We're in an obesity epidemic and most people don't know how to cook even very basic meals.
Make space for it, squish other classes if you need. Make it mandatory, everyone has to take it. Maybe even ongoing through multiple grades.
Edit: Rice, beans, and even basic meats are cheap. To eat healthy you don't need your meal to be 100% Bell peppers and tomatoes.
A massive contributor to obesity is the cost of healthy food versus non healthy food.
I agree. The cost of pre-made foods with a bunch of chemicals is way cheaper than fresh.
I can go to my local store and pay $40(USD) for some steak versus $4(USD) for a box of hamburger helper and $6(USD) for a pound of hamburger or even $6(USD) for a bag of fresh carrots versus 50 cents for a can of carrots, with preservatives.
Another thing too is the fact that pre-made foods are quicker to cook than fresh foods. Once again the hamburger helper contrast. It takes about 15 minutes to make the “meal” versus 45 minutes to an hour to cook the same dish from scratch with fresh food.
Why are you looking at steak? Chicken is far cheaper. If you can make friends with a hunter you can probably get cheap meat of some variety from them.
Used to be people knew how to plan ahead for meals.
It was an obvious example. Not meant as a literal
The higher price point of steak makes it more of a special meal, and not that obvious. Chicken, Pork, or Ground Beef would be a more approachable example to use.
It was just a quick reply using the steaks, I guess I could have made it more viable if I had specified beef stroganoff hamburger helper to actual beef stroganoff
It would certainly change the math somewhat. Lots of stroganoff recipes do call for steak though.
We also need to look at the price per meal though. I’m going to get more meals out of home made than from the box.
Don’t get me wrong, I cook from scratch consistently. I am on a cardiac diet, low fat no added salt, and these boxes “meals” have upward of 70% your daily intake of sodium in one serving. Not to mention the additional sugar they seem to think a meal needs when it doesn’t need any.
Another thing, you can’t get away with chicken as the meat in a lot of meals. For example tonight we are having Philly steak sandwiches, can’t use chicken for a proper philly
Well, that’s because a proper Philly doesn’t use chicken.
You did bring up another excellent point though, your home made food is likely to be healthier.
By far. I made pizza last night, I even make my crust from scratch. The only ingredients I didn’t make from scratch was the sauce and cheese. The rest of the ingredients were organically sourced
Hamburger helper and ground beef is way healthier and cheaper than the fast food or microwave meals that so many people eat.
Until you take the sodium content into consideration. Too much salt/sodium causes hog blood pressure, and can lead to an increased chance of stroke or hear attack. So actually it’s healthier than microwave meals or fast food, but not by much
So actually it’s healthier than microwave meals or fast food
You made my argument for me.
just barely
You missed the major selling point on my comment.
Not really, it’s healthier. You saying it’s not enough does not negate that. Btw you switched from the overwhelming obesity problem to a smaller one of salt. But on the salt front, you also don’t need to put in the whole flavour pack. If you don’t each much processed food, you may actually need to increase your salt. You see this in very healthy circles, they cut out processed foods and they don’t get enough salt in their diet. They have to add it in again. So having some things like hamburger helper while cutting out truly processed foods (should I say hyper processed foods?) is actually about right.
I will agree with the hyper processed food comment. I don’t add salt to anything that is processed due to the amount of salt/sodium products they use.
When I make my meals where they are 100% from scratch I do add some salt. On average maybe a 1/2 to 1 tsp of salt. But I do disagree with adding salt to processed foods. And salt can lead to obesity also, due to too much salt intake your body will begin craving sweets to offset the salt. Hence you eat more empty calories from the likes of soda, cakes, candy etc…
What everyone seems to forget is you have to have balance in your nutrition. Unfortunately, for most people, they have squandered away their time to achieve that balance with fad diets, fast food or even hyper processed food. We as a society have become very lazy when it comes to our body’s well being. Ask just about anyone about their meal planning, and they will simply reply with “who has time for that?”
But then complain about being overweight or out of energy. We have forgotten how to eat properly, instead we eat in excess.
Aren’t vegetables and seeds cheaper than processed food?
but then you have to cook th… wait a second
No, not here any way.
Sorry to hear
Rice, beans, and even basic meats are cheap.
Processed meat, yeah. Which is full of shit.
I can go and get a bag of chips and two packs of pies/pasties/cheap steak for maybe £6.
Doing it properly with fresh veg will cost a minimum of of 3/4 times as much.
Ground beef is cheap. Actual processed meat like sausages, deli meat, bacon, is expensive.
