Food short cuts- which ones are worth it and which ones should be taken out and shot...

To be American in today's world is to be perennially overcommitted.  We are constantly on the go, sleep-deprived, and look for every shortcut in the book. Many times, what gets sacrificed are home-cooked, thoughtfully prepared meals. We spend a fortune at restaurants, and throw convenience food together. Our waistlines and medical parameters show the results of our harried schedule.  The Slow Food Movement is awesome in theory, but I don't have time for Slow anything these days.  Rather than taking an all-or-nothing stance, I'm trying to find short cuts when possible, practical, and healthy and delicious, but there are some short cuts that are just not worth it.  Either doing things the "right way" takes so little extra time, the short cut is ridiculously overpriced, or the short cut is horrifically unhealthy or one sacrifices their tastebuds at the altar of convenience.  Here are a few short cuts that are just not worth it:

Low end ramen noodles.  Yes, they are uber cheap and cook up in 2 minutes.  They are also loaded with sodium and fat, and made with bleached white flour.  And my kid, unfortunately, loves them.  She loves pasta in all forms.   Solution?  Make a gigantic pot of whole grain (wheat, rice, spelt, what have you) pasta and refrigerate the bulk to use for other meals, in soups, etc. My kid could happily eat nothing but pasta and butter, but I doctor it up with protein (chicken, tuna, salmon), half the butter she wants, and sometimes stir in veggies.  When I do make ramen noodles, I try to go for the whole grain/low sodium variety from a co-op or Whole Foods.  The kid squawks. I ignore her.

Short cuts chicken.  You know the chicken chunks you find near the luncheon meat that you can add to salads, etc? They are just nasty.  They taste compressed and reconstituted.  In fact, they are one of the few foods on earth that doesn't "taste like chicken".  I know most of us do not have time to cook a whole chicken.  But this is just foul, and overpriced.  Solution?  Buy a rotisserie chicken- heck, at the end of the day, my grocery store puts them on sale.  They are very affordable, and it takes all of 5-10 minutes to pull the meat off at home.   You can pick up a couple of them and have chicken for a variety of recipes in a week.

Shredded cheese.  I'm a hard sell on this one, because it is so easy to open a bag, but shredded cheese loses a lot of flavor and is much more expensive. It takes all of 5 minutes to grate an entire block of cheese, is good for the arm muscles, and you can grate a couple of days worth at once. 

Jars of pre-minced garlic.   It doesn't even taste like garlic.  It has a bitterness that fresh garlic doesn't have. If you don't have a garlic press, by all means, get one.  It takes a few seconds to peel off the garlic rind, and a few more seconds to press a clove. I used to use it, but when I purchased some fresh garlic, I was floored by how much better my food tasted.

Avoiding fish.  I have heard so many people say that they don't buy fish because they "don't have time for it".  ??  Fish bakes and pan fries so much faster than other meats.   I can pan fry up some salmon steaks on the stove in 5 minutes, and it's the easiest thing ever.  Salmon steaks with olive oil, garlic, capers, and lemon juice is absolutely delicious, and I will often serve the salmon over some of the leftover whole grain pasta.

Frozen vegetables.  Yes, I'm guilty of this at times, but, my lord, they are disgusting.  I grew up on canned and frozen vegetables, and never liked veggies until I went off to college and started cooking fresh ones. It is SO tempting to pop a steamable bag of frozen veggies in the microwave, but it's also easy to get a steamer basket and use it.  We have a container from Pampered Chef that allows us to steam veggies in the microwave in 5 minutes. It takes little time to cut up a squash and a zucchini, half some local cherry tomatoes, and pan fry it in olive oil with some herbs.

My husband would add in baby carrots.  I cave, because I am in a rush in the morning, but I agree that peeling and cutting up a carrot takes little time and tastes so much better.  Another option for a work lunch is to cut up a couple of colored peppers.

Frozen meals.  I falter here as well, but I am trying to get them out of my diet.  They taste like ass, pure and simple, and are full of disgusting crap.  I'm trying to find better solutions for quick, easy lunches to pack, and the easiest, fastest packed lunch is to bring leftovers from dinner.  We try to make large quantities of dinner so that we can have lunches for the week. When I cave, I'm trying to buy better frozen meals.  Amy's makes some that are much healthier and actually taste reasonably pleasant.

Commercial salad dressings.  They are full of junk and, in my opinion, taste like chemicals.  It takes no time at all to make a vinaigrette.  Some days, I just mix balsamic vinegar with olive oil.  That's it.  1 minute of my life. 

Crustables.  Oh. Em. Gee.  These are in the frozen section, and are pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  You take them out and let them thaw.  In that length of time, you could have whipped together multiple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.   For about a 10th of the price.  Who buys these things?

Pre-sliced boiled eggs.  The HECK?  How fresh could these things be?  And how long does it take to slice up an egg?  For the love of all that is holy, don't.

Short cuts that are worth it (at least to me):

Bagged salad.  No way do I have time on a weekday to wash lettuce and spin it or wait for it to dry. I can take some bagged salad and add some protein, nuts, grape tomatoes, and, if I have them, leftover cooked veggies. I bring a small container of homemade salad dressing, as the salads get nasty and soggy if you put the dressing on at home. It's the only way I am going to bring salad to work, so it's bagged salad or no salad.


Rotisserie chicken.  I could live on rotisserie chicken.  I do not have time to cook whole chickens, and they are tasty and cheap.  They can be used in just about any chicken recipe, or just thrown onto a salad or in a tortilla.  Definitely worth it.

Chopped butternut squash cubes.  I haven't noticed any taste difference, and they are so convenient in stews or other recipes.  Peeling and cutting a butternut squash takes a lot of time.

