Rediscovering Culinary Arts: Why We Should Ditch Pre-Packaged Foods
In today’s fast-paced world, particularly in the U.S., time seems reserved for work, leaving little room for home cooking. As a result, many have lost basic culinary skills. The art of cooking boasts a rich, noble heritage, and preserving these skills is just one reason to move away from pre-packaged foods.
What Are Pre-Packaged Foods?
Pre-packaged foods are processed products designed for convenience, requiring minimal preparation to be edible. Food processing isn’t new—ancient societies used smoking, drying, and pickling to preserve food for lean times. Sausages, bacon, and hams also originated as preservation methods. In the 19th and 20th centuries, innovations catered to military needs. In 1809, Nicolas Appert developed vacuum-bottling to supply Napoleon’s armies, which evolved into modern canning by Peter Durand in 1810, revolutionizing the food industry. By the late 1890s, John and Will Kellogg introduced cereal flakes, and white processed flour became widely available. By the mid-20th century, foods were frozen, freeze-dried, canned, pickled, dehydrated, or packaged as nearly ready-to-eat products, prioritizing quick preparation, long shelf life, and consistency.
The Trade-Offs of Convenience
Advocates for pre-packaged foods highlight their convenience. Take jambalaya, a labor-intensive dish requiring significant skill and time. Boxed jambalaya needs only meat, liquid, and heat for a passable version, while frozen or canned options require even less effort—just heat and a few minutes. Similarly, baking a cake from scratch demands expertise, but a boxed mix allows almost anyone to produce an acceptable cake. These products enable people with limited culinary skills to enjoy flavorful meals with minimal effort.
However, this convenience comes at a cost. Reliance on pre-packaged foods has eroded culinary skills. Why master sauces or gravies when a can or packet, mixed with water and heated, suffices? This dependency leaves us reliant on strangers for a basic need—food—prepared not for our well-being but for profit.
Nutritional Losses
Pre-packaged foods often sacrifice nutrition for convenience. Commercial flour, for example, starts with over 72 vital nutrients, but rapid oxidation after grinding removes 75% within 24 hours. To extend shelf life, the nutrient-rich germ and oils are removed, and the flour is bleached with harsh chemicals, leaving mostly empty calories. Manufacturers “fortify” it with 14 vitamins and minerals to prevent deficiencies, but this is a poor substitute for the original 72 nutrients. Most canned foods are overcooked, offering little more nutritional value than going hungry. Of all processing methods, freezing and freeze-drying retain the most nutrients but are still imperfect.
Hidden Ingredients and Health Risks
Do you know what’s in your food? Pre-packaged products often contain additives like amyl acetate, butyric acid, ethyl nitrate, methyl benzoate, monosodium glutamate, methyl naphthyl ketone, and even zinc oxide—none of which are food or provide nutrition. These additives extend shelf life, preserve color, prevent caking, or reduce production costs, boosting profits. Many are known or suspected carcinogens, potentially linked to serious conditions like Alzheimer’s, lupus, and autoimmune diseases. Studies from the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School confirm that pre-packaged foods contribute to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
The Illusion of Safety
Many assume the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protects us from harmful food additives, but this is misguided. The FDA allows additives classified as “Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS)” to be listed vaguely as “artificial flavor,” “artificial coloring,” or “other ingredients.” GRAS classifications are often determined by non-scientists influenced by industry interests, prioritizing profits over health. While the food industry and FDA want consumers alive to keep buying, their primary concerns are money and politics, not your well-being.
Reclaim the Joy of Cooking
Pre-packaged foods are convenient and palatable, but they rob you of the satisfaction of preparing a world-class meal with your own hands. The sense of accomplishment from creating a dish from scratch, knowing exactly what’s in it, is unmatched. While completely eliminating pre-packaged foods may be impractical unless you grow and prepare everything yourself, you can reduce reliance on them. Invest in cookbooks, watch cooking videos on YouTube, or tune into the Food Network to learn proper techniques. Rediscovering culinary skills will transform you—and your meals.