Here i have to pay 2 dollars for 500 grams of broccoli
7 dollars for 500 grams of minced beef
1.8 dollars for a liter of milk
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That’s a huge part of it, but being equipped with knowledge still makes a pretty big difference, making something like an Aglio e Olio is going to be quite a bit healthier comparatively than a can of chef boyardee overloaded with sugar and salt and for a minimally longer time investment.
veggies are incredibly cheap
Not here they’re not. It must vary from one country to another.
There is a reason they intentionally do not teach basic life skills in school. Just like they do not teach you about money, taxes and finance.
There is no conspiracy. Try teaching paying taxes to someone who won’t have to do it for a couple of years. There’s zero interest.
Instead you’re taught everything you - realistically - should need to know in order to learn by yourself, how to pay taxes.
People just like complaining. Guaranteed if we taught taxes to high schoolers they’d complain that it’s one of the more boring required classes like government and econ. Kids already hate reading assignments and math enough without taxes involved.
To be fair, there’s zero interest in most of what is taught in schools. Kids hate learning for the most part, unless it’s a rare topic that truly engages them. They’d rather be anywhere but school.
We teach wealthy kids these important life skills, but we don’t teach the poorer kids. Hmmm.
Do they not teach home economics anymore?
Also, a lot of finance applicable stuff is found in math. It’s no coincidence that the majority of people don’t know finances and the majority of people also brag about how much they ignored or hated math class.
No, as far as I can tell, none of the schools my kids attended had any Home Ec. Even back “in the good old days”, my high school had Home Ec, but it wasn’t recommended for kids on the college track.
One school did have personal finance though, and it was taught well enough to interest my older kid. I don’t know what they covered for taxes
and what do you think that reason is?
Public school and its education is not as it is advertised. In the US when the government introuced public education, they presented it in a way to let any American have the oppertunity to become well educated and smart and in many ways this is true. However the politicians did not want to give the masses education were they upcoming generation will not be too smart to understand how the world truly works.
School and society as a whole raises you to be the best consumer possible.
Why don’t they teach you to cook, so your likely going to eat out more. Why don’'t they teach you finance, so your likely living by paycheck to paycheck. Oviously teachers are not holding this back from students because they wish to keep their students down. Teachers only focus on following the curriculum.
Also look at how many politicians send their kids to private schools.
I took home economics, learned about cooking and sewing. 10/10, would recommend.
if i could go back and re-pick my high school classes, i would definitely have opted for home ec electives.
all i got in school was a trimester of home ec (which included sewing and cooking) each year of junior high. it was part of the core classes everybody took.
Cut the sewing. We don’t have a clothing shortage, we have an obesity epidemic.
We also have a epidemic of just throwing shit in a landfill and getting a new one.
I could give a shit if someone wants to eat chicken nuggies for every meal. I care more about landfills piling up trash that could have just been repaired or reused.
We have what 70% of the US population overweight or obese. That’s the problem of our times.
Not to mention that fast fashion means we go through clothes before they are worn out, the gain is on wearing them until they worn out. When it’s threadbare sewing will not help. Teaching sewing is not a good use of time, make the best use of the resources we have.
You do realize that teaching people to cook does absolutely nothing to keep people from being obese, right? I cook all the time, still over weight. Cooking fresh food does not equate to a healthy diet and being thin. People’s over eating, and diets don’t really affect you.
Plus, you can’t force shit like this on people, they have to want to do it. I could eat healthier, sure, but I’d truly rather die a few years younger than to have wasted my life eating beans, rice and basic meats like you are suggesting.
Obviously I disagree because that’s the whole point of my post: Cooking will help reduce obesity.
n of 1 is not the population.
We also have widening income inequality, and learning how to mend clothes is a great way to save money. Same with cooking.
While I agree that everyone should have at least some understanding of cooking, the problem of obesity isn’t directly related to knowing how to cook. It has far more to do with the accessibility of certain types of food in a given community. The horribly unhealthy food is often a fraction of the cost of fresh, healthy food. It’s not necessarily the case that don’t know/want to cook their own healthy meals, it’s that they literally can’t afford to do so.
It’s impossible to even start if you don’t know how to cook.
True, but it’s impossible to do no matter what you know if it’s unaffordable
C’mon rice and and beans and basic meat is cheap.
It’s typically only the heavily processed versions of beans and meats that are cheap. Besides, those items hardly make for a healthy diet by themselves. It’s all the other ingredients required that drive the costs up.
