Healthy vs. Convenient Meals: The Real Cost

 

Healthy Meals is What I WANT, but Convenience is what I Do!
Tired of the Guilt and Frustration?

“I wish I could cook healthy meals, but I just don’t have the time!”
“I wish I could get my kids to like healthy food, but it’s too hard!”

Sound familiar?  I hear this scenario quite often.  Healthy home-cooked meals is what most would love to aspire to, but with fast food restaurants on practically every corner and microwave packaged meals in the freezer section, it’s so easy and tempting to surrender to the path of least resistance.  Add to this the busy pace of families nowadays with both parents working, kids in multiple after-school activities, and piles of homework and school projects, it’s easy to understand how daunting cooking at home can be.   Here are some stats:

• 40% of kids who eat often with their parents say they get mainly A’s & B’s in school than kids  who have two or fewer family dinners a week.
• Half of all teenagers will use an illicit drug by the time they finish high school.  However, teens that eat family meals more than three times a week are half as likely to try them.
•  Children consume more fruits and vegetables and fewer snack foods and soft drinks when they
  eat as a family.
• On Average, a family of four spends $80 and three hours  driving, waiting, and eating at a sit-down restaurant; and only $18 and one hour  to prepare a meal at home.
• This generation is the first predicted to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Convenient?  Yes.  But at what cost?  While eating out is a treat (and we are not suggesting you give that up altogether), it’s no secret that eating out, even at fast food restaurants, is very hard on the family budget.  However, more importantly, it’s very hard on your health.  Any time we have cooked for someone who works in the restaurant business, we’re usually told the same thing.  “If people knew what we do to make the food taste the way it does, people wouldn’t eat out nearly as much.”  The top four ingredients used in alarming quantities for flavor are salt, butter, sugar, and lemon (not that lemon is bad!).  There’s a reason these things are heavily depended upon, and our Healthy Cooking customers come to see that for themselves once they’ve experienced the difference.  Health is priceless, and it may be worth considering whether you want to continue pouring so much of your hard earned income into something that takes your power away to help direct the future of your family’s health.
I remember the response of one mom, in particular, who after experiencing our cooking presentation  opened up her heart to share what a heavy burden she carried as a single mom trying to provide for her family and her sense of guilt and sadness at not being able to have the time or energy to prepare a balanced meal for them.  At the conclusion of the cooking presentation, she began to provide for her family and her sense of guilt and sadness at not being able to have the time or energy to prepare a balanced meal for them.  At the conclusion of the cooking presentation, she began to share  her hope and relief in finding a solution that she could embrace, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks.  It’s moments like these that I am reminded why our mission to change life is truly a ministry disguised as a business.