The Houston Chronicle had a cartoon [cartoon link no longer available, 3/27/11] in the Sunday newspaper (Jan 16, 2011) that is a good example of how our diets have changed, and not for the better.  “Hi and Lois” are having Sunday dinner and Hi remembers eating Sunday dinner when he was a child–roast, ham, or turkey, with vegetables, and all sitting down together to eat.  Today’s Sunday dinner shows the kids watching TV on the sofa and eating take-out pizza from the box–typical fast food. 

Many of us remember when we mostly ate dinner at home, usually a meat and some vegetables–a wide variety of vegetables, not just potatoes–maybe with some bread and butter as a side not the main part of the meal.  If we had milk it was whole, not low fat or skim, and if we drank tea, it was homemade.  The meat was probably cooked in the oven or in a skillet on the stovetop.  There might have been dessert, but, if so, it was home cooked.   We got more variety and didn’t load up on foods with little nutrition.

We’re all busier now and think we don’t have time to prepare good foods.  What should we do?  My husband and I try to cook on weekends so that we only need to reheat food for dinner each night.  We also cook food to take to work for lunch.  Our children are grown so, fortunately, we don’t need to prepare school lunches.  How do others eat well today?  Maybe there are some new ideas that would help all of us.