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Old 12-17-2014, 02:42 PM   #31  
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I did not know how to cook until my early thirties. I usually had mac n cheese or some kind of Lipton noodles for dinner or my favorite, a bowl of cereal. Also eggs and toast or grilled cheese. That was about it for my repertoire. Funnily enough I weighed less back then. It wasn't until I learned to cook that it seems I started struggling with trying to keep my weight from climbing. I think its because I basically just ate dinner to stop being hungry not to eat some amazing meal that I cooked, so I didn't eat much dinner.

I enjoy cooking sometimes. Actually I don't really like cooking but I like the creations that come out of the oven. I have come a long way since I taught myself to cook and now I can cook almost anything with a good recipe. But, I am the sole cook in my family of 5 and I get tired and burned out. I have weeks where I just want to make simple things like baked potatoes with broccoli, pasta, bean burritos, quesadillas, broccoli soup, scrambled egg sandwiches, chilli, etc... I still don't like cooking meat much. ( I was raised vegetarian and was vegetarian until I was 30 ) I will bake chicken breast to slice up and throw in pasta or salad sometimes. And I really love my crock pot. I like making dinner at 9 am.

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Old 12-17-2014, 03:02 PM   #32  
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Cooking is not necessary nor sufficient to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If you cook foods that are unhealthy then that can cause problems.

Plus, some people that cook taste their cooking along the way which can add to weight gain.

While others that cook develop strong adversities to wasting food which means that they may eat larger portions.
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Old 12-18-2014, 06:21 AM   #33  
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Cooking is not necessary nor sufficient to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If you cook foods that are unhealthy then that can cause problems.

Plus, some people that cook taste their cooking along the way which can add to weight gain.

While others that cook develop strong adversities to wasting food which means that they may eat larger portions.
Well, for me, cooking has been absolutely necessary. I could not have lost 120+ pounds without regular cooking, and without it the regain I am fighting off now would have been considerably worse.

When people ask me how I did it, cooking is the first tool I cite. It gave me a measure of control over what I was eating that would be difficult to obtain any other way. It enabled me to eat dinners that had HUGE flavor and variety and were still mostly vegetables (by volume). I'm not sure how I could have done that, without cooking.

There are certainly ways to lose weight and keep it off, without cooking - Ian is living proof of that. There are a number of weight loss methods that seem to work for other people that I know I could not do (such as the Ideal Protein diet). But for me, cooking is the single most powerful tool I had, and I will continue to advocate for it when people ask me for advice, especially people who are having trouble sticking to their plans for the long haul (it took me three years to lose 120 pounds). I don't think it's an overstatement to say developing the habit of cooking regularly has changed my life.

It's rather obvious that cooking does not absolve one of responsibility for taking care with what you cook and how much of it you eat. Nobody ever said it did. What cooking does do is make it a lot easier to have delicious healthy choices on hand, prepared to your own taste. It helps stave off the fatigue that people often complain about when their weight loss plans force them to eat the same few things over and over again because they do not have the tools to incorporate new flavors and new ideas into their meal plans.

I'd like to know Ian's basis for the last statement quoted above, which strikes me as bizarre. Cooking is a new habit, not a personality transplant. People who struggle with overeating caused by aversion to wasting food are going to struggle with it regardless of whether the food is purchased, packaged, or home-cooked. People who don't struggle with this particular cause of overeating are not going to suddenly start having it because they have started cooking. It's a nonsequitur.

Last edited by carter; 12-18-2014 at 06:27 AM.
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Old 12-18-2014, 07:26 AM   #34  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IanG View Post
Cooking is not necessary nor sufficient to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If you cook foods that are unhealthy then that can cause problems.

Plus, some people that cook taste their cooking along the way which can add to weight gain.

While others that cook develop strong adversities to wasting food which means that they may eat larger portions.
It may not be necessary, you're right. You could instead just ORDER healthy things on the menu. However you never really know what's going in that food, what quality it is and how much seasoning it has. For example we went to a Longhorn steakhouse last week and I ordered the broccoli as my side dish. It was the best broccoli I had eaten, perfectly cooked. Tender without being mushy and packed with flavor. I told the waitress that it was really good broccoli and she said "yeah, the butter sauce they put on it is amazing." I hadn't even noticed there was butter on it, for there was no liquid pooling under the vegetable. Well, that explains the flavor and why I can't get mine to taste like that lol.

Tasting food along the way is standard practice if you want to ensure a tasty dish. But it also affects my appetite so that I end up eating less at dinner anyway. That's why it's absolutely crucial to pay attention to your body and eat according to physical hunger.

I don't have a problem throwing food away, nor have I ever developed one. I know people who are like that who don't even like to cook, it's not a personality trait that comes on automatically just because you've learned to cook.

Learning to cook holds different value for different folks I suppose. I enjoy having my son in the kitchen cooking with me, learning all about how to clean and prep vegetables, grate cheese, tear lettuce leaves etc. He's learning a valuable lesson and he loves veggies to boot. Cooking is an important part of my family's health.
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Old 12-18-2014, 09:18 AM   #35  
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When people ask me how I did it, cooking is the first tool I cite. It gave me a measure of control over what I was eating that would be difficult to obtain any other way. It enabled me to eat dinners that had HUGE flavor and variety and were still mostly vegetables (by volume). I'm not sure how I could have done that, without cooking.
ABSOLUTELY! When people ask how to start and/or maintain I always say to start by getting in the kitchen and cooking. It's really important to me to have easy, tasty, and healthy meals that are at least 50% vegetables. I haven't found many restaurants or pre-packaged meals that will fit those parameters. At home, I can easily add a few more cups of vegetables to a recipe, or tweak it (like pureeing vegetables instead of adding cream or using sliced vegetables instead of pasta in a casserole) to get as much nutrition without sacrificing flavor.
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Old 12-18-2014, 09:21 AM   #36  
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Learning to cook holds different value for different folks I suppose. I enjoy having my son in the kitchen cooking with me, learning all about how to clean and prep vegetables, grate cheese, tear lettuce leaves etc. He's learning a valuable lesson and he loves veggies to boot. Cooking is an important part of my family's health.
This is really important too. It's hard to feed your family well when relying on canned or pre-packaged foods!
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Old 12-18-2014, 09:31 AM   #37  
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ABSOLUTELY! When people ask how to start and/or maintain I always say to start by getting in the kitchen and cooking. It's really important to me to have easy, tasty, and healthy meals that are at least 50% vegetables. I haven't found many restaurants or pre-packaged meals that will fit those parameters. At home, I can easily add a few more cups of vegetables to a recipe, or tweak it (like pureeing vegetables instead of adding cream or using sliced vegetables instead of pasta in a casserole) to get as much nutrition without sacrificing flavor.
Or, serve them on the side. I'm always sauteing or roasting vegetables. It's ridiculously hard to find vegetables at most restaurants. Fine dining restaurants serve big portions of fish or meat with just a few bites of the accompaniment. Chain restaurants often offer side dishes - selections are usually four different preparations of potato, cream corn, cream spinach, and steamed broccoli with cheese sauce. East Asian restaurants are reliable places to find vegetables, but usually either covered in sauce or just plain steamed.

At home, with about 20 minutes's work, I can add to my meal: string beans with olive oil and garlic, roasted Brussels sprouts, leafy greens sauteed with mustard seed or red chili flakes, cauliflower roasted with Indian spices, cabbage stewed with Indian spices, stewed peppers and tomatoes with paprika and cumin, and on and on and on. If I have an hour I can make a tray of slow-roasted root vegetables that is sweet and mouthwatering without adding more than a teaspoon of oil per serving.

No trivial task to find restaurant food or packaged food that will give me that kind of freshness and flavor and variety with absolute control over how much fat I add to my meal. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I could not have lost the weight I lost without this.
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Old 12-18-2014, 11:23 AM   #38  
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I have enjoyed reading about everyone's cooking habits. I cook and I always have, because that's what most of my generation does. I took home-Ec in HS. I am pretty sure it was required to take one cooking and one sewing class. I ...ahem... graduated from HS in 1960.

Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can. For instance, I buy a giant bag of frozen stir-fry veggies from Costco. I dip out a cup or so and add them to spaghetti and other dishes that need to be diluted a little with veggies. It is pretty surprising how many of these veggies you can add without changing the "enjoyment Quotient" of the main dish. It would be nice if I bought my veggies from a farmer or Whole Foods and spent a quiet afternoon hulling, peeling, shelling etc like my grandmother did, but I live a different life. Frozen veggies are wholesome, too.

I usually enjoy making a really nice, healthy lunch to take to work, but lately things have been rough and I have not felt so inspired to shop or fix anything exciting. So, I looked in my cupboard and there sat a giant roll of cans of tuna from Costco. I have been worshiping at Ian's altar of canned fish. Tuna out of a can and green beans out of a can are just fine, and ever so much better than stopping for fast food or at the grocery store for a bag of chips and a pack of string cheese (some of my favorite comfort food).

I tend to want to do everything perfectly or not at all, so eating fish out of a can represents a compromise on my part, which is good. And makes me think of Ian every time I pop a can. Come to think of it, I guess I should think of Ian when I hear a beer can pop, too!
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Old 12-18-2014, 11:29 AM   #39  
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Sorry Gail, I have given up the beer now for a few months.

