It's a survey!

[altivo]

[Poll #977725]

Comments

[tinbender.livejournal.com]

My week is a split between cooking from scratch and eating something that was frozen. Other than occasionally eating Hamburger Helper or using taco mix, I make all my own stuff. As far as nutrition goes, I try, I just don't do very well.

[kint.livejournal.com]

Obviously there are sporadic box dinner days (like tonight...though there was fresh baked bread with it!) and there are days when I allow myself to be a little gluttonous, but by and large I try to stick with this.

It should also be noted that 'more days than not' tends to include Jason and I cooking about four or five days out of the week. Were I on my own I'd probably have closer to half box days and half totally scratch days (give or take)

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

The basic food groups are meat, ketchup, and diet pop. :-P

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

Given that I am still largely a walking culinary disaster (slight exaggeration) I don't actually cook very much (yet)- if I do it's usually in the course of helping somebody else do so.

That said, I think one of the greatest rewards of eating healthily can be summed up as "you get out what you put in".

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

Living in a dorm room doesn't really lend itself to home cooking. There's a few folks in my dorm that bake cookies in toaster ovens once in a while, but even that's quite an accomplishment

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Agh! *covers his eyes at the icon*

Hamburger Helper definitely won't get you nutrition. ;p I find that the biggest word I need to pass on to most people is "fresh vegetables." You don't have to give up meat or even fat. Many do need to reduce sugars. But hardly anyone in America eats enough veggies.

This has been an enlightening poll, though. So far it looks as if some of my prejudgements were wrong. Thanks for sharing the information.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I knew I could count on you to cook pretty regularly. :) And the bread is a given, even if you just bring it home from work. Thanks for filling in the dots.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I spend my time in the modern-day version of monastic seclusion in a kind of a dormitory worthy of the Cappadocian caves, so I can't fuss over real food too much. All my time goes into traditional monkly stuff like reading, attending lectures, writing and getting very phenomenally drunk. As far as I'm concerned, caffeine is food.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Tsk. I thought you'd do better than that. ;p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I figured you'd know the principles at least, which seems to be more than many Americans can claim. You probably also have some cultural exposure to a more sensible balance of inputs. ;D My impression (admittedly, through a peephole, since my exposure is limited to cookbooks and restaurants) is that Asian influenced cuisine may tend to be heavy on sodium, but at least it will include many vegetable sources and usually a lot less grease and sugar than typical American fare.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I agree. If you live in a typical dormitory, you're an outrider for what I was looking at here. You can be concerned with balanced eating though. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*weeps for your poor liver*

Unlike most Americans, you must be phenomenally skinny then. As I said to zetawoof, dorm life lets you off the hook for most of this except the balanced nutrition part.

[dragon-punk.livejournal.com]

"It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno" Is the phrase I think. >_>;

My results are slightly skewed because I'm at home till college starts up so I don't cook much~

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I'm built like a hungry Ethiopian stick insect, but I assure you it's mostly genetics and poverty. At least I refuse to smoke. And as for nutritional balance, right now I'm very succesfully balancing coffee with... uh, tequila is made from cacti, so a bit like a vegetable, right?

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

Balanced? Hmph. I'm generally satisfied enough with "edible".

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I deliberately reversed that. The idea is that some people don't even cook as much as putting something in the microwave.

Yes, I should have made a specific choice for those who live in dorms or with someone else who does almost all the food preparation. The balanced nutrition question still applies though, because only you are responsible for what you actually eat. ;)

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Darn. I wanted a 'None of the above' option. Since I live alone, if I don't make the meals, there's no meals. My cooking varies, depending upon various factors such as work, work travel, what kind of day I had, etc. Sometimes it'll be stuff from scratch, sometimes it'll be something from the freezer tossed into the microwave or oven, sometimes it'll be box-food to which I'll add a bit.

And then there's leftovers. I dunno where they fall in the survey. I'm a big proponent of cooking up a meal that'll give me a couple more meals.

As for vegetables, I'll admit to being bad about my consumption of 'em. For some reason, I never made that leap from childhood hatred of vegetables to adult acceptance of them. Most make me want to gag. I guess I'm just finicky or something. My vegetable consumption tends to be the boring tame stuff like peas, corn, and greenbeans. I do like spinach (raw, not cooked) and will generally use it in place of lettuce in salads.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

My diet at present makes me sound far healthier than I am. 'Cause right at the moment I'm on cabbage, broccoli, cooked-from-frozen synthmeat, melon... and not much else besides. Ooh, and beansprouts when my mother sprouts 'em.

