What Part of Value Meal is a Value?

Have you ever purchased a value meal? Maybe. Maybe you even do it on a regular basis. If you stop to think about it though, is it really a value? Are you eating well? Are you saving money?

What is the cost of an average value meal? What is the nutritional content of value meal? Where is the value? Where are the vegetables? (Potatoes are considered carbohydrates, not vegetables.) Where are the fruits? What healthy anything is in soda? So what makes it so valuable?

We become so used to Madison Avenue dictating to us how we should eat, dress, shop and in general live, that we don’t even realize now when we are being handed a lie. We believe if it’s said to be true it must be, so we don’t even question the information about food that we see on TV or in magazines. We have become lazy and ignorant and uncaring.

We expect medical science to fix our own laziness and make us well after we’ve consumed large amounts of garbage and sick or fat. We no longer take responsibility for what we put in our mouth, or our own health and well being. We trust someone who is making a lot of money on our foolish choices. Where’s the sense in that?

There’s no value in a value meal, nutritionally or dollar wise. You could easily cook a meal in the same amount of time it takes to go to a restaurant, purchase food and come home and you could do it for a lot less. So why is it in these hard times people feel a need to go to a fast food restaurant to eat? I don't have the answer to that. We talk about having no money but yet we waste what we do earn.

It used to be it was a ‘treat’ to go out to eat and fast food was ‘fun’. Now it’s turned into a staple and people don’t realize how much they’re hurting themselves just so they can make the colonel, the clown and the king richer. And if you look in the food stores you’ll find it’s cheaper to buy Fruit Loops than fruit. What’s with that? When did a healthy breakfast become a toaster pastry eaten on the run?

Last year an organization called Slow Food USA http://www.slowfoodusa.org/) (created a campaign called Slow Food’s $5 Challenge. It encouraged people to create healthy meals for $5 or less per serving (less than a value meal). It’s also about the same amount that people on Supplemental Nutritional Assistance (food stamps) get. Participants had to make meals that was made of ‘food that’s good for us, good for the environment and good for farmers and workers, good clean and fair food.'

Within weeks they received over 5,500 recipes from people sharing their idea of a $5 meal. They were overwhelmed at the response. There were even suggestions for meals that fed 4 or more for $5! So how do people figure fast food is cheaper than slow food? If one can make a roast chicken dinner with vegetables and a salad that would feed 4-6 people, and without all the additives and grease that come with fast foods, why aren’t we doing it more?

Even Alton Brown, director and host of the TV show Good Eats agrees that fast food is not a health or budget value. A home cooked meal costs less and has a much greater nutritional value than any fast food meal. He may be a well versed cook with a science background but even he says cooking does not need to be complicated.

So why don’t we cook at home more? Several reasons. Many of us are out of practice, we just don’t cook as much any more. We also don’t eat as a family unit as much any more. Many of us eat separately and our dining companion is a TV set. Many people think cooking is too complicated, but you can find lots of cookbooks with simple, fast and uncomplicated recipes to help you get the job done. Some of us fear it, thinking they have a lack of cooking skills, but it’s really not that hard to prepare simple meals. Slow cookers/crock pots are one the simplest ways to cook. Throw the ingredients in the pot, go to work or school and come home to a hot and ready meal at a very reasonable cost. And if you cook a meal with the recipe doubled, you can freeze half and just warm it up the next time you want to eat it, saving even more time (and left overs are much better lunches than grabbing a fast food meal).

There are classes one can take to learn technique, or try cooking in groups with friends or family. Have a dinner get-together where everyone does a part of the meal prep and then sits down and enjoys eating it together. You’ll be amazed at the taste of real, freshly prepared fresh food and enjoy the company of friends or family at the same time.

To prepare your food you should have some basic equipment like a good knife and some bowls and kettles, but most of us have these anyway. Ask friends for they’re favorite (and easy recipes) and read the food section of the newspaper. Go to web sites like Cooking Light magazine (http://www.cookinglight.com/ , Real Simple magazine (http://www.realsimple.com/), or Clean Eating magazine (http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/) , take a class or go to Slow Food USA.

To buy the healthiest foods, we have to learn to shop the perimeter of the food store.  Limit prepackaged products. Read labels and see what the ingredients in packages really is. If you can’t pronounce it you don’t need to eat it. Buy fresh fruits and veggys, meats and fish, dairy products. Limit the amount of pre-sugared and flavored foods and other prepackaged items. Many of them you can make yourself for less. Become a savvy shopper and get the most value for your dollar.

By cooking our own meals we get the benefit of sharing time with our family, a very important thing in this day and age of busy lives and so many children in trouble. Cooking our own meals also supports farming and industry related to farming. Cooking our own meals createds healthier people which is a savings to everyone from the family themselves to the government or insurance companies who pay the hospitals and doctors to get sick people well again. With healthier people comes more productive workers, more intelligent students who learn better, healthier seniors and babies, and the list goes on and on.

Let’s do our part to take back dinner (lunch and breakfast too). Let’s start eating as a family, get to know one another again, converse with each other and build healthy bodies, minds and families. Let’s take back our food and our lives.