It's Not Your Fault!

You know what? It's not your fault. No, it's not. Hey, the reason why I'm talking about that today is just to understand that over the last three generations I want to talk about the timeline as what has happened around food and food in the kitchen. What has happened to our lifestyle of eating and what we're doing? Hey everyone, this is Chef Michael, culinary nutrition expert at Doctoronamission.com, along with my beautiful wife, Doctor Isabel MD, functional medicine Doctor, director and founder, of doctoronamission. We're here to help you guys live a long, happy, vibrant life to prevent and overcome disease and give you hope. So today, you know what guys? So many times we were wondering, What happened to the learning of cooking in the kitchen?

I mean over the last few generations, how did this all happen? How did it get to a point where so few people know what to do in the kitchen? I hear this all the time. "Well, chef Michael, I would love to know what to do for my kids. I would love to do what to do for my family. I would love to know what to do for myself in the kitchen. I hear basic terms of this cooking, that cooking, healthy, doing this and that, but I have no idea what to do." Well today I want to just kind of help to understand it's not your fault. Here's what has happened over the last 70 years. We're going to go through that today just to help out. And I want to talk a little bit about why I am so passionate about helping you to reclaim your kitchen and what has happened in my life so that I know this is my mission and our mission here at Doctoronamission.

All right, so let's go back a little bit in time. So it really was around the 1940s when all the changes started to happen. And what was the big worldwide event in the 1940s? Well, if you know anything about history and hopefully you know something about history, it was world war II, the big war, world war II. So a couple things in world war II, well leading up into world war two, the women in the work force, Now I'm talking westernized countries like Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, South America, those types of countries, women in the workforce made up around 15 to 20% at most in those countries. Most or let's say around 15%, some up to 20%. Well during world war II, because all these men were going off to war. Yes, some women, but mostly men in those days.

The female workforce during world war II shot up to around 38 to 40% in those countries. And now today, 70 years later, females in the workforce is around the average of 60% and the countries that I've mentioned where westernized countries. And so the word convenience, convenience foods actually took place in the 1940s and actually 1940s. Now guys, I do have some notes in front of me today because there are some statistics, some certain dates. I want to kind of reflect back on and make sure I get those correct.

But going back, there was a gentleman named Charles Mortimer who in the 1940s he coined the phrase “convenience foods”. And that's when it all started. Why? Because after world war II, all of a sudden there was these women that were in the workforce and they didn't have time coming home to make foods and dinner like they traditionally had. So they needed convenient food. So this started this whole trend of like, “Oh, let's put things in boxes.” There are things like, I'll give you an example. I believe it was post or General mills. I think it was General mills created Betty Crocker. Did you know that Betty Crocker was not an actual person? It was really just an advertising gimmick, advertising scheme. Betty Crocker cookbooks, Betty Crocker, boxes of mixes and foods and all this stuff. Well, it used to be for generations that there were home economics classes taught by the home-ec teachers and they would make everything from scratch.

Well, when Betty Crocker was created, it was created for convenience foods. It was created as this great, wonderful female chef persona that made things easy for you. But now all of a sudden we have cake mixes in a box. You pour it out of the box, she had an egg and maybe a little bit of milk, whipped it up and probably threw some more sugar in, which already had sugar in, and boom, you got a cake. And it was like, “wow, I just created a cake.” You know? Well actually the box did. And all kinds of other things. But these guys, what they did was, and it was in the 1950s, General mills with their Betty Crockers created these Betty Crocker home-economic classes, and they had their people come in and replace the traditional home economics teachers and go in and teach the Betty Crocker classes of teachers.

Well now we're here, starting to see the generations of people being taught by the food industry of how to cook at home. Just a couple of other things. I mean, I'll give you some statistics about fast foods, convenience and fast foods. Let me see. When started ... Kentucky fried chicken in the US in 1952, Domino's, 1967, taco bell, 1950 approximately 1954, '56, Burger King, 1959, McDonald's 1948 originally and really took off in the 1950s when Ray Crock purchased it. So really through the fifties all of a sudden you've got drive throughs, you got convenience foods. This has all started to take off here in New Zealand, it came in, in the 1970s but worldwide ... Oh now, and here's another thing with Coke and Pepsi, soda pop. Well, what they offered, what Coke offered all people in the night, all the service men and women worldwide in world war II.

I mean, I find these things amazing when you go back and you see how this really got incorporated, ingrained into society. In world war II, Coca-Cola offered all service men and women that were serving with Coke, offering all men and women servicing a bottle of Coke for 5 cents. Now at that time, I don't know what, I think it was maybe a half price or very cheap. It might've been more, but it as 5 cents for a Coke for anybody who was serving around the world during that whole time of world war II. Well, what happened was when those people came home after world war II and they got used to having Coke every day, what do you think happen?

They were hooked. They were hooked on sugar. Well, by 1995 the averages of kids drinking Coke around the world, this is young adults, two out of three were drinking at least a liter of some kind of soda pop a day. That wasn't happening before the 1940s but that's what happened. As you got generations starting to get hooked on these things, it all started around that time. Things that the food industry did that supposedly was convenient. It was helping society. It was giving society, it was helping, but it got people hooked on the two big factors, sugar and salt during those times. Those factors are amazing. Ever since then, just a couple of different things. Obesity rates in the 1950s, diabetes worldwide was around 2 to 5%. Now today it's around 20 to 25% of the population of Westernized society. From 2 to 5% to 20 to 25% in what? 50 years?

The genes of human beings don't change that quickly in 50 years. That's 10 times-ing in 50 years. What has happened? We didn't change. The DNA of us doesn't change that quickly. The same thing with obesity rates, tripled in 50 