Cooking at Home Can Make You Fat

by Karenke4 | February 17, 2009 at 02:07 pm

493 views | 33 Recommendations | 8 comments

A new study reveals that fast food chains may not be all to blame for the growing middles of Americans. Cooking at home may be the culprit, according to research that compared classic recipes from cookbooks over the last 70 years. What they found revealed an increase in calories by an average of 40 percent which can be attributed to the changing recipes themselves as well increased portion sizes.

Is this a chicken or egg question? Are cookbook authors accommodating to the seemingly unsatisfiable appetites of cooking Americans? Or are Americans waist bands expanding because their cookbooks are leading them astray?

Wansink says he is more concerned by the increase in overall calories per recipe -- what experts call caloric density -- than in the portion size increases, which is a more easily recognized phenomenon.

"That (calorie increases) is more insidious because that's the sort if thing the average person wouldn't notice, wouldn't even think would have happened over the years," says Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating," an examination of why people overeat.

Overeating is now as recognized a disorder as anorexia or bulemia but most Americans do not suffer from an diagnosed disorder. Increases in caloric density in some of the traditional foods that we eat may indeed be to blame. To recreate your grandmother's favorite meatloaf recipe for instance, you may be adding more calories to feed fewer people.

The chicken gumbo, however, went from making 14 servings at 228 calories each in the 1936 edition, to making 10 servings at 576 calories each in the 2006 version.

Although Americans are also growing taller, the massive weight gain is not in healthy proportion to their modest height gains.

Average adult Americans are about one inch taller, but nearly a whopping 25 pounds heavier than they were in 1960, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The bad news, says CDC is that average BMI (body mass index, a weight-for-height formula used to measure obesity) has increased among adults from approximately 25 in 1960 to 28 in 2002.

Americans seem to have lost the ability to feed themselves. Perhaps the lines between eating for pleasure and eating for sustenance have become too blurred. Maybe access to an abundance of food and money has overpowered our ability to feel when we are full.

The trend towards an obese America is something that we all should fear. Next time you cook from your brand new cookbook you may want to take the 'recommended portion' sizes with a grain of salt. (Though salt increases blood pressure, which is also on the rise in the US. Maybe take them with a flake of oregano instead.)

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car1edb

at 15:14 on February 17th, 2009

Thanks for the interesting story.

Guess its not easy when you've been brainwashed and are told what to eat by the TV, this is so common I bet, there doesn't seem to be any room for alternative eating education.

Especially when $ is tight, the kraft dinner comes out and you have to make sure that the suv eats better than you do. (Did you know they commonly use sales of kraft dinner to gauge upper-middle class economic climate :)

Still - eating as a pastime is good enough exercise, so why not make a bigger batch!

Fripouille

at 16:10 on February 17th, 2009

Good post this!

I have never, instinctively, believed that fast food, notably much maligned Macdonalds type fast food, is a major cause of obesity, despite all the shock-horror-outrage (money-making for their producers) films and documentaries.

Many of those who buy into that idea are more motivated by 'anti-capitalist' ideas than facts. Fair enough.

But let's call a spade a spade here. Many people eat supermarket junk all evening long in front of their tv screens, they invite friends to come round and they put on a good spread so that everyone "eats well", they get invited themselves for the same reasons the next day, they have fridges full of snacks and sugared drinks, and they do not excercise.

Where's the fast food there? C'mon!

Yours,

77k, 1m89cm, Macdeluxe freak!

GLPChef1

at 16:33 on February 17th, 2009

Compliments of Great Lil' Place
Greatlilplace.com

GLPChef1 has contributed a photo to this story.

Technocook

at 18:25 on February 17th, 2009

Growing up in a blue collar Italian family, we never had a lot but never thought we were missing anything. Dad would work in the steel mill and mom taught school for a bit. We ate like royalty. One of the dishes we had regularly was an old version of Pasta Fagioli made with noodles and kidney beans. I later found out that this was the Italian Ramen Noodles of the day (For those of us that were starving college students you will remember that.)

See the recipe at technocooks.com

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quanza

at 19:01 on February 17th, 2009

← prepared at a cheap restaurant for lunch; super healthy, super delicious! meatloaf patties with lots of veggies inside. it's not wonder Tokyo received the highest number of Michelin stars - evah!

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Paschen

at 22:20 on February 17th, 2009

I think it is up to who cooks and how. I cook and always cooked at home and still weight what I did some 20 Years ago at 68 Kg. I cook well and healthy. The same study could be made in reverse and show the same results with people eating out.

I suppose it will depend where the study is conducted and by whom.

Ryan Grayson

at 04:41 on February 18th, 2009

I don't totally really agree with the premise. Eating healthy is a choice whether it's in a restaurant or at home. At least at home I know everything that's going in my food. There are a slew of healthy eating cookbooks. I assume more than there were 50 years ago. I also assume that when someone makes a recipe that calls for a quart of heavy whipping cream they are the same people not concerned with ordering a big mac and large fry.