Pie crust.  Unless I am taking a pie to a very special dinner, the store bought variety are tasty enough to make the convenience worthwhile. And we rarely make pies anyway.

Cake mixes.  They CAN be worth it, if you are just feeding a bunch of kids, or if you doctor up the recipe.  Otherwise, there is nothing as tasty as a homemade cake. And the pre-made frosting pales in comparison to the homemade variety.  I'd probably compromise with a cake mix with homemade frosting.

Bisquick/pancake mix.  We eat pancakes so infrequently that I don't mind occasionally using Bisquick, and it comes in handy for a variety of recipes. I am biased, as I grew up on Bisquick, and it tastes like my childhood.  Plus, I am usually too out of it first thing in the morning to whip up homemade pancakes.  If you want a healthier option, Whole Foods or your local co-op will probably have whole grain, organic, pancake mixes.  Arrowhead Mills makes some tasty ones.I wouldn't recommend a steady stream of pancake breakfasts, scratch or not, but if you do it as little as we do, a little Bisquick won't kill you.

In general, my list will differ from your list, as we all have different taste buds.  Cut corners when it won't compromise healthy eating or taste bad.  Take the extra time when it really matters, or when the short cut is overpriced or nasty. 

insanity is to continue to argue with the insane...

I have just engaged in the most pointless FB argument ever.  An old acquaintance posted, without irony or hesitation, that the US government has a depopulation agenda, wants an Ebola pandemic, and will bring the survivors to their knees.  I engaged my science librarian self asking for his list of peer-reviewed articles and evidence from virologists, and said to spare me the URLs from conspiracy web sites and blogs. He responded, and, I can't really remember the diatribe that came out of his mouth, other than the fact that he responded in ALL CAPS, and I cannot read conspiracy rants in ALL CAPS, sorry, dude.  He mentioned the "well-known government's depopulation agenda", and I responded that it can't be all that well known, as I didn't know this to be a fact.

I have been thinking about how I do science literacy instruction here at the library, and I am realizing that I have been focusing too much on how to find library sources, such as journal articles and books, and not enough time on science literacy.  I do talk a good deal about finding authoritative sources, and how to tell the difference between a solid, scholarly web site/journal article and something that is not authoritative, but I don't think I provide enough context as to why this is important.  Having these skills are not only important in scholarship, but also in one's personal life as one grapples with all the claims and statistics floating around on the interwebz, especially pertaining to science.  There is an epidemic of junk science that is leading to science refusal and distrust of the people who have spent their lives doing research and gaining expertise, and when we consider a Playboy bunny an authoritative source on vaccines, rather than our physicians or our scientists, we have a serious problem.  We cite Rush Limbaugh on climate change and poo poo climate researchers who almost unanimously agree that humans are affecting global climates. We are a nation of people who are overly confident in our opinions, and opine far out of our expert domain.  Though I am a lefty like many celebrities, I do not go to my favorite celebrity for opinions on scientific matters. I do not go to an anonymous blogger, or an organization funded by corporate interests.  I try to search scholarly databases and look for peer-reviewed articles by experts.  This is something I try to instill in my students, and clearly, I  need to stress this more. It's not about a political agenda- I will reverse my opinions if I am showed clear, authoritative evidence that I am wrong.  It's about teaching and learning critical thinking skills, and we, as a nation, are doing a horrific job here.

My problem with conspiracy theorists is that they are indiscriminate when it comes to assessing information sources.  They have a pre-set agenda, and take any information as truth that suits their agenda without close examination.  And, they have a built in refusal tool.  If I present statistics from the CDC, well, the CDC is in on the conspiracy, so I can't trust their statistics.  If I present evidence by scholars and researchers at universities, hell, they are bought off by the powers-that-be, and cannot be trusted.  So, anything I bring to them that refutes a wild conspiracy is information that THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE.  And then, they deposit a list of links from frothy-mouthed blogs made by people I have never heard of with no expertise on the topic, and I cannot possibly trace the information back to an authoritative source; nor can they either. So, distrust the experts, but trust any Joe Blow who posts that they KNOW the truth.  Last night, my husband showed me a photo posted on a UFO FB group that "proved" that aliens visited the moon.  Note- he was once part of the UFOlogy community.  He recognized the graphic as coming from a fictional movie! If I catch conspiracy nuts in the act of believing something so easily refuted, how can I trust them on anything else they claim is true?

Do I believe conspiracies are possible?  Certainly.  Anything is possible.But do I believe that hundreds, even thousands of elite people can be in on the conspiracy and keep it secret?  Have you ever tried to get even 10 friends to keep a secret? Or get a group of 10 co-workers and talk them into sharing your agenda? Herding people is only slightly less difficult than herding cats, and to believe that everyone with any kind of important office in the CDC, NIH, the US Government, working as a researcher, all have a secret handshake, a shared agenda, and a willingness to keep their traps shut is so farfetched I cannot imagine anyone older than 15 buying into this.

I did finally extract myself from the FB argument.  You cannot argue with crazy, these people have their own circular logic that does not accept any evidence they don't want to see, and it is a pointless waste of my time to even go there.  Some of these people I remember as once being chill, fun, easy to hang out with. I wonder what happened to their psyche that caused them to walk around with so much paranoia and anxiety.

As far as Ebola, it's useless to point out the facts of the disease- ie, not airborne, not easily transmitted, because THAT IS WHAT THE CDC WANTS US TO BELIEVE.  Never mind that anyone in the government with even half a brain would want to allow a pandemic inside our borders that might end up killing him or her. And, hell, if it kills us all, there would be nobody left to control.  There is no logic to it.  And I have to learn to walk away and allow the illogical to remain illogical.  All I can do is to work with my undergrads and show them critical thinking and good research skills and hope that it sticks.