OK. I own it. Said it before. I have never and will never be a domestic goddess. I have never been a virtuoso in the kitchen. And you know what? I have no serious desire to do so.
I can do basic cooking. Both of my parents were able to make meals we did not mind eating and that kept us fed. My father was the world’s strongest proponent of meat, potatoes and a vegetable.
The first time my mother made spaghetti, we came home from an errand to find Daddy peeling potatoes! Did not matter the pasta was the starch; if you had dinner, you had potatoes!
So, I can boil potatoes. I can also bake them. I can make pot roast and soup and chili con carne and spaghetti with ‘doctored’ meat sauce, but I don’t cook often. Anything you can do in a microwave often becomes dinner.
As I was just microwaving my lunch, I started to think about nutrition. I get school lunches three times a week. Other times, if my body is telling me I need to eat something that will actually NOURISH it, I cook. (Big believer in listening to your body here.) But what about people who cannot do that? What if your vision or another infirmity makes it so you are required to depend on ‘quick and dirty’ for your meals?
First of all, school lunches. I cannot find it, but I could swear that under the government program that distributes ‘extra’ food to schools, there is a stipulation that says the elderly can eat in school cafeterias. Full of canal water? Possibly. If anyone actually knows, let me know. That one is a maybe. [Lin/Linda: I couldn’t find anything like that, sorry. It’s a good idea!]
Meals on Wheels is an option in most areas. Daddy was not always crazy about the selections they had and the delivery schedule left something to be desired, but the meals were guaranteed balanced and nutritious.
Canada runs their own Meals on Wheels program. The U.K. appears to have something similar in the Meals at Home/Meals on Wheels program.
Then there is the whole slew of microwaveable dinners available at the grocery store. There seems to be a wide range of them with wildly varying food values.
Eat This, Not That! either has stock in Amy’s and Kashi’s or those companies make very good products! Those companies come up a number of times in The 46 Best Frozen Foods in America. Check out the link for the rest of the manufacturers.
In their article 10 Frozen Dinners That Pass the Nutrition Test, NOLA (New Orleans newspaper website) also recommends foods by Kashi, Amy’s Kitchen, and Tandoor Chef. Other companies are Evol, Artisan Bistro, and – names I actually know – Healthy Choices, Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers.
Most of what was recommended is decidedly not meat, potatoes and a vegetable. Daddy would look askance at more than several of the choices suggested. However, if your tastes are different from what my father’s were I would suspect you can find two or three that you can eat.
Decent nutrition even a few times a week is better than none at all.
P.S. If you are looking for breakfast cereal, Cheerios and Total come in 9 and 10 in a listing by Greatist!. Of the 20 Cereals That Are Actually Healthy, the top three were made by Barbara’s. This may a Canadian company although there are distribution centers in California and Kentucky. All I know about them is what I have read online.