When I was young, we walked to school, uphill, both ways, in 2 foot for snow! In all seriousness, growing up in my household we always had home cooked meals, very little “processed foods” but during my teenage years, things were starting to change. When I was young we had TV Dinners that you placed in an actual oven and it took 30 minutes to cook. With the advent of the Microwave, instead of taking 30 minutes, you could now have a factory prepared meal in as little as 5 minutes. Coca Cola had sugar in it! It tasted refreshing! But sometime during the 1980’s they changed the formula, called it “New Coke”, it was rejected by consumers and Coke would never be the same…*

My mother would prepare a whole chicken for our family of 7, leftovers ended up being chicken and rice. Maybe we would have roast beef, one days dinner of spaghetti (sauce)  ended up being my fathers 12-alarm chili the next day. We had eggs, whole milk, chop meat and the such. There was no concern about hormones, antibiotic or strange chemical additives.

The funny thing is: A few years ago I picked up some Mexican Coca-Cola, the taste, texture and flavor brought me back to my teenage years. My wife concurred. I picked up some grass fed chop meat and made burgers. Again, I was brought back to those early days where a burger was a burger. I quote my wife “It tastes like…it tastes like…meat”, she was at a loss but she agreed how foods today seem somewhat bland in comparison. We have since experimented with other meats such as grass fed brisket and pot roast, there is a difference, something that brings us back to our childhoods.

My son was always eating chicken nuggets or some sort of processed chicken and I finally had to put my foot down, lol. We started getting chicken breast and making home cooked chicken cutlets. I realized when he was 12 that in those 12 years we never had a whole chicken. What a concept, eating chicken from the bone! We are cave people! Something that came naturally to me was a foreign concept for him.

I’ve been making eggs since I was three years old, when I could pull up a chair to the oven. Why would anyone take a frozen, processed egg biscuit and microwave it for 3 minutes when you can do the same thing by cracking open an egg and cooking it on a stove in less than 5 minutes?

I know processed and fast foods are a convenience but food seems so much better when it is prepped with love… err except for some situations when someone is really a lousy cook! 🙂

It seems ironic to me that pre-packaged meals are so extremely popular that now the foods we use to eat when we were younger come at a premium. Sadly, there are even restaurants that have resorted to preparing pre-packaged meals in microwaves. And again, you are paying a premium for a restaurant to make you a meal cooked to order.

*and that Coca-Cola. You can now purchase bottles of Coca-Cola made in Mexico that contains real sugar. The first time I had one it took me back to those teenage years. My wife felt the same. Everyone feels the same. Refreshing!

Do you know what the MOST ironic thing is, in this day and age of processed foods… the most ironic thing is one of the stores we like to shop in, it’s called… are your ready? WHOLE Foods!

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