Home
What does “Homemade Meals” mean to you??
Subscribe!
Ok. There seems to be a rash of “realness” coming out in many mommy bloggers. You see, there are a few (and one especially well known) home making blogs where the authors present themselves to be the perfect wife, mom, teacher, homemaker, etc. In a turning of the tide movement, mommies every where seem to be coming out of the woodworks to show how UNperfect their life really is at certain moments.
And you know what? It’s a breath of fresh air to see another homemaking blogger let down her pretenses and show what her house is truly like amidst the daily coming and goings of family life. You see….sometimes, a dedicated stay-at-home mom (or any mom, for that matter!!) can get so caught up in wanting to be a “super-woman” that they feel crushed if they’re are unable to maintain a perfectly clean home and perfectly behaved children. Reading blogs where other mommies seem to have it ALL together doesn’t help matters any either. It can make us feel (in worst case scenarios) like jumping in our 3 day old pile of laundry and hiding with our store bought tide.
So with that in mind, I was thinking of something else that I’ve wondered about. (Brace yourself…I’m gonna “be real”, real quick).
In today’s health concious society, “homemade meals” are all the rage, right? Cooking at home is purpoted to be the best invention since sliced (homemade) bread.
Now, I’m not sure about you guys, but growing up, “Homemade meals” in my parent’s house meant just that - meals that were made at home. Whether that meant opening cans, dumping out a quick box of Kraft Mac & Cheese for lunch, or rolling out some pillsbury pie crusts, didn’t matter. Homemade was anything cooked at home. I never even thought to question this! Mom would often say “this is cooked from scratch” - and we’d laugh and say “who scratched it??”, to which she’d simply reply “The Jolly Green Giant” or “Campbells”. And it worked great for us. The food tasted terrific, it was made with love, and it guided me right on up into a pretty healthy adulthood life. Therefore, it never occured to me that there was a whole other attitute towards homemade meals….an attitute that scoffed at homemade meals that weren’t completely made from HOME scratch. I am finding this particular attitude more and more in various books I read or blogs I encounter. I sometimes even get the impression from many blogs that one should never even buy store bought canned goods! That was quite a shocker to me when I first started researching on how to fill a home pantry.
Does anyone out there truly NOT buy canned goods?? Canned goods, to me, are quintessential. Pork & Beans, french cut string beans, cream corn, canned peaches, cream of mushroom…. most cans cost less than 60 cent per can, so they’re not really that expensive. And I’m not sure if I’m reading right, but when I look at the ingredients of a can of string beans, all I ever see is “String Beans, Water” (maybe “Salt” on some?). Nothing funky, right? I LOVE canned foods, and I’m not sure if I could survive daily cooking without them. And the occassional can of pineapple is auyummi.
But when I read some homemaking advice books / blogs, I get the impression that I “should” feel inadequate because I’m not growing my own lima beans, preserving my own vine grown tomatoes, shaving the corn off of the cob myself, or chopping my organic farmer’s market mustard greens. Since when did the cook at home movement become the “cook-only-from-organic-scratch-or-your-family-isn’t-being-well-fed” movement???
So anyway…what I’m getting at (I can be quite long winded) is this….
Does anyone else besides myself still find “cooking from pure scratch” a novelty that just doesn’t fit into every day life?? What does “Homemade Meals” mean to YOU??
Sometimes I wonder if there are hoards of people out there cooking from scratch and laughing at my Jolly Green Giant loving self, or if these homemaking blogs present only an ideal that really isn’t followed by that many people. I mean, c’mon people…opening a ready-made can or two for dinner side dish is, to me, a time-saving, awesome modern luxury that is well worth the “less than a buck per can” cost. I also love me a 33 cent box of Great Value Mac & Cheese with Campbells Tomato Soup on the side once in a while. (Isn’t that sooo UN-PC??)
Other things I hear society “telling us” about eating, but I don’t go for, are….
