To think knowing about food and being able to cook are key life skills?

[Notcontent]

This is something I strongly believe in, but I think that notwithstanding various small-scale initiatives to teach young people and families about healthy cooking etc the lack of skills is getting worse not better.

I was listening to a Radio 4 programme the other day about child food poverty and they were talking to some young people - one of the teenage girls talked about the fact that until recently she couldn’t cook anything)no and I also had little idea of what a normal meal should be.

This seems such wide-spread problem. So many people think of food as being readymade, processed things that you unwrap and eat.

I think that there should be education about this at schools as obviously many people are not getting these skills at home. It’s so important - eating is what keeps are alive.

Just before anyone starts about how I don't understand how hard it can be. I have ADHD and had to learn to mitigate the effects. Timers, reminders, planners, concentration exercises.

Its mostly about time constraint's surely?

Back in the day when all mums were stay at home mums and kids were allowed to roam the streets entertaining themselves from 4 yrs old, it was easy for mum to spend 50% of her life in the kitchen, uninterrupted, making everything from scratch. But times are massively changed.

My last job I finished work at 6pm, had a 40 minute commute, starting a meal from scratch at that time, we wouldn't eat til unhealthily late.

I'm a sucker for jar's of sauce and packet mixes. We eat plenty of steamed veggies, but yeah I buy a lot of pre-made sauces for convenience rather than make my own.

@HardToDanceWithTheDevilOnYourB

Agreed it is tough - I tend to work one day in advance with most things, so spend first half hour after kids go to bed chopping, frying and putting stuff in the slow cooker etc for the next day. It eats into my time with my husband, but I feel it is worth it and a lot cheaper in the long run. Plus anything in a sauce tastes better heated up
The next day. I am lucky that I enjoy cooking, though - if I didn't, then I wouldn't feel up to it at the end of a working day!! Plus of course for many families the things I take advantage of - lots of fridge, oven and freezer space and a slow cooker - are not available.

I've been watching the Batch Cooking Lady, I think that might help with the lack of time factor. Obviously if you have the money and space for an extra freezer. I can remember when I only had a tiny freezer compartment and it did make it harder.

@Oliversmumsarmy you've been given an unnecessarily and unfairly hard time on this thread

@SchrodingersImmigrant just because you have adhd and manage it doesn't necessarily follow another sufferer is the same. Such conditions vary greatly in type and severity

I have contamination ocd primarily but it affects me in other ways too, I'm also paranoid about fire hazards and at times have been afraid to use sharp knives. Other people with ocd may be more concerned with checking so on this subject eg the issue might be they couldn't cope with having to keep an eye on more than one thing cooking at a time or it may be very time consuming for them as they would be repeatedly checking various elements, other sufferers would be fine with cooking but perhaps don't cope well with locks or switches or whatever.

@HardToDanceWithTheDevilOnYourB yes I can relate to that, when dd had just started school I was working full time, a single mum, commuting 90 mins each way, so I used a combination of batch cooking at weekends (if I had the energy!) another factor was I didn't have a decent sized freezer at that point, I'm a renter and that place it was a fridge freezer with just a small 2 shelf freezer part. I also used frozen and pre-peeled/chopped veg and quick and easy to cook protein.

But frankly I was almost on my knees knackered most of that time!

She didn't get hard time because of adhd etc. She got it because of the attitude, which is unrelated.