Hidden threat of ready meals: what you need to know about convenience foods - ForumDaily
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Hidden threat of ready meals: what you need to know about convenience foods

In total 50 years ago, many married American women, even those who received an excellent education, spent most of their time at homework. All this is known thanks to numerous public opinion polls conducted at that time.

Over the past half century, the lives of educated women in developed countries have changed radically, writes with the BBC.

Now women in the US spend on cooking and cleaning only about 45 minutes a day. It's still more than men (15 minutes a day), but in general the difference with 4 hours, which the woman spent every day at home in 1960, is radical.

Behind these changes is the invention of convenience foods. We owe their appearance to a bacteriologist named Betty Cronin, who in 1954 figured out how to make all the ingredients of a dish require the same cooking time. Turkey, potatoes, vegetables and sauce were placed in one aluminum box - everything was cooked together.

Betty worked at a food factory.

During the war years, its products were sent to the front, and after it ended, it was necessary to invent something to replace the exhausted military contracts.

Of course, semi-finished products were only a small part of the fundamental changes that cooking has undergone. Widespread freezers, microwave ovens, the use of preservatives and conveyor production of food played a huge role.

Food was the last stronghold of handicrafts: most of it was prepared at home.

But this bastion fell. Cooking was put on stream. The functions of a home cook more and more moved to restaurants and food factories that produce ready-made meals and convenience foods.

And the emergence of industrially produced food led to tectonic shifts in the modern economy.

American families gradually began to spend more and more money on food outside the home: in fast food chains, in ordinary restaurants, it is more common to buy ready-made sandwiches and snacks. In 1960, only a quarter of all the money spent on food was spent outside the home.

By 2015, Americans “crossed the Rubicon”: US residents began to spend more on food outside the home than in grocery stores.

But even at home we increasingly prefer at least partially processed foods, saving our own time: we buy sliced ​​and mixed lettuce leaves, grated cheese, cans with ready-made sauces, drink tea from sachets, prefer already rolled meatballs, gutted and plucked chickens.

All these innovations are a rather curious modern phenomenon.

Economist Valerie Rumney studied statistics between 1920 and 1960, and found that during this time period - in terms of the time it takes to prepare food - virtually nothing changed.

Throughout these 5 decades, women - regardless of their level of education, whether they were married to farmers or lawyers - still spent the same amount of time on housework. It was only in the 1960s that the situation began to change, and women began to spend much less time cooking.

However, ready meals have one very unpleasant side effect.

From the 1970s to 2010, the number of obese people in developed countries rose roughly in proportion to the amount of commercially available prepared food - and this, experts say, is by no means a coincidence.

The cost of calories has fallen significantly in recent decades, both in terms of finances and time spent.

As an example, take the usual potatoes. Americans consume potatoes for several centuries, but until the Second World War it was mainly cooked, mashed or baked. And it was clear: in order to cook the fried potatoes, it was necessary to peel first, then chop finely, and only then fry.

Now everything has become much easier. Potatoes are cut into small straws, fried and packed in factories, and at home or at a fast food restaurant, it remains only to heat or dip them in boiling oil.

Between 1977 and 1995 over the years, potato consumption in the United States has increased by a third, and this is solely due to fried potatoes.

You can make it even easier: potato chips are fried, salted, flavored, and packed in crispy bags that can be stored on store shelves for months.

At the same time, in the United States over the same period of time, the number of calories consumed by the population increased by 10%. And not at all due to the fact that the country’s citizens switched to higher-calorie foods, but because people became addicted to eating between main meals - of course, eating industrially prepared food.

Behavioral psychologists say that the longer and more carefully we plan our menus, the more varied and healthy our food will be. While a sudden impulse to snack leads to rapid and uncontrolled consumption of “harmful” calories.

The industrialization of food changed our economy in two important ways: it freed women from having to stand for long hours at the stove, thereby opening them up to more serious professional careers, but at the same time it removed barriers to the availability of “bad” calories, which significantly increased our waist.

As with many other inventions, the problem is how to use all the opportunities at the same time without paying too much for it.

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