Are we becoming more lazy?

[Girl Friday]

Hmmm... maybe I am lazy, I'd much rather go out to eat.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I love to cook and bake from scratch. It is time consuming, and when I start working I know I'll have to find short cuts. Rachel Ray is making an empire from finding said shortcuts and still making a meal with a homemade feeling. I have become lazy though, for I haven't been cooking or baking at all lately. Once the weather cools down I will start again. There is something about fall that makes me want to bake cookies and pies.

I do like the squeeze bottles, they are less messy. Can't stand any type of pre-packaged cookie dough. Cookies should be made from scratch, that's just my opinion.

 

[Girl Friday]

I so agree! From scratch, so much better.

But again, Fall and Winter are for baking! It's too darn hot right now!

Also, my boyfriend does most of the cooking...and I consider myself VERY lucky.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Latest example of Lazy People Food, spotted today at the grocery store -- Meat Loaf Mix. Ummmm -- you can't scoop out a cup of bread crumbs, pour a cup of milk, and throw it in a bowl with some hamburger and an egg? You need a *mix* to do that???

I await, any day now, the introduction of Dehydrated Water Mix.

 

[jamespowers]

I love to cook and bake from scratch. It is time consuming, and when I start working I know I'll have to find short cuts. Rachel Ray is making an empire from finding said shortcuts and still making a meal with a homemade feeling. I have become lazy though, for I haven't been cooking or baking at all lately. Once the weather cools down I will start again. There is something about fall that makes me want to bake cookies and pies.

I do like the squeeze bottles, they are less messy. Can't stand any type of pre-packaged cookie dough. Cookies should be made from scratch, that's just my opinion.

See now? I can be even more lazy by asking you to make me some cookies and send them out to me.
Actually it is easier and closer to con my wife into doing it. (geez, I hope she isn't reading this today.:eusa_doh: )

Regards,

J

 

[Paisley]

Once in a while, I buy a meatloaf from the deli. It could be worse: for $10, you can have the grocery store deliver your groceries. At least I drag myself over there once a week. Twice a week just got to be too much for me.

But I did make pizza and a loaf of bread (both from scratch, including the pizza crust) and brownies from a mix last weekend. It was worth it.

 

[Pilgrim]

I think it's mainly a result of being pushed for time. Everything needs to happen fast now - I had 15 minutes for lunch today, and squeezes it in during that time. It's not always that we're lazy, we just don't have time to do things manually or in any way that takes more time.

Of course, we ALSO suffer from not using stairs - circling the parking lot for 5 minutes rather than walking another 100 feet to the store - and not simply getting up and walking for a while in the evening (but that's also a time issue).

 

[Serial Hero]

Are we getting lazier?

I would have answered earlier, but it seemed like a lot of work.

Well… maybe I’ll type more later…

now I think I'll goto microwave myself a snack and then take a nap

 

[jamespowers]

I would have answered earlier, but it seemed like a lot of work.

Well… maybe I’ll type more later…

now I think I'll goto microwave myself a snack and then take a nap

Microwave me one too while you are at it.

Regards,

J

 

[Mr. Lucky]

You know, sloth, as such, has been a plague on man since he rose from depths of the ooze and stepped upon th...















Oh, the heck with it.

 

[Rosie]

You know, sloth, as such, has been a plague on man since he rose from depths of the ooze and stepped upon th...















Oh, the heck with it.

lol You're too much

 

[Slicksuit]

I understand buying pre-made cookie dough (although it doesn't take that long to mix up a batch) but the fact that you can buy pre-made dough already portioned into cookie sized chunks just baffles me. People don't have the time/inclination to just cut the tube of pre-made dough into pieces themselves? I'm all for convenience, but that just seems crazy to me.
I also think another issue is that a lot of skills weren't handed down. My mother never taught me to bake or cook--if I hadn't taken the initiative myself I'd still think that you didn't need cheese to make macaroni and cheese because it comes in the box. I have lots of friends who don't realize it takes about 5 minutes to mix up a batch of cookie dough that tastes better and is cheaper than the pre-made stuff.

Here here!! I always thought that the 'break and bake' packages were a bit much. I'm a hobbyist baker myself, and I can generally make many more cookies by scratch, that taste better, than using such a convenience. I am of the mind that if it's worth eating, it's worth the effort to acquire the ingredients and put them together.

 

[Paisley]

Some convenience items are good deals. I especially like crushed garlic in a jar. I know how to roast and crush it, but it's a lot of trouble and heats up the kitchen in the summer. Another item is washed spinach. My kitchen faucet doesn't have enough water pressure to get all the sand off of spinach leaves, and I end up with gritty salad.

Some things, to me, aren't really worth it, though. A big one is microwave popcorn. It's expensive compared to bagged popcorn that you pour into a pan with hot oil and cook. I find that it's less likely to burn cooked in a pan. Pre-cut fruit is another one.

I'm surprised that more people don't use a pressure cooker for time savings and convenience. You can cook things in half the time.

 

[Slicksuit]

As a country, I think that we're accustomed to having things, including food, cheap, fast and easy. For those interested, I came across a good blog post on the website for The Nation, called "Slow food Nation". An excerpt:

The contributors to this forum have been asked to name just one thing that could be done to fix the food system. What they propose are solutions that arise out of what I think of as "slow food values," which run counter to the assumptions of fast-food marketing. To me, these are the values of the family meal, which teaches us, among other things, that the pleasures of the table are a social as well as a private good. At the table we learn moderation, conversation, tolerance, generosity and conviviality; these are civic virtues. The pleasures of the table also beget responsibilities--to one another, to the animals we eat, to the land and to the people who work it. It follows that food that is healthy in every way will cost us more, in time and money, than we pay now. But when we have learned what the real costs of food are, and relearned the real rewards of eating, we will have laid a foundation for not just a healthier food system but a healthier twenty-first-century democracy.

The fact that families rarely sit down and eat dinner around the table, on real plates, is somewhat sad. I think that we lose something without that. With all the facets of food production and consumption being removed from the sources and standardized, food becomes just fuel.