I'm posting reruns this week. Today's post is from August 2007.
And before we get into it -- Don't forget about the homeschooling space Flickr pool contest. Coming up soon!
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DarwinCatholic has a post pointing to a report of an intriguing study. Convenience foods don't help you get dinner on the table faster -- they help you get more elaborate dinners on the table.
Interesting! But I want to know what is meant by "prepackaged convenience food." The article says that convenience foods "tend to be high in preservatives, unhealthy fats and sodium. tend to be high in preservatives, unhealthy fats and sodium." But then, at the end of the article, a short list of examples from a "convenience" dinner includes "prebagged salad" and "bagged dinner rolls," while a "from scratch" dinner includes "bread." (The "convenience" dinner also included "macaroni and cheese." I guess I'm to infer that it came from a box; perhaps the reporter, like one of my mother's amazed co-workers on seeing Mom's lunchtime leftovers, doesn't know there's any other kind?)
I got a copy of the text of the article, which is Beck ME, "Dinner preparation in the modern United States," British Food Journal v.109 n.7 pp.531-547 (2007). Here Beck defines her terms:
Commercial foods, as the term is used here, are either purchased as ready-to-eat or prepared by the home cook entirely according to package directions. "Commercial foods" are similar to "convenience foods", formally defined elsewhere as "fully or partially prepared foods in which significant preparation time, culinary skills, or energy inputs have been transferred from the home kitchen to the food processor and distributor" (Capps et al., 1985). Time saving is not considered in this definition of commercial foods, because time can be measured independently. Emphasized instead is the lack of independent handling and preparation... Such foods are often highly processed, because increased processing tends to remove the possibility of independent decisions in dish completion.
I was wondering if canned single ingredients, like tomatoes or tuna, counted as convenience/commercial food. It turns out that they are:
The following items were not considered to be commercial ingredients for the purposes of this analysis: spices, seasonings, or marinades; dairy products...; dried pasta; ready-made tortillas...; and frozen edamame (soybeans) in their pods. Commercial items include prepared meats such as hot dogs and pepperoni as well as vegetarian versions... They also include purchased tomato or alfredo sauces, rice in flavored rice mixes and pre-measured boil-in bags (but not non-instant rice purchased loose in larger quantities), and frozen or canned vegetables (which are processed to the extent that they may be simply heated and served, without washing, trimming, or adding other ingredients).
What's with the amnesty for the frozen edamame? Is it because they have pods? Every restaurant that I know of serves it up in the pods as a finger food, kind of like shell-your-own-peanuts. And what about the tortillas? Sliced sandwich bread doesn't count as non-commercial [I presume -- you would think they would mention it], but tortillas are OK?
Here's a fascinating paragraph from the journal article:
Families in our study often served extra dishes to please individual family members who did not like the rest of the meal. In their study of Italian-American families, Goode et al. (1984, p. 199) noted, "The way of handling the strong likes and dislikes of non-influential family members is to make them supplementary dishes or serve them leftovers" and argue that it is "a distinctly modern American pattern." Other researchers have found that such accommodations to individual tastes are an accepted part of meal preparation in Italy, although they are often considered frustrating or annoying in the USA (Ochs et al., 1996). Some parents in this study approached such requests with flat refusal or open resentment while acquiescing.
I was amused by the Goode et al. quote -- "non-influential family members?" Is that just code for "little kids?" If so, how non-influential could they be if they got the cook to make something special just for them? Anyway, since one of the points of the study is that people who don't use prepared food make simpler dinners with less dishes, a corollary here seems to be that if you make food from scratch you're less likely to make sure that picky Junior gets peanut butter AGAIN while the rest of the family eats moussaka.
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