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Cooking - The lost skills
It shocks me that the skill of cooking, has been lost for a generation or
more!
Children, teenagers and young adults, i feel, truly believe that cooking is
done in the microwave with a box of stuff from the fridge or freezer! And the
only recipe to follow is the instructions on the box telling you how long to
Microwave it for!
How desperately wrong!
Likewise it pains me that the same people don't actually know what the raw
ingredients for cooking look like. At my daughters school, her class were asked
what a selection of fruit and vegetables were, more than half the class
responded with incorrect answers. Many had never even seen some of the products
displayed. Where have we gone wrong?
Worldwide, we have come to rely on third parties to cook for us and by doing
so we have lost our connection with food. Mass produced frozen and chilled
foods, whilst they perhaps do have a purpose in our busy lives, are produced for
one reason. To make the manufacturer money! Don't ever forget this.
Food manufacturers make money by using cheap ingredients, additives and
flavourings to enhance the poor quality raw ingredients. Usually churning out
some sludge and passing it off as a lasagne, pot roast, stew or a bake and
whilst there is nutritional value, how do we really know what products are
actually in our pre processed food?
How can we really identify what is in our food? What are additives and
flavourings and why are they in our food?
OK so i have just pulled a packet out of the freezer to read the list of
ingredients, so what is in it...
- Vegetables
- Mixed red and yellow peppers, cherry tomato, aubergine, courgette,
tomato and onion
- Wheat flour
- Water
- Margarine
- Water
- Salt
- Emulsifier
- Mono and Diglycerides of fatty acids
- Mozzarella cheese
- Modified tapioca starch
- Sundried tomato paste
- Water, sunflower oil, sundried tomatoes, white wine vinegar, sugar,
slat herbs, garlic and black pepper
- Sugar
- Tomato puree
- vegetable oil
- Roasted garlic puree
- Glaze powder
- Dextrin's, dextrose, wheat starch
- Raising agent
- Colour
- Basil
- salt
- white wine vinegar
- Caramelised sugar powder
- Flavourings
- Herb
- Onion powder
- Spice
You would be forgiven for thinking that i might have made a typographical
error, but the product does actually contain 3 references to salt and sugar! But
what is the other stuff? What is Mono and Diglycerides of fatty acids or
Dextrin's, dextrose and Annatto? And why are they in my food!
I suppose i should tell you what the above analysis represents, as a packaged
food product, so i will. The product is a vegetable puff pastry pie.
Having been a cook/chef for many years, i have never felt the need to have so
much rubbish in a simple veg pie! I hope now you are beginning to see the need
for better food education.
Good quality healthy food does not come in a box from the bowels of a fridge
or freezer. Good quality food comes from recipes that have stood the test of
time. Recipes that have been handed down the generations. Recipes that will be
lost if we don't re-educate our palettes and rediscover the room in our house
that was formerly known as the kitchen.
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