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It's not just cooking. The problem that we as Americans (and possibly other countries have) is that we don't understand our ingredients. It's easy to "cook" w

It's not just cooking. The problem that we as Americans (and possibly other countries have) is that we don't understand our ingredients. It's easy to "cook" when you put a jar of store bought sauce over some noodles without ever looking at the ingredients. The grams of sugar in lots of store bought "pre-made" items is shocking. As an example with the staple "PB&J" when you look at the P. One tablespoon of a popular peanut butter has 1.5g of sugar. If you get an "organic" or "natural" alternative you often see that number drop to 0.5g of sugar per tablespoon. If you've been fed the 1.5g of sugar version growing up then you're going to have a hard time accepting the 0.5g version. Bread is another area. Bread shouldn't have sugar in it unless it's a dessert bread. Yet most store bought breads have corn syrup or sugar in them. Detoxing from sugar sounds like it could be a joke. But if you cut out most sugar from your diet for a month (read ingredients and pick low or none sugar alternatives as best you can). You'll be amazed at how much sweeter items such as tomatoes, carrots, and other fresh fruits and vegetables begin to taste.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
" It's easy to "cook" when you put a jar of store bought sauce over some noodles without ever looking at the ingredients." That's not what I would call cooking. That's "heating up".
- knightofmars 7y ago
  Hence the quotes around the word cook. :) Even if a person is cooking, if that person isn't preparing everything from scratch it's quite possible they are using sweetened ingredients (I'm not suggesting everyone should cook only from scratch).
  - esotericn 7y ago
    I dislike the use of the term "from scratch" here because it implies something.. esoteric or special. Boiling potatoes is just cooking, there's nothing "from scratch" about it, you're not a farmer. It's more about using real ingredients rather than processed stuff. (Sure, we can talk about what you consider 'processed' - I'd say basically anything that has more than one or two constituent parts).
    - knightofmars 7y ago
      I get where where you're coming from with regards to "from scratch". Non-processed is a better way to describe it.
esotericn 7y ago
Well yeah, that's why you don't buy pre-made stuff. It makes me feel like some sort of weird Zen-master to say this, but you don't need that. It's super overkill, not every meal has to be this thing with 500 ingredients like a budget version of what a high end restaurant might serve. "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. If you have decent prep skills, you can prep the ingredients for a basic sauce of the type in question fairly quickly, but it still needs to be cooked, which is more involved than bringing a canned sauce up to serving temp. It's a lot more work than emptying a jar, when you consider prep, cooking, and added cleanup.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. I dunno, I don't subscribe to this 'hyper-optimize all the things' mindset, you're already in the kitchen anyway, it's a normal thing for humans to do.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. Yeah, and it would be wrong to suggest the opposite, just as it was when you did it for homemade sauce.
      - esotericn 7y ago
        My specific quote: > It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. Because it doesn't. Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. You know just as well as I do that this is silly, we both exist in the real world and know how long things take, and you know the point I'm trying to make. Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

" It's easy to "cook" when you put a jar of store bought sauce over some noodles without ever looking at the ingredients." That's not what I would call cooking. That's "heating up".

knightofmars 7y ago
Hence the quotes around the word cook. :) Even if a person is cooking, if that person isn't preparing everything from scratch it's quite possible they are using sweetened ingredients (I'm not suggesting everyone should cook only from scratch).
- esotericn 7y ago
  I dislike the use of the term "from scratch" here because it implies something.. esoteric or special. Boiling potatoes is just cooking, there's nothing "from scratch" about it, you're not a farmer. It's more about using real ingredients rather than processed stuff. (Sure, we can talk about what you consider 'processed' - I'd say basically anything that has more than one or two constituent parts).
  - knightofmars 7y ago
    I get where where you're coming from with regards to "from scratch". Non-processed is a better way to describe it.

esotericn 7y ago

Well yeah, that's why you don't buy pre-made stuff. It makes me feel like some sort of weird Zen-master to say this, but you don't need that. It's super overkill, not every meal has to be this thing with 500 ingredients like a budget version of what a high end restaurant might serve. "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. If you have decent prep skills, you can prep the ingredients for a basic sauce of the type in question fairly quickly, but it still needs to be cooked, which is more involved than bringing a canned sauce up to serving temp. It's a lot more work than emptying a jar, when you consider prep, cooking, and added cleanup.
- esotericn 7y ago
  In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. I dunno, I don't subscribe to this 'hyper-optimize all the things' mindset, you're already in the kitchen anyway, it's a normal thing for humans to do.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. Yeah, and it would be wrong to suggest the opposite, just as it was when you did it for homemade sauce.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      My specific quote: > It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. Because it doesn't. Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. You know just as well as I do that this is silly, we both exist in the real world and know how long things take, and you know the point I'm trying to make. Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever.