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#WhyCook #CSM #LifestyleCooking

I came across an article published by the Harvard Business Review in 2017 with a data point that astounded me: only 10% of Americans love to cook. \\xa0The article\\u2019s author, a consultant for consumer packaged goods companies who did the study for one of his clients, also pointed out that of the 90% who did not love to cook, half hated it and the other half were lukewarm.\\xa0

While I already suspected many Americans didn\\u2019t know their way around the kitchen, I didn\\u2019t expect how much in a minority avid cooks were and further, to find so disturbing the use of the strong sentiment hate to describe one of my passions. To add insult to injury, the author\\u2019s point was not that a valuable life skill was practically lost in this generation, but that groceries and food manufacturers risked market share decline and category obsolescence by not addressing the downward cooking trend.\\xa0 He advocated for a ruthless portfolio strategy that calls for food manufacturers to identify \\u201clong-term losers, and exit by selling them while they can.\\u201d\\xa0

My gig as a culinary educator had already began, but these data points upset me and fueled a desire to not just teach cooking, but to promote it as a lifestyle choice. \\xa0Teaching how to cook dishes is not hard\\u2014you introduce new ingredients, demonstrate and explain the scientific principles behind basic techniques and share the recipes so they can be replicated. But that doesn\\u2019t teach you how to cook without a recipe; to cook when you have a busy week or to have fun. \\xa0You don\\u2019t learn to fall in love with cooking this way.\\xa0

You fall in love with cooking when you produce dishes you\\u2019re proud of.\\xa0 You fall in love with cooking when you find it brings family and friends together. And you know you\\u2019re in love when cooking stops being the thing you have to do to eat; or \\xa0that instead of trying to fit cooking into a busy schedule, you make your schedule less busy because you\\u2019ve realized cooking is a worthier endeavor than other activities that fill your time: television, social media, video games. \\xa0You\\u2019re in love with cooking when you\\u2019re having fun. \\xa0

That won\\u2019t happen to everyone and it certainly will not happen overnight.\\xa0 Nothing worthwhile is instant, though we\\u2019ve been programmed to believe otherwise, since our culture worships convenience and speed. The barriers to entry are low: even dry, over-salted scrambled eggs, barely edible, will pass for cooking.\\xa0 But good cooking\\u2014producing food you\\u2019re proud of that you prefer more often to restaurant fare or store-bought packaged foods, or that non-family or friends would willingly choose to eat, well that\\u2019s different.\\xa0 It\\u2019s the same difference as when a drunk guest comes up to the band stand to say \\u201chey, I also play in a band,\\u201d and I think, well okay, we\\u2019re professional musicians with decades of experience, so I\\u2019m not sure we\\u2019re talking about the same thing here. While there are plenty musicians better than I, I\\u2019m willing to bet it\\u2019s not this inebriated fellow. But hey, I\\u2019m glad he\\u2019s playing music.\\xa0

Good cooking, like playing an instrument well, has a higher learning curve.\\xa0 It will take my piano students many years of practice and scales before they can master a relatively simple piece like Fur Elise. But when they do, they will take pride, and that will be its own reward and a powerful motivator. \\xa0Most of my students will have given up long before they get to this level of proficiency.\\xa0 It takes patience and commitment to play well. Like cooking, there\\u2019s a lot of competition for a piano student\\u2019s time\\u2014school, friends, social media.\\xa0 Fortunately for cooking, there\\u2019s an immediate and practical payback\\u2014dinner! \\xa0It\\u2019s not hard to cook a simple dish well, but another matter to do it consistently and regularly.\\xa0 All of which takes time, practice and a certain mindset. To get to the point where cooking is its own reward, we\\u2019ll need incentives and a game plan to keep us on the path. \\xa0

Lifestyle Cooking

Lifestyle cooking is a term I\\u2019ve coined where we choose to make healthy home cooking part of our lifestyle.\\xa0 Lifestyle cooking isn\\u2019t just about cooking \\xa0dishes, it\\u2019s reclaiming cooking as a valuable and enjoyable life skill and reframing what we know about the food and farming industries so we can make healthy choices; it\\u2019s learning how to shop, organize, share duties, be part of a community; it\\u2019s about eating and celebrating. It\\u2019s about helping the planet (and ourselves) because learning how to cook and shop means we can reduce the 68% of food we waste in our homes, which will reduce the carbon emissions from global food waste that account for 8% of the world\\u2019s carbon footprint.\\xa0 If global food waste was a country, it would rank third, after the USA and China.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

So yes, I\\u2019d like to convince the 90% of Americans that don\\u2019t love cooking to change their minds. Tough order, right? \\xa0But in a weird turn of events none of us could have foreseen, covid-19 happened, life as we knew it changed almost overnight and with many restaurants closed, people started cooking and gardening. \\xa0Life slowed down and the Big Quit happened\\u2014where a historic number of people quit their jobs to reassess their work-life balance. Nothing like a seismic lifestyle shift and a brush with death to straighten our priorities. And that gives me hope.\\xa0

When I launched Cooking Subversive last year, I mentioned that I saw cooking as a gateway to slowing down. \\xa0But it works both ways: with the pandemic, slowing down became a gateway to cooking.\\xa0 But with many restaurants almost back on their feet, and those of us employed returning to work, cooking may fall to the wayside despite our best resolve. \\xa0So we need motivation.\\xa0 And this is why I wrote the:

Cooking Subversive Manifesto

I Cook to Reclaim my HealthI Cook to Reclaim the Planet\\u2019s HealthI Cook to be with Family and FriendsI Cook to Create (which gives me Pride) I Cook to save MoneyI Cook because\\u2026well dang it, I like to Eat!

The Cooking Subversive Manifesto (CSM) is a proclamation of why I cook. \\xa0It is a declaration of how cooking is not just a means to eating, (though that\\u2019s a pretty good incentive by itself), but fundamental to reclaiming rights to health and happiness for ourselves, the community and Mother Earth.

So in the next few articles, we\\u2019ll explore the tenets of CSM in the Why Cook? series:\\xa0 Six reasons to be a lifestyle cook. \\xa0You might think these are self-evident.\\xa0 After all, who will debate that home cooking is good for our health?\\xa0 Though I will argue that what and how you cook are important determinants, in general we agree that home cooking is healthier than commercial alternatives. Would anyone doubt that home cooking brings family and friends together or contest that cooking something delicious and beautiful is a point of pride?\\xa0 The ubiquitous food photos on our social media feeds are proof enough.\\xa0 Yet, most of us have not been swayed to take the time to cook until the pandemic forced some of us to.\\xa0

In a 2011 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)\\xa0that measured time spent on home cooking and food preparation across 28 countries:

The United States is the only country where both the participation rate and mean time for cooking are at the bottom of the ranking. In other words, the American population attaches on average little importance to cooking relative to the other surveyed countries. The United States is also one of the countries where relatively little time is spent eating as a primary activity and where obesity rates are amongst the highest in the OECD.

So it begs the question, why haven\\u2019t these reasons been enough for us to take cooking seriously?\\xa0 And that is what we will unpack. \\xa0Anyone can learn to cook. But becoming a lifestyle cook requires a change in mindset.\\xa0 This is only possible when we can understand the confluence of forces, whether accidental or deliberate, that made us think time spent cooking wasn\\u2019t worthwhile; that if we could afford to hire someone else to do it for us, whether it\\u2019s dining out, buying pre-cooked meals, or a private chef, then we should do so. We\\u2019ve outsourced cooking and missed out on all the benefits.\\xa0

Let\\u2019s change that storyline.

Coming up next: I Cook To Reclaim My Health