Posted March 4, 2012
The answer to better health through eating might be as close as your pantry.
The American Heart Association has started a new program, Simple Cooking With Heart, to get Americans eating better by eating at home.
Two-income families, kids with busy schedules and adults working long hours make it harder for people to eat at home. And the statistics bear this out.
In the late 1970s, American children ate 17 percent of meals outside the home. By the mid- to late 1990s, kids ate 30 percent of their meals away from home, with 10 percent of their overall diet coming from fast-food restaurants. At least half of our food costs are for meals eaten or prepared away from home.
When we eat at home, we are still relying on others to do much of the preparation. Less than one-third of Americans who eat dinner at home cook their meals from scratch.
Many of us don’t have the skills to cook from scratch. While seven out of 10 adults rated their cooking skills above average, less than four out of 10 scored above average on a basic cooking skills quiz, according to the American Heart Association.
Simple Cooking With Heart aims to change this. “The program is to teach people how to cook heart-healthy meals at home,” said Annette Fisher, spokeswoman for the Maryland chapter of the American Heart Association.
The Maryland chapter is joining with the Stafford School, formerly the Baltimore International Culinary School, to create Simple Cooking With Heart programs in the community this year, Fisher said.
The AHA designed the program as a way to combat the obesity epidemic, according to Roxana Hoveyda, spokeswoman for the Greater Washington Region chapter. The national program is a joint effort with the Walmart Foundation, she said.
According to AHA literature, the more people eat out, especially at fast-food restaurants, the more calories, fat and sodium they tend to consume. Away from home meals tend to contain fewer fruits, vegetables and whole grains than food prepared at home, the AHA said.
The AHA has sample recipes on its website for things like Simple Chicken Stir Fry, Chunky Marinara with Pasta and Seared Chicken, Easy Oven-Baked Chicken Breasts with Microwave Steamed Squash, Asian-Style Noodles with Pork and Vegetables, Pan-Fried Pork Chops with Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Balsamic Glazed Fish, Salmon Bake with Creamy Cucumber Sauce, Creamy Tomato Fettuccini, and Red Beans and Rice with corn on the cob.
YouTube videos accompany each recipe, demonstrating cooking techniques cooking-show style. The Red Beans and Rice video, for example, lets you know that red beans have the highest antioxidants of any dried beans.
Beans and rice, mixed with garlic, onion and salt-free Cajun seasoning, offers a meatless, filling meal with a lot of taste. More information on everything from nuts and whole-grain goodness to what is a typical serving size and what is good fat is also on the website.
A downloadable kit at www.heart.org/simplecooking provides a guide to hosting a party, along with recipes and shopping lists. Hosts can invite friends and try out the recipes, cooking-show style. Four to eight people is the ideal size for the cooking party.
There’s more advice on how to stock a heart-healthy pantry on a budget, choosing good produce, storing and freezing leftovers, eating healthy on the run, healthy substitutions for common foods and a skills glossary.
Lots of information to help you and your family eat better in 2012 is simply a click away, so get started now.
©2012 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.)