To worry about the lack of cooking skills of the next generation

[jdoe8]

People seem to barely cook these days and peoples supermarket trolleys are bursting foods that are quick and easy to make. Such as mashed potato, pre chopped onion and soup. Soup is very easy to make and home made is fresher and better for you.

Crushing up some ginger nuts, mixing with butter and dipping in melted chocolate seems to count as cooking. Lots of mess when you can just eat the chocolate and ginger nuts. The same for making a brownie mix and then icing with pre made icing. That is cooking?

Our family is getting better every generation. Generalizing isn't helpful. Obesity is on the rise but my grandmother's generation had rickets and scurvy and malnutrition.

But nutrition and cooking are different. You could be quite healthy eating fruit and raw veg, cheese, bread, smoked salmon etc. All which require no cooking

The 20 something's I work with are all into clean eating cook a lot and bring in wonderful looking left overs for lunch. My son st 4 makes some dishes from scratch with me and I'm sure could do all but grating carrots for carrot muffins 😊

Loving some of the stealth boasting on here, typical MN. My 2 year old can cook kale quinoa and learned at nursery.

I'm 23 and cook a home cooked meal for my DP and our sons from scratch each night and we sit down as a family together and eat.

My dad is 60 and has a tin of Sainsbury's chicken curry with microwave rice in bed.

I don't think you can generalise.

Yy crash

I'm 28, I can cook from scratch, I love cooking and I'm good at cooking.

I am also not averse to reaching for the ready meals occasionally because you know what, sometimes I'm tired and I can't be arsed. So sue me.

In any case ignorance is not the issue. No one believes oven chips and microwave meals are good for you. Frankly talking down to people about it isn't solving any of the problems is it.

*There have been reports recently about the rise of scurvy in Australia and earlier this year there were worries about the same thing here.

There were reports in July, about the Seabridge family in Wales after the home schooled 8 yo boy died of scurvy.
Diets are getting worse and obesity and diseases of malnutrition are on the rise.

Ignorance of nutrition, food in general and how to cook it is appalling.

There are too many ready meals, takeaways and sandwiches being eaten and no amount of Masterchef or Bake Offs is going to help.*

Exactly, there is a reason why life expecancy is falling. The basic food my grandparents ate for most of their life was probably pretty good for them, boiled veg and meat.

There maybe more cooking on TV, but its mainly shit junk food. The biggest show is the bake off and all of that is junk.

I wouldn't call what they make on the bake off "junk food", its cake! And pie! And bread! Ok it's not exactly low fat but most of the stuff in those cakes in natural. Haven't we been eating cake for centuries? And I don't think everyone watching then expects to eat a croque en Bouche every day.

Ah its you again

I hate threads like this. People throughout time haven't been able to cook, or have preferred not too. Take off your rose tinted glasses

Oh ffs don't be so joyless

What are you talking about?! Life expectancy (in the U.K.) is rising.

And to add to crashes post the milleniels are cleaner living (less drinking, smoking, more exercise and healthier diets) than any generation before them. Also, childhood obesity is falling.

OP were are you getting all your information from? The statements you've made about pre prepared vegetables etc just sound made up

I can cook
I buy chopped onion
I rarely properly cook or soup is fresh supermarket not homemade
We both work ft and have 2 kids and work long hours: food is a necessity not a pleasure these days

I never used to cook much and lived on spaghetti Bol and chicken kievs but since having dcs I make much more effort.

I also think for most people it's lack of time and they go for convenience because it's easier. It's very stressful trying to cook with two children wanting your attention and crying for you to pick them up. I can totally see why people go for a ready meal or take away. I work part time so get hold at 5 when the children are super hungry and crying. I have two hours to get tea done and put both to bed.

I do a bit of both. I try my best to cook from scratch and batch cook a lot so I have quick meals to reheat. But I do go for easy meals without too much rubbish. I use the slow cooker or one pot cook books a lot and pesto or dry sauces which you mix with water. I try not to use pre made sauces.

The English have been known for their rotten cooking skills since the early 20th century if not longer. In Dickens, the poor are not cooking: they are getting pies and pudding from a pie shop. And women from the gentry were not supposed to sully their hands with actual work (unlike 19th century gentlewomen in countries like Germany or Sweden).

A combination of early access of early urbanisation, lack of fuel for home cooking in southern England, and early access to industrial foods made home cooking less attractive/impossible for large sections of the population, and a very restricted view of suitable activities for gentlewomen made it out of bounds for others, meaning that home cooking more or less became the preserve of farmers' wives and professional cooks/servants for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I suspect the reason why so many people don't cook much nowadays are exactly the same as why so many working-class people did not cook much in the days of the early industrial revolution: two adults working long hours away from the home. Plus ca change...

it's my generation (school in the 80's, first generation of WOHMs)

What ??

This thread gets weirder with it's list of made up facts.

Wohm first in the 80s? Really? Most work have worked for centuries

I disagree. I don't think the next generation is doing too badly.

I love onions, so I never have any left over stinking up the fridge because I'll just increase the amount and chuck it in the pan with the rest. But I just wanted to say that pre-chopped frozen herbs are brilliant and I imagine the frozen onions are just as good!

I want to know what skills the younger generation have lost?

There maybe more cooking on TV, but its mainly shit junk food. The biggest show is the bake off and all of that is junk.

Of course, this is a new thing; baking. Not like the Tudors made marchpane or anything

It depends what your definition of 'junk' is, OP. I eat in Michelin starred restaurants relatively frequently, and the food from there is terribly unhealthy, as it's full of salt and fat. That's what makes it taste good. Not sure I would call it junk though.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that people shouldn't use convenience foods? Or should cook more? Or should cook more without any short cuts? Or that we're all fat bastards and cake should be banned?