~ “Everything tastes better if homemade”. I don’t agree. Little Debbie can make a better swiss roll than I can any day, Starbucks just has some major mojo goin’ on in the coffee arena, homemade tortillas tastes exactly the same irregardless of who makes them, Pillsbury chocolate chip cokies are beyond awesome, and Heinz can ketchup my fries any day. I know many things contain some supposedly bad-for-you preservatives, but I’d bet my dollar bill that a company who cooks up millions of the exact same foods daily - and sells them - has found a winning recipe that you probably haven’t. Just because something is “company made” doesn’t make it less tasteworthy than it’s homemade counterpart.
~ “Go Organic, or Die!” Maybe it’s because I dislike fads, but everyone’s fascination with organic this, and organic that just bugs me. Or perhaps maybe it’s because my wallet dislikes seeing one product for $3, and the same size product in organic for $6. So I’m supposed to choose between eating “organic” and thus starving because I can’t afford much…or eating non-organic and dying a slow, miserable death from pesticide poisoning?? I dunno. I’m just not all that convinced that the non-organic milk I’ve been drinking for 25 years now is suddenly killing me.
…..which brings me to….
~ ”Choices, choices, for one and all!” Why, oh why do we have so many choices for anything and everything?? Why can’t flour be flour and sugar be sugar and rice be rice? Just give me a barrel to tote it out in.
Anyway. I’m not suggesting in any way that one should eat nothing but storebought items. I myself do cook from scratch occassionally, and shop our local farmers market frequently (because it’s cheaper). It’s just that I view eating and meal preparation like the Greeks suggest….”Do all things in moderation”.
So anywho.
That’s my bit of “realness” for today. Although I do love cooking “homemade meals”, I rarely scratch them myself because I am a can-buying, non-organic, choice-denying, boxed mac&cheese lover.
(Would you like fries with that?) 
hrmph.
What Next?
Don't be shy...Leave a comment!
6 Responses to “What does “Homemade Meals” mean to you??”
Leave a Reply
October 6th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Horray for this post! As an at home mama of a 1 and 2 year old, I try really hard to keep a clean home and cook good food (and feel like–most of the time–I do ok) but sometimes after reading those blogs you speak of, I think, I must be lazy or something! I don’t make my kids’ clothes, I don’t can fruits and veggies, or make all our kids’ Christmas gifts by hand.
I have read your blog for a while now, and really enjoy it, your sense of humor is great! As is your attitude toward marriage–I too think my husband is wonderful, and found some of your comments/observations really refreshing to keeping a marriage strong. It has also reminded me to remember to compliment my husband a lot more….Keep up the good work! PS My pantry is stocked with CANS and (gasp) store bought WHITE bread!!!
October 6th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hi Lisa, I enjoyed reading this because I got a few laughs out of it!
As for my idea of “homemade cooking”…well, it’s kinda cut and dry for me. “Homemade” is made of scratch. For me (and my extended family), homemade pie crust is made with a recipe, ingredient by ingredient, not a store-bought pie crust that was cooked in my oven (”made at home”). Same goes for soups, casseroles, basically anything.
Now, that doens’t mean that you can’t have store-bought things in the homemade dish. For example, you can add canned corn or frozen peas to your soup should the recipe call for it. Or, we wouldn’t call “homemade mashed potatoes” homemade if they came from a box; they must be peeled, boiled or baked and jazzed up by the cooker to have that label. (I ask at every restaurant if they are “homemade” because I just cannot stomach boxed potatoes!)
In my own house, we tend to eat more “whole foods” which means that we eat things fresh in order to get the most nutritional benefit from the food. If we can’t do fresh, then we do frozen, since the food still has quite a lot of nutrients preserved in them (flash frozen foods are freshly picked foods that have been frozen immediately). And if we can’t do frozen, then we go to the canned stuff.
I admit, I love canned peas, corn, and green beans, but the sodium level in them steers me away. So, we get frozen peas and corn, and fresh green beans (because I don’t like the frozen ones too much!). I use canned soups on occasion to make certain dishes, and I do love me some Spaghettio’s! (I am not a snob, I promise.)
In the past few years, my husband and I have been researching the products we buy to see what is really in them. You’d be amazed to find what can be in the things we consume! We sure were, and we are trying to limit what we can in order to become a more healhy “us”.