But for more than a third of a year before that I was on nothing but sachets of aspartamey powder, so... :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I gathered from some of the things you posted that you were on a major weight reduction plan, but I never saw the beginning of it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Tsk. What kind of equine are you anyway? ;p

Leftovers count as whatever they started as. If it was made from scratch, it still is. If it's leftover frozen dinner, it still is.

The American hatred of vegetables is incredibly stupid, and born of an tremendously unimaginative cuisine that has traditionally treated vegetables as ornamental trimmings rather than the grand and varied things they really are. I agree that wilted broccoli and mushy peas are disgusting, but good vegetables sensibly prepared are gourmet food. And really, a good fresh salad (which does not mean the spotty lettuce and crunchy tomato they offer you in most places) simply can't be beat.

[delphinelicorne.livejournal.com]

I'm french, does that count as an exception? ;)

[deffox]

Someday I'll secretly switch him to vegan.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not exactly an exception, but I do expect a little different attitude. :D

At least historically, France and the French seem to have been more conscientious and aware about food and interested in its preparation, where Americans mostly consider it a nuisance and a bother.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If you figure out a way to do that "secretly" (meaning, without being noticed) I'll be very interested in your methods. Probably I wouldn't be the only one, either.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Trivia note: In Canada, the brand name is different, so the commercial uses the phrase "It's not delivery, it's Delissio". Which means for Altivo's purposes, it's "It's not DiGiorno or Delissio, it's delivery."

We now return you to your regularly scheduled survey.

(Brought to you from someone who watches a lot of Canadian TV for an American.)

[delphinelicorne.livejournal.com]

I cook about everything you can imagine and not. But if you come home I won't have you pay $50 for a soup ;). Now I like lots of things cooked and raw, salty or sweet or even a mix of both like warm goat cheese on toast with a light touch of honey :p (*drools*)

[nekura-ca.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how to answer #2, I tend to use intermediate prepared foods, like premade pasta sause, etc. and then combine them in various ways to make a meal. So it's not fresh, raw ingredients, and it's not really just a frozen dinner.

I try and keep an eye to make sure I'm eating enough fruits and veggies, but I can't cook them very well, so I try and get the veggie of the day at the cafe at work as my lunch. It's weird, I use to hate it as a kid, but Broccoli is suddenly my favourite vegitable now.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Ah - yeah, I have been. Since the end of August last year. (I asked them yesterday... had no idea it'd been so long!)

It's gone well. I'm not what you'd call svelte quite yet.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I would call that the second choice, "boxed" or "kit" when you use partially prepared things and combine them. If you're selective, it's not a terribly bad choice and can give you pretty good results.

I agree about broccoli, though I've always liked vegetables, even when I was a kid. They often had trouble getting me to eat the meat, I've been told. Broccoli is actually sweet, something that few people realize probably because they've never had it cooked just right. Usually it's raw or undercooked, or else way overcooked. Raw broccoli is crunchy but not nearly as tasty. But then, I even like Brussels sprouts, reputedly the most hated vegetable of all.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ah, le fromage.

Well, I'll spare you my broken French. No question but what you French folk know more about cheeses than anyone else, but I'll pass on the chevre. If it's from cow's milk or possibly even ewe's, I'm willing to at least sample.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You mean someone who is fortunate enough to live where he CAN watch Canadian TV? I actually miss that sometimes, even for as little TV as I ever look at.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Svelte may be overrated. It certainly is here. But of course you want to be healthy, so I'm glad you've made good progress.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

I object to your categories.

While, yes, when in season, I cook fresh, frozen raw vegetables shouldn't be in the same category as a TV dinner...

[typographer.livejournal.com]

Objecting in a very nitpicky, I'm not in the slightest-bit-offended-and-hope-you-don't-think-I-am way, of course.

^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Frozen veggies weren't what I had in mind when I said "frozen" but rather things like frozen "complete dinners" (Banquet, Swanson, so-called "TV dinners") or those frozen prepared entrees from Stouffer or Healthy Choice or whomever.

The object here was to get a feel for two things: what proportion of people prepare actual meals at home frequently as opposed to convenience food, takeout, or restaurants/fast food; and how many have any interest or concern with balance of proteins to carbs, fiber, vitamins, etc.

My impression from seeing what people write and listening to them talk has been that more and more, Americans especially are losing touch with food. They don't know how to shop or prepare it, they have no concept of nutritional balances, and in essence are becoming slaves to the processed and fast food industries. This is a very unscientific first attempt to look at that perceived trend, and at a glance it seems I was wrong.

But when I look at who said what, I'm not so sure. If it is broken down by rough age groups, and those who live outside the US and Canada are separated, I may actually be right.