Also, your suggestion of simply pushing for cooking classes regardless of the cost, would ironically make the problem worse. The burden of that cost will inevitably land on poorer people. And at the same time potentially removing access to other valuable classes and skills. They will be paying for an education that they still can’t afford to utilize.
The cheapest meats I see are the unprocessed ones: Ground beef. Whole chickens. Whole turkeys. Liver. Those giant pork loins.
The expensive meats are the cut up chickens, the chickens ready to cook sealed in whatever flavour, the bacon, the spam, the sausage. The deli meat are multiples more expensive.
Dried beans are cheap.
Rice is cheap.
That’s the vast majority of my calories.
I don’t know how your taxes work, but the poorer people pay less in absolute terms and percentage terms. Marginal tax rates go up as you earn more. Yes the capital gains tax is low and makes the percentages look odd.
The cost of food is obviously going to vary depending on location, but it’s pretty well proven that healthier, more nutritional foods tend to be more expensive than the less healthy, mass manufactured alternative. Ground beef, rice, and beans alone do NOT make for a healthy and balanced diet, even if they are cheap. Next time you’re shopping, compare the price and ingredients of fresh vegetables vs canned or frozen. Compare the breads, dairy products, grains and cereals, snacks, condiments, etc. You’ll almost certainly find that the more affordable options are loaded with far more preservatives, additives and various sugars.
While a cooking class may help a person make better choices with their diet, it will not change the fact that a large portion of the population literally can’t afford to eat healthier.
It’s true that poor people pay less in taxes, but the taxes will always have a much greater impact on their lives compared to someone with higher income and therefore more available money. If someone makes $1000/month and pays 20% tax, they only have $800 left. Compared to someone that makes $10000/month and pays 30% tax, they still have $7000 left over. Assuming they both live in the same area and pay the same bills, which one is affected by a tax increase more? Which one is going to be able to afford the more expensive, but healthier foods?
JFC obviously you need more than rice, beans, and ground beef. But things like this make up the bulk of your calories. Not all, the bulk.
Frozen vegetables are fine, in fact they study it and it’s even better nutritionally because the vitamins are frozen and don’t start to break down. Canned vegetables are probably fine too, not sure if they add sugar or salt.
This is the problem, people think you need fresh everything everyday and that broccoli needs to bulk of your calories or something like that, and you don’t. The bulk (not all, the bulk) of your calories can come from very basic foods. You can eat healthy if you know some basic cooking.
You keep discounting things like rice, beans, all the meats I listed, and now you discount frozen vegetables, canned vegetables. You discount all the stuff that is cheap and healthy. These are the basic foods that you need to learn how to cook. This is the problem, you think everything needs to be fresh everyday and you can’t get the bulk (not all, the bulk) from basic foods.
Ok taxes, I doubt tax increases will ever go to the poor. Nor do I think this would be that expensive to teach cooking. When you look at how much we spend on schools and teachers, adding some hot plates and ovens is minuscule. You replace hours in one class with another, no change in teachers.
On to how this will save money, do you know how many problems come from obesity? And diabetes? How many other issues? Look at the health care costs, it’s outrageous. Some basic cooking skills will go a long way to prevent a lot of this, saving money for both people and government. Just need a tiny little bit at the start and it’ll save money for everyone.
Throw in some frozen veggie (hell you can find fresh ones decently priced if you buy veggies that are in season) and you’re set.
People way overestimate the costs of a healthy meal plan. Truth of the matter is that it requires time, and it won’t taste as good - if you aren’t decent in the kitchen. That’s most people’s problem.
Maybe, but the argument is the rice and beans example. If people aren’t familiar with turning rice and beans into a meal, and don’t have the experience to do it efficiently, they’re more likely to opt for convenience over cost and nutrition
This used to be taught as part of “home economics”. What we really need is a massive update to that class, which lives up to its name and covers:
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nutritional food purchasing - how to get food nutrition on a rock-bottom budget
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yes, how to prepare nutritious meals using the most affordable ingredients (how to properly prepare rice, and dry beans), how to follow a recipe, and the fundamentals of cooking: (how to make cheap cuts of meat edible and delicious, Why different cooking methods work in some cases, not in others)
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financial literacy that is up to date, and explains how the entire credit system is a dangerous trap, and how to use it safely. How and why to open credit union (not bank) accounts. How to file taxes for free, and what to actually expect for take-home pay after taxes for various incomes and situations.
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realistic budgeting for success. Kids need to understand that they need to expect shared living situations for most of their adult life.
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actual ROI of college when loans are factored in
… separate from this we also need civics class to that includes some fundamentals that are usually only taught to first year law students: how contracts work, what negligence is, what’s The first amendment is and what it isn’t. And how to interact with cops to protect yourself.
