What to Eat

Time for a bite?

We’re more than a little proud of “Little Miss Phillips,” who isn’t any of that any more.

She has no paper towels in her house. She uses tea towels or fabric dish cloths.

As a child she wondered why we couldn’t make our own granola. We did. Today she makes that as well as yogurt, mayo, tofu and other things from scratch.

I will use her as a jumping off point from what has been on my mind.

When a man lingers in a grocery store, he notices things that are none of his business. Such as: Why does cake mix cost so much in one store but just over a dollar in another? I shouldn’t care, but still . . .

Where can you find water chestnuts? I finally found them near the bamboo shoots.

Water chestnuts in salads and casseroles give those dishes a crunch, but I have no idea what to do with bamboo shoots.

From glances at carts’ contents, it seems that folks don’t know how to cook anymore. Putting a frozen pizza into an oven isn’t cooking but making a pizza from scratch, including the crust, is.

A small “TV Dinner” of mystery meat with a regrettable squirt of industrial gravy and a tablespoon of mashed potatoes was less than a dollar. Over the years I must have eaten a case of them.

There has been an improvement in the frozen food section, where meals are ready to cook, not just heat and eat.

Some markets will even cook for you, the whole shebang, except for filling water glasses.

There are delivery services that specialize in meals. Decades ago many grocery stores offered delivery via a teenager on a bicycle.

Not knowing how to cook messes up learning other life kills such as budgeting and knowing something about food groups. There are gaps in basic knowledge about weights and measures, how many pints in a quart, ounces in a pint.

Restaurant ads concentrate on the amount you can buy at a price, not the value of it.

The Department of Agriculture has a decades-long nutrition program of free or discounted food but doesn’t teach much that I know of.

The Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA allows states to restrict some foods from the SNAP program that provide little or no nutrition, such as sodas, candy, chips, energy drinks.

How did those things get on the food list to begin with?

There was a time when Home Economics classes were required in some districts.

According to the CDC, in 2024 close to 42% of American adults and 19% of children were obese.

Now a sizable portion of our population, children and adults, are overfed and undernourished.

Why?

joenphillips@yahoo.com