It has had no difference on my weightloss whatsoever but has saved me some pocketchange.

Last edited by IanG; 12-18-2014 at 11:30 AM.
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Old 12-18-2014, 11:50 AM   #40  
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Well, for me, cooking has been absolutely necessary. I could not have lost 120+ pounds without regular cooking, and without it the regain I am fighting off now would have been considerably worse.
This holds true for me too. I'm a much too picky an eater, really. I dislike tuna and most fish. Dislike most meats save for chicken and turkey, and dislike a lot of veggies naturally. Cooking is where I can experiment with recipes and find ways to get variety in my food, and make sure I eat my veggies, without having to eat a bunch of stuff I dislike the taste of. Ordering food all the time gets extremely expensive, and as Wannabe pointed out, you don't always know what's in the food that might hide extra calories.

I do have a bit of an aversion to throwing out food, but I have that regardless of if it's something I made, or something that was ordered. It's definitely something I work at. Ordered food tends to be worse because I don't control the quantity produced. At home I can half or quarter recipes, or find recipes for two people.
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Old 12-18-2014, 04:14 PM   #41  
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Frozen veggies are great! I use them all the time. I would count that as a part of cooking as well, you don't have to be the one who chops the veggies to make it count as cooking.
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Old 12-19-2014, 12:57 AM   #42  
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I like cooking for the most part. I only ever knew the very basics until I started losing weight. Now I cook a lot more, and know a bit more than the basics. However, I am all for simplicity of ingredients and procedure. If it requires a lot of equipment, hard to find ingredients, processes, or active time, I don't like it. I prefer straight forward, simple dishes. Cooking like that relaxes me.

I don't think everyone NEEDS to cook to lose weight or be healthy, but it sure makes it easier for me. Also, I get really ill if I eat out too much (it's much less than 1x a month now).

Carter: what are your techniques for adding flavor to food but not calories? I'm always looking for tips like that.
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Old 12-19-2014, 07:09 AM   #43  
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Carter: what are your techniques for adding flavor to food but not calories? I'm always looking for tips like that.
Aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger) and spices! Most vegetables can be sautéed in a small amount of oil with chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. Or, a mixture of chopped ginger, garlic, and scallions makes a great base for a stir-fry. Sauté onions and peppers, add tomatoes, paprika, and cumin for a solid middle-eastern style base for stewing anything. I make a rub for fish with turmeric, salt, cumin, red chili powder (or cayenne), and black pepper, and then pan fry the fish in just a little bit of oil. Roasted root vegetables are much sweeter and more delicious with chunks of red onion and whole garlic cloves mixed in before roasting.

Another middle-eastern thing I do is sweat onions in the bottom of a Dutch oven, and add cinammon, salt, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, salt and pepper, and some chopped parsley, a cup or two of water, and then drop in a small whole chicken. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes. When you pull out the chicken there is a nice gravy in the bottom of the pan; I shred the chicken meat off the bones and add it back into the gravy. You could easily add carrots or other vegetables to this, I think.

If you have an Indian grocery you can buy premade spice mixes - look for Shan or MDH brands, and just buy a box that says it's for whatever you want to add it to - vegetables, chicken, meat. In the simplest case you can just cook these things in a pan and add the spice mix to them. If you have a little more time you can sweat onions first, or even better onion-garlic-ginger and add the spice mix to that. Then add a little water or tomato to make a gravy and cook in that. None of hyphens requires a lot of oil - just a tablespoon to sweat enough aromatics to cook 4 portions. I have a heavy hand with spices - spoonfuls rather than sprinkles.

Finally - this may be obvious to experienced cooks but new cooks often don't know - SALT. Salt added to foods doesn't make them salty; it enhances their flavor. If you are cooking and your food tastes rather drab and uninteresting, it probably needs salt. I know some people think salt is a bad word but unless you have some reason to keep away from it - diagnosed heart disease and a doctor's order to avoid it, for example - it's really a very good thing to add. Processed food generally has much, much more sodium than you would add while cooking even if you use salt the way I do.

That was fun. Thanks for winding me up and letting me go.
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Old 12-19-2014, 09:10 AM   #44  
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^ Don't forget lemon juice! Adds tons of flavor, and often when you use lemon juice, you don't need to use as much salt, if sodium is a concern.

I also use chicken broth in everything to add flavor (I keep a jar of Better than Bouillon chicken base on hand). I "saute" veggies in it instead of oil.
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Old 12-19-2014, 10:55 AM   #45  
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I use lots of dried herbs for flavor. And I do use salt as well. Salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary, thyme, basil, chile powder, onion powder, ground ginger, etc, etc.
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