Civics class should also include technical walkthroughs of how to register to vote, and how to do the actual voting, and how to use absentee ballots.
Civics class should also include lessons on how to find ORIGINAL sources to gather information about which candidates to vote for, and how to choose media and fact checkers by whether those media and fact checkers accurately represent the content of the original sources.
Civics class should also tell students the technical processes of how they can run for office, and what offices are available to them at the local level.
Under financial literacy, it needs to be taught how tax brackets work. The amount of people that foolishly believe that taking a $2 raise will result in less take home pay is too damn high.
I think the knee jerk reaction to just not use credit cards is an over reaction. If you are in a state where you can safely maintain a few hundred dollars in a bank account month to month, then it’s perfectly reasonable to have a credit card that is used responsibly as long as you don’t carry a balance. I would just roll it into good budgeting and it helps you build a credit history which, though a shitty system, is still a useful thing to have.
It’s not for everyone based on that criteria, but a good amount of people do fit that condition, especially if they have a moderately well paying job in a lower cost of living area, or do things like live with their parents.
There’s nothing wrong with appropriate use of credit cards … Ideally. I think most people avoid them because they fear making poor choices. They know they’re fallible. They know there are huge industries based on extracting money from the unwary. Paying cash balances that out with a very simple control.
It’s similar to eating a reasonable amount for many people. On the surface it’s calories in vs calories consumed, but in reality it’s all about human nature. I buy soda in cans, despite the cost and environmental impact, because it’s easier to tell myself to only have one per day than it is to stop at 12 Oz. This is the whole reason for “100 calorie packs”, to help people limit themselves to “one serving”
Add too much and suddenly you can’t fit it. We have an obesity epidemic that affects virtually everyone, rich or poor, degree or not, etc. We need mandatory cooking class.
I don’t actually think education is the main problem with obesity. People generally know when something is healthy or unhealthy. It’s a lack of access to healthy food options, or a mental issue. Sugar can be addictive, and food can be a coping method for certain people too.
I say this is a skill that’s lacking. That’s why I say cooking class and not nutrition class. I want cooking with a stove, oven, and food.
Food deserts exist but should be getting better with grocery delivery. Mental health is real. But you can’t start on any of this without being able to cook.
This really hit home for me over pandemic, where I was suddenly preparing more food at home instead of going out. Even though I’ve cooked all my life, doing so more often helped make it faster, easier, more natural. Less of a chore, more imagination
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Cooking class was mandatory in my school in the 90s. We learned how to make muffins from scratch, some basic (and I mean very basic) meals, and some basic home cleaning. It was better than nothing, but I was able to see who had never been shown any of it before. I had grew up cooking for myself, and I was expected to help with dishes. So none of it was that new to me. But some of the kids had never touched unprepared food before. Some had never washed a dish before. It was obvious which ones were going to grow up still not knowing how to cook for themselves beyond microwave meals and takeout.
A single course isn’t going to do much to help guide a kid into being a healthy adult. Basic life skills should be a graduated course in every single year of grade school. It’s the only way to engrain it into everyday life.
here in germany it was mandatory and they did force me to cook and eat things i didn’t eat. I’m vegetarian but they tried to force me to eat and cook it. i also don’t eat specific other things because i hate their taste and they forced me to eat this bs.
fuck this “mandatory” courses. it’s not helping to live healthy. it’s forcing children to do stuff they don’t want to do and gives them bad grades for it. i got bad grades just because i was vegetarian and didn’t eat meat. fuck this.
each week when we had cooking class it was a nightmare for me. i always jad to explain myself again and again to everyone. why I don’t eat meat. what my ethics and morals are. ever fucking week. and in the end they have me bad grades even after cooking their bs recipes. i just didn’t eat them. because obvious reasons. fuck this mandatory courses.
It sounds like the actual problem was teachers / curriculum.
Here’s the fun question though. If they had vegetarian options to choose from and people weren’t dicks about you being vegetarian what would your opinion be?
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I put cooking as more important than Shakespeare and calculus. Cooking is done everyday and directly impacts your health. It really is an essential life skill more than pretty much anything else.
You can say don’t force people about everything in school. That’s the whole point of school, to force people to learn what they need to know so they have basic skills and knowledge. Plenty of people would be illiterate if we didn’t force them to learn to read. We force people to learn to read because you need it.
One point though I wouldn’t have grades on cooking.
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Yes force to cook, that’s whole point, To teach how to cook.
