{"id":942,"date":"2010-11-10T22:46:53","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T22:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/?p=942"},"modified":"2010-11-10T22:46:53","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T22:46:53","slug":"mission-impossible-making-good-for-you-meals-in-no-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/mission-impossible-making-good-for-you-meals-in-no-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission IMpossible: Making Good-for-You Meals in NO Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Time<\/em>Like Comparing Apples to Oranges<\/h3>\n

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Here’s a fact:\u00a0 Making vegetable-rich meals takes more time and effort than popping a frozen meal in the microwave.<\/p>\n

Why am I telling you this completely obvious and unsurprising fact?\u00a0 Over the 20 years I’ve been in the healthy cooking business, I’ve been constantly under the gun to “make healthy eating easy” (translation:\u00a0 as fast as fast food.)\u00a0 Not until recently did I realized that the game is rigged:\u00a0 Fast foods aren’t “food” in the sense of being a significant source of true taste bud satisfaction and bodily nourishment.\u00a0 Only real foods fit this description.\u00a0 That’s why comparing the prep times of fast foods to nutrition-rich, real foods is like comparing apples to oranges.<\/p>\n

Imagine buying a window cleaning product advertised to “Clean Windows in Minutes!”\u00a0 You head home, spray it on and wipe down the windows in minutes.\u00a0 Just one problem:\u00a0 While some surface dirt has been eliminated, your windows are hardly “clean” in the way you had hoped, i.e., glass sparklingly free of sun-baked pollen and wind-slammed grime–the way they look after a professional window cleaner takes the time to scrape and wash them very carefully.<\/p>\n

In the same way, fast foods and frozen meals are “food” only in a limited sense.\u00a0 They fill us up and eliminate immediate sensations of hunger.\u00a0 But they do little to fulfill our taste buds’ craving for balanced and deeply satisfying flavor. And they are dismal in terms of providing the hundreds of nutrients required to keep our infinitely complex bodies working optimally.<\/p>\n

Because fast and real foods are completely different products, we can’t really compare <\/em>them, but only choose between them<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Apples:\u00a0 For times when you just want plain\u00a0 old calories to keep you alive and put an end to uncomfortable feelings of hunger, choose food that takes NO time to prepare.<\/p>\n

–OR–<\/p>\n

Oranges:\u00a0 For times when you want food that supplies our bodies’ vital nutrients and the exciting flavor that will turn off taste bud cravings, ditch the myth that good food can be made in NO time and choose to prepare real foods.<\/p>\n

It’s always been the law that “you get what you pay for.”\u00a0 The dawn of instant convenience food didn’t suspend this immutable law.\u00a0 Once we accept it as a given, and make peace with the fact that good things take time, then wonderful possibilities open.<\/p>\n