Page One Hundred Forty-Three.
Thank heavens for the 1960's. What with all the improvements made to food during that decade and the one prior, it's amazing we survived as a race during all the millions of years prior eating the de-evolved food available until then.
By the '60's we had dried potatoes that you simply added water to and viola, mashed potatoes. We had frozen dinners that you simply shoved in the oven and 45 minutes later viola, steamy, hot salisbury steak with peas and carrots. We had cans of pasta with sauce already added that you simply heated up on the stove and viola, deeply satisfying bowls of beefaroni, a food in fact, that didn't even exist prior to the 1950's. How we got along without these instant dishes of food is anybody's guess.
In the late 60's or early 70's my mother told me that "nobody actually makes mashed potatoes from scratch anymore. It's so much work. Everybody makes them from Potato Buds nowadays." The fact is, many people really did make them from a box and still do. If in a hurry, they can't be beat. Also, I remember my mother complaining about me on the phone to a friend one day. "I don't know why he complains that there's no food in the house. The freezer is filled with Swanson frozen chicken dinners." Again, there's a place when frozen is quite valuable. Kids can make themselves "food" when home alone. Problem is: chemicals; preservatives; excessive processing; tremendous amounts of fat; artificial flavors/colors; lack of fruits and vegetables; lack of vitamins and minerals. Need I continue?
Those advertising executives from the mid-20th century put a lot of energy into convincing people that food was evolving and this was the wave of the future. And many busy parents wanted to believe it. Prepared food was cheap, quick and easy. It was messiah in a box. And many of us literally grew into adulthood eating that stuff. Too bad if we were being malnourished while eating it.
Today, we're doing something similar to our children: taking them for fast food too often. When I was a kid, we went out a few times a month and then it was a special occasion. Even fast food was considered special. (Of course, it really was compared to frozen, canned and boxed which I ate otherwise.) In 2013, how many children eat 3, 4 or more dinners per week from restaurants? A shockingly large number. And then we wonder about the obesity epidemic. That restaurant food is laden with fat and chemicals. We no longer need advertising executives convincing us how wonderful frozen is. We already know that. So today they convince us to spend our hard earned money in restaurants. But again, we're being malnourished while eating it. However, malnourishment is a mere technicality. After all, as my parents believed, there are so many more important things to do than spend one hour a day making fresh food.
I know of a famous story which has made the rounds of Cleveland Heights cocktail parties during the last few years. A well known Cleveland Heights bachelor invited the governor of Ohio, the governor's wife and a few other high placed friends over for dinner. When everyone arrived, he ushered them all into his stunning, exorbitantly expensive kitchen, opened the freezer and asked each guest which type of Stouffer's frozen entree they'd like to eat for dinner. Granted, Stouffer's frozen entrees are an Ohio product, made in Solon, a Cleveland suburb, as a matter of fact. So perhaps he was illustrating his civic pride, but in a very dubious manner, if you ask me. More likely, he truly believed that "the future is now"! Frozen or prepared food is the next evolution in eating.
Give me old style, 19th century food any day of the week.
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