To eat? Well if you can’t eat your own cooking that’s your own pass or fail. (Obviously you shouldn’t force vegetarians to eat meat or muslims to eat pork.)
People can’t even start if they don’t know how to cook.
it’s the job of parents to teach their kids cooking. not sch
You can say that about any subject. That’s the point of having schools and mandatory learning, to teach the essentials that are not negotiable. And what I’m saying in this post is that we should have cooking as mandatory as any other subject in school because it’s an essential life skill. Not negotiable, not outsourced to parents, you get it in school.
Obviously you shouldn’t force anyone to eat what they can’t eat.
Which sounds nice until you realize the reality of all schools actually work, and how a lot of teachers actually think.
“Well the state says we have to do this in the state says you have to eat it, so you have to eat it ”
“But teacher that’s not what the law actually says “
“Don’t talk back to me you have detention “
Right. And you’ll have that one teacher who thinks being vegetarian is “just a phase” or some other crap like that, and forcefully override the student’s beliefs. You can have the best intentions in a system like what OP is prescribing, and then there’s that one teacher who takes it way too far.
So you’re saying there might be a bad teacher out there, so you can’t do anything ever. Yeah no that’s not a real argument.
If you make it mandatory, you have to accommodate every student’s dietary requirements.
Just another thing they need to learn, so it should be taught.
The cost would be astronomical when added up across all school districts in the country, even in the state. Side note: which classes do they study less of or not have?
I really don’t think this would cost much overall in society.
It even goes the other way: Compared to the costs of obesity and its effects, this would save money.
And this is the unpopular part: get it done. Cut whatever other class you need to, increase taxes, get it done.
That sounds nice but misses the point of the problem. See the posts about food costs in this thread for one. Another issue is that schools here are woefully underfunded. When you can barely fix the roof, mitigate mold, buy textbooks for core classes, afford to let teachers use the copy machines or have enough basic office supplies, etc, etc, etc, cooking classes and their facilities/materials costs are kind of a (possibly lead) pipe dream. But lets face it, if schools did get funded to the level they deserved too many parents would simply make sure that money got redirected towards the school’s football team.
This is the unpopular part: Do it. Cut whatever else. Increase taxes. This is priority. There is a obesity epidemic.
Man, had to come back around and upvote. Absolutely nailed an unpopular opinion.
They are, all kids do Food Technology in Secondary School in the UK, where we learn to cook various things.
I agree that they should also be mandatory in other countries, cooking is one of those things everyone needs to learn, and if their parents are too lazy to teach them, schools must step in.
Also mandatory in Finland for everybody. In theory it’s a “home skills” class but it was mostly cooking.
Is this an unpopular opinion? Life skills classes are a great idea, my current high schooler took Culinary (geared more towards commercial kitchens but still cooking) and is taking financial literacy this year.
If physical education is mandatory, I agree that nutrition & cooking class, as well as budgeting/financial class, are part of a comprehensive education. I think they should bring back sex ed too.
Being able to cook well is more a function of experience, all my kids can cook now, because they like to eat and it’s the easiest and most affordable way to get good meals. But the one who took the class does show more interest at a younger age.
The replies I got sure said it was unpopular.
Agree it should be taught. It was in my school for half a semester and I still recall much of it. Is a life skill. The other half should be sold financial literacy. Basic accounting.
That being said, it will make near zero difference for obesity. Prepared food is easier and cheaper to access rapidly than at anytime in the past. It is our choice what we eat and the effort we put into it and only itself to blame if we eat poorly. If people wanted to eat healthy, I and sure McDonalds would have more salad options than burger options.
I’ll even say it’s worth paying more …… instead of a textbook, every kid should have a subscription to one of those meal kit services. Yeah, they’re expensive, but worked really well for teaching my kids a lot about cooking.
Every week, they chose among a dozen or so choices, instead of being overwhelmed with infinite choice or stuck in a rut of what you know. Every week, they know to expect to make a meal. Every week, they have all the ingredients together in one place. Every week, they have a well-written recipe card organized for efficient preparation and with little assumption of experience. Every week, the6 learned something about prep or a cooking strategy or an ingredient or a cuisine. It worked great for my kids and I wish they were affordable for all kids
Your country must be paying the teachers big bucks.
Yeah, so what subjects are they going to cut to teach cooking instead?
There is zero chance they are going to make the school day longer, so there are only so many hours in the week for classes. So if you add a subject, then you have to remove some other subject.
Geography, one subject that I literally never use. Cooking I do daily. So there
Also I’d of learned more geography if I learned what types of food is from where
