Today was my annual physical. “Annual” in the sense that, about every two or three years I remember to do it.
According to the CDC and my nurse practitioner, Whooping Cough is making a resurgence. Vaccination wears off after a few years, you see. And if the whole population is vaccinated that’s just fine because no-one can spread it. However. Due to the anti-vaccination crowd, a number of infants are coming down with pertussis, aka whooping cough. A handful have died nationally. And these infants can spread the disease to their once-vaccinated-but-now-vulnerable adult companions. If you can’t afford to be sick for six months this year, stop by your doctor or clinic and get a T-DaP booster, mmkay?
In other news, I’m going to have to learn to cook.
My blood pressure just crept up to the “you need to watch your salt” level. I already have the “exercise 3-5 times a week” and the “eat 6-10 servings of fruits and vegetables” portions down. But I detest cooking. So I eat a ton of pre-packaged stuff.
Umm. I just got label shock in my kitchen. Everything I eat is full of added salt.
Okay, this isn’t actually news to me. I’ve known in a sort of vague way that pre-packaged food is full of salt. It just wasn’t particularly relevant to me until now. Now I am goggling at the 560 mg of salt in a can of black beans. Jeebus. So I made a perfectly healthy low-salt lunch that tasted like nothing at all. Blea.
Between this, and the hours I keep, and the fact that McDonalds’ breakfasts are off the list, and the fact that the cafeteria at work is intensely dissatisfying, I can sense cooking looming on the horizon.
Cooking. I could be doing something else with that time, dangit.
Filed under: Autobiography Tagged: | cooking, food, vaccination
This is why I cook. I’m lucky that I actually enjoy doing it but it does take a ton of time. To eat well and healthy requires an immense amout of planning and execution. I swear this is why weatlthy people have domestic servants.
@Mark I know, it makes sense, it’s healthy, etc, I just deeply resent the time it takes.
When you get servants, can I borrow them?
About 5 years ago, cooking for me was a bowl of cereal. But for health reason (mostly severe food allergies, which got worse), I spent the time to teach myself to cook. At first, I hated it. But now I like the time in the kitchen, unplugged, and my palette’s developed a lot, my food tastes better, and there are very few packaged/processed/fast foods I can stand today.
@Ericka You’re not the first person I’ve heard go from no cooking, to nearly purely cooking health who’ve said that packaged/processed foods are not tolerable any more. The tongue gets used to certain salt levels, or something, so not having 400mg in everything means it’ll de-tune, and certain nuances of flavor come out.
I haven’t gotten there yet.
I like cooking, but I didn’t learn until I was 22 – I was banned from the kitchen as a teenager for being fat, which certainly stood me in good stead when I left home and couldn’t even cook an egg! If you don’t like cooking, do it once a week in a big batch and freeze the results. Things like curries and chunky soups/stews freeze beautifully and batch cooking reduces your kitchen time.
Salt is just something you’re used to – slowly reduce it, rather than all at once, and you’ll be able to taste other flavours without the salt.
I have seen the change made in thousands of people’s lives when they learn to cook. I’m not talking about following recipes and spending a lot of money on cookbooks. I mean there is great freedom in understanding the basic methods that go into cooking. When you learn HOW to saute’, you can then use chicken, shrimp, tofu, beef, vegetables, it’s all the same.
Being able to cook by method means you never have the stress of trying to figure out “what’s for dinner” every night. You can cook with the ingredients on-hand. You’ll never have the frustration of written recipes not working, you’ll save money on take-out food, improve your nutrition, gain a new hobby, reunite your family, entertain for friends, gain confidence, eat a greater variety of foods, and have a skill for a lifetime.
Learn how to cook and a whole new lifestyle opens for you.
Chef Todd Mohr
WebCookingClasses.com