30 Myths that Keep You From Cooking From Scratch

30 myths perpetuated by “Big Food” to keep you from cooking from scratch

Myths that are put forward by Big Food to keep you enslaved to processed food and build your resistance to cooking from scratch.

It’s day 20 in the 30 days of the cooking from scratch challenge (#30fromscratch).  By now you are discovering your own mindset about scratch cooking and how your personal thinking patterns sabotage your healthy eating goals.  It’s hard to change a habit.  And most of us are habituated toward convenience and painlessness rather than fighting our own resistance toward better health, and more conscientious eating.

Fighting the resistance to better eating

Let’s face it, it’s easier to stop at Micky Ds and grab a 32-ounce soda than it is to bring a bottle of ice water from home, even though the ice water is cheaper and more healthy.  It’s easier to stop at the fast-food drive-through than it is to put a chicken in the crockpot before leaving for work in the morning.  It’s easier to grab a hamburger or even a salad on the way through town than it is to put bread in the bread machine and set the timer to have it hot and ready when you walk in the door or to throw a frozen homemade patty on the grill when you get home.

High cost of processed food

But the cost of the two options is hugely different.  First of all, there is a cost to convenience in both money and health.  Water – even filtered water that you take out of your fridge and carry with you, is better for you and cheaper than buying the least expensive soft drink.  That soft drink, even if it’s diet pop, is going to make you crave more sugary drinks and more carbohydrates.  It’s going to spike your blood sugar and create an insulin rush.  It’s going to lead to food cravings and a sugar crash.  And it’s not going to quench your thirst or nourish your cells.  In fact, instead of replenishing your fluids and quenching your thirst, it’s going to make you more thirsty, and it’s going to cause you to lose fluids.  And that’s just a drink.  In fact, if people who drink soda now, even diet soda, would just exchange all the soda for cold, fresh, filtered water, they’d lose weight and improve their health.

Today I want to talk about some of the myths that have been perpetuated by Big Food, Big Diet, and Big Pharma, to discourage you from cooking at home, and to keep you dependent on corporations to tell you what’s good for you, and then provide that product.  This isn’t an exhaustive list so keep your eyes open when you go through the store or see a billboard or commercial, and you’ll recognize many more.

30 Myths that keep you dependent on processed food and sabotage your scratch cooking efforts

• Processed food tastes better than home cooked from scratch meals.

• It takes too long to cook food from scratch.  You don’t have time to cook.

• It is too expensive to cook food from scratch.  You can’t afford all the ingredients that it takes.

• Cooking from scratch is too much work and it’s complicated.

• There are GMOs in everything so you can’t avoid them even if you try.

• GMOs are substantially identical to their natural, conventional counterparts.

• GMOs are destroyed by stomach acid so there is no health danger to consuming GMOs in your diet.

• Processed food is like restaurant food cooked by a professional chef, so it must be better than home cooking.  Chefs are trained to provide healthy, good tasting food for their customers.

• Only professionals can safely cook from scratch.  It’s a complicated process and there’s a lot that can go wrong.

• You can trust Food corporations to take care of your health.  Their primary goal is safe, healthy food to keep you strong and healthy.

• Processed food is safer than home canned food.

• Carbohydrates are good for your heart.  A vegetarian diet is the healthiest diet.

• Eating meat and animal protein will escalate global warming but eating grains and beans doesn’t.

• Eating soy-anything will help you avoid cancer, 1 billion Chinese can’t be wrong.

• Eating saturated fats cause heart disease, but eating liquid vegetable oils like soy oil, corn oil, and canola oil will keep your heart healthy.

• Restaurant meals are scratch cooked meals.

• You deserve to eat out.  Eating out is a positive, uplifting experience, a reward for your hard work.

• Processed food is “the real thing.”

• Clean, raw milk is as deadly as toxic waste, but industrial milk is safe.

• Food has to be pasteurized and sterilized to be safe to eat.

• Traditional methods of food preservation that relied on helpful lactic bacteria are dangerous.  All bacteria is dangerous.

• Locally raised and slaughtered meat is hazardous and needs to be controlled by government.

• You aren’t capable of deciding what should go into your own mouth or body.  Only government regulations, and multinational corporations are able to protect your health and wellbeing from unscrupulous neighbourhood farmers.

• Big Food is mandated to bring you the freshest, healthiest ingredients to make your meals as nourishing as possible.

• Processed food allows women to have more time to spend with their families and to pursue their highest potential.

• Low fat, high carbohydrate diets will help you lose weight.

• The generation that was raised on processed food is living longer, healthier lives than any generation before them.

• A calorie is a calorie.

• If you are overweight it’s your own fault – it’s because you’re lazy, or you overeat, or you have a health problem.  It has nothing to do with the neurotoxins in your food that trigger your hunger switch, or hidden carbs in your food.

• If you get overweight by eating processed food, eating more processed food from Big Diet will fix it.

It’s all lies

Every single one of these myths is a LIE.  It’s a lie suggested to you to keep you buying processed food.  It’s a lie spoken to get you to stop trying to cook from scratch.  Face it, the mandate of any corporation is profit.  To make the most profit possible for shareholders, a corporation is going to use the cheapest ingredients possible.  The corporation is going to combine those ingredients in an attractive package and make all kinds of promises to you, to keep you coming back.  But the motive is not your health, nor your well-being, nor your time, nor your finances.  The motive is profit.

Time to know the truth and move on to FREEDOM from processed food

Maybe you’ve believed some of this propaganda.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Recognize it for what it is and move on.  You are on the right track.  If you weren’t, there would be no resistance.  Stay the course.  Take the next step.  You can win this.

Recognizing the myths for what they are, will help you overcome them when your family or friends say them to you.  And they will.

Can you think of any other myths that are put forward by Big Food to keep you enslaved to processed food and build your resistance to cooking from scratch?  Let me know in the comments.  Exposing the lies that we believe is the first step to conquering the resistance in our minds.

Here’s further reading to help you think more clearly about the real issues:

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives

Farmageddon