For us, this means organic produce (though not so much lately because of the current economic crunch), filterd water (from our tap, not bottles), organic milk (but we limit our dairy because dairy is frankly not very good for human consumption), and foods that have been processed minimally. As far as household or toiletry items, we tend to lean towards the safe zone of “natural” or organic based on the things I’ve learned in my research. A really great website to check out is http://www.ewg.org and you can plug any item that you use for yourself into their search and it will bring up the safety factor of that item. I will warn you, it’s quite scary.
I suppose
that I should say that we also do eat our favorite snacks like chips/popcorn and pop on occasion, because you can’t possibly limit your exposure to every bad thing or carcinogen. So, we pick and choose what’s important to us (health and beauty items, fresh, whole foods, and safer cleaning agents).
And as for the organic milk, I’m sure it’s not killing you. For me, I started to wonder about all of the hormones that they feed to the cows and the correlation to the growth of the human population (females getting breasts/periods earlier, people becoming taller in record #’s, etc.) and decided that I would start to think twice about consuming it. I wasn’t comfortable with subjecting my body to stuff that the FDA doesn’t have decades of info on. There is so much stuff that is done to food or things that wasn’t done before, and it just seems so ironic that with the increase of these new things, the increase of disorders continues steadily as well.
Never before in human history have we seen such huge #’s of disorders in society (growth problems, learning disorders, mental and emotional problems, etc.). A lot of things can be traced back to eating (learned from more of our research). Our soil is so depleted in some areas so what we end up eating is just “filler”. Red dyes can be traced to contributing to ADD and ADHD, as can many other common foods (dairy among them).
–I am writing a book here. I could go on and on.–
All I mean to say is that what works for us is to eat fresh, whole food when we can, which is most of the time. We feel better, we think clearer and we have more energy when we do. As for the “homemade cooking”, well, I’ve always understood the term the way that I explained it but that’s not to say that’s the way it has to be for your family! You have to do what works best for all of you!
I hope I don’t sound like a stiff here! That was not my intention, but just to enlighten you on what I’ve been enlighten about! Happy reading…
Kellys last blog post..The Big Vote 2008
October 8th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I think my definition is similar to yours, Lisa. I think “homemade” depends on the food. I wouldn’t call boxed mac n cheese homemade, because I do occassionally make mac n cheese from scratch and that is more homemade, if that makes sense.
I do try to make a lot of things from scratch, but it’s not always possible with a busy family and a demanding toddler. There are nights when I just can’t do anything more than open a box or a can. Other days, I have the energy and have planned ahead.
As far as organics, they’re just too expensive. I’d rather make my own baby food than pay 79cents/jar for organic baby food. I try to be a good steward of our grocery budget and that means buying the most cost effective, yet healthy, food for our family. It’s a compromise sometimes.
I don’t think we shoudl look down our noses at another homemaker (or person) just because they make different choices than we do. I think EVERY mother and wife feels that their decisions are the best for their family at the time.
Heather @ Not a DIY Lifes last blog post..Book Meme
October 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Heather @ Not a DIY Life » Only recently have I started to consider “homemade” to be based on the food…it’s wierd, but it wasn’t like that at my mom’s growing up. Now though, when we think about “homemade” mashed potatoes my mind goes first to “from scratch” whereas before i would have thought of the box as well. (if that makes sense!)
and Amen about the organic thing….i wouldn’t feel like i was a good steward of the budget right now if I chose to buy all organic - because that would mean I couldn’t afford enough to enjoy eating.
In the end, we’re all just trying to do what’s best to keep our family alive in this crazy world.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Kelly » hehe..
glad to make you laugh! 
Thanks for all the information! I’ve heard some of it, but have never bothered to go into too much detail in researching it (because i know if I do, i may become too obsessed and worry too much??? if that makes sense?). I do remember reading about the cows milk corresponding to young girls entering puberty earlier.
I’m going to bookmark the site listed…i’m not sure if i’m ready to start using it because i might get too scared - and I know we can’t afford the “better stuff” right now! lol
October 9th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Amy » Thank you so much!
Your last paragraph there really made me feel great. 
That’s why I enjoy writing - so that maybe someone out there can get a few laughs and a few encouragements.
LOL @ making all of the kids clothes and christmas gifts by hand. I’ve felt lazy before too because I wasn’t doing this!!