Jam]

I have a problem because I live in a city centre, so all of my nearest supermarkets are yer Tesco Express/Sainsbury's Central-type places. They're good for ready meals but if I want to cook certain recipes or a decent roast I have to go a bit out of town to find a bigger supermarket with a bigger range and where I can get myself a proper big piece of beef or pork ^fnaaaaarrrr.

I'm lucky to live near a decent Asian supermarket though, and a Mexican deli with a massive range ingredients for spicy food. Perhaps home economics lessons at schools should encourage people to experiment with different seasonings- it might piss off the Brexit brigade who would prefer a focus on good old-fashioned BRITISH dishes but that's the sort of thing that got me interested in cooking.

[Zetetic]

10 min to chop veg, 10 min to stir fry veg

Meaning at least 18 minutes more concentration and work than a ready-meal, following your two commutes and working day.

That's excluding a few small (but not trivial) considerations like additional washing-up, and excluding the real killer which is the planning and organisation required when actually buying the stuff.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

I find a lot of my home-cooked meals end up being more unhealthy and gut expanding than a lot of takeaways and processed foods, simply cause there aren't any government restrictions or health requirements telling me how much salt or butter I can spoon into my sauces and coatings and stuff. I've also just discovered through CaB that you can buy pure MSG on it's own, which isn't going to do much to wean me off stuff resembling the high street grease boxes.

Really though, the biggest problem is all those offices like mine where people bring in cakes every day. My one concession to being a non fatso is cutting out sugary treats, but I will obviously eat those things because they are on the shelf right next to the desk I sit at for about 3-4 hours a day. Imagine what that must be like for someone who actually is struggling with their weight! It'd be like running a homeless shelter with little bags of needle drugs and a pile of lighters and spoons, with a sign underneath reading "YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO ASSOCIATE THESE ITEMS WITH EACH OTHER". Madness. Stop bringing them in, people! I should just go in one day and smash all the cakes with my fists to send a strong enough message, but I reckon that might just lead to a disciplinary. Maybe I'll do it after hours, so no-one can pin it on a suspect.

[Blue Jam]

Really though, the biggest problem is all those offices like mine where people bring in cakes every day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36608269

I've also just discovered through CaB that you can buy pure MSG on it's own

Cooking with MSG is great fun. Try it with single ingredients- it makes onions taste more oniony, cheese more cheesy, etc. It's also safe to eat and has no calories...

[Endicott]

Meaning at least 18 minutes more concentration and work than a ready-meal, following your two commutes and working day.

That's excluding a few small (but not trivial) considerations like additional washing-up, and excluding the real killer which is the planning and organisation required when actually buying the stuff.

20 min isn't much.  Those non trivial planning thoughts only happen once a week.  I hate washing up too.

I'm not claiming that its easy, but it doesn't take up a lot of time. 

[Johnny Yesno]

I'm not claiming that its easy, but it doesn't take up a lot of time.

That's the thing, though: it requires practice (which is time consuming) and decent equipment to be able to cook quickly.

[flotemysost]

The type of kitchen facilities you have access to makes a huge difference, too. If you're in shared rental accommodation with a tiny shared kitchen, and if you don't particularly know/get on with the other tenants (and therefore want to minimise the time you spend in the communal areas), you're probably not going to want to or be able to spend much time preparing your own food in there.

See also: lack of freezer/cupboard space, ant infestations, live-in landlady who lets her horde of cats walk all over the hob and kitchen surfaces (a friend of mine is in this last situation).

Shitty rented accommodation is a whole topic in itself of course, but it definitely plays a big part in people's health and wellbeing.

[Twed]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36608269

Cooking with MSG is great fun. Try it with single ingredients- it makes onions taste more oniony, cheese more cheesy, etc. It's also safe to eat and has no calories...

And it's less salt than salt, due to being less salt than salt. But yeah, it turns vegetable into dinner. It is a good thing, and I believe the fact that "no MSG" is a marketing term shows how badly the food industry obfuscates health.

[Twed]

That's the thing, though: it requires practice (which is time consuming) and decent equipment to be able to cook quickly.

Not discounting the huge mental hurdles that might been to be overcome for some.

[Fonz]

Mate, that's not how nutrition works. At all.

If you follow the thread, what part doesn't work?

If you're getting your essential nutrients, but having an excess of calories, tell me, what part of cutting back on fat/sugar doesn't work?

[Fonz]

I wonder if you think this applies to anything in life that is done to excess, and if you think there's anything you don't need to "own".

'Your' diet is 'your' concern. Having control over what we eat is one of the few things we genuinely do have control over. So yeah. Own it.

[Twed]

Okay, well I'm ordering you to own being so oblivious. Work on that. Chop chop. It's easy. I can educate you.

[Johnny Yesno]

Having control over what we eat is one of the few things we genuinely do have control over.

Except for the reasons already listed in this thread for why we don't.

[Icehaven]

Boris Pohnson enters thread with lawyer.

[thenoise]

On top of that, a packet of Mars bars is cheaper than a pack of apples (and processed food being cheaper than fresh food seems very wrong, but that's a whole other thread), and more likely to keep the kids quiet.

Also: if your kids don't fancy a mars bar, they will still be good to eat in a week's time.  Apples, especially supermarket apples, you are lucky if they last 3 days.

Learning to cook from scratch takes practice, and trial and error, and you will inevitably have failures and end up wasting food - mostly because of over buying or not realising how quickly fresh food turns bad.  As people's disposable income gets lower and lower (at least at my end of society), this is no longer a risk that seems worth taking.

[Beagle 2]

SPEAKING AS AN PARENT I now have zero time and eat absolute shit because I work 8-6 and grab what I can on the go - I'm out and about most of the time at meetings or project visits so my options are whatever's nearby. We usually do a proper home cooked meal every night but our kid often turns his nose up at healthy stuff. I also sneered at parents who fed their brats freezer meals, only to watch in amazement as he absolutely demolishes a serving of fish fingers, chips and beans and says fuck you very much to bean casserole. If he eats, he sleeps. If he sleeps, I sleep.

That's one child and both of us having good middle income jobs. Imagine having three of them and fuck all money and trying to hold down a shitty job. Own that.

I'm interested in what I can feasibly knock up to take for my lunch - bit out of ideas here. Butties make me want to go to sleep and are nothing good really, I love salad but it doesn't fill me up. I like healthy food, I just need fuel that doesn't take long to make.

Breakfast is toast (shit) or sugary cereal (shit). Also out of ideas here.

[bgmnts]

Just eat better you fat, lazy cunt.

[Fonz]

I get some of the negative feeling towards my comments, but maybe some people are missing the point.

Who do you think is responsible for what you eat, and what you feed your kids? The government? The MSM? Big Food?

[kittens]

Big Food

avoid this if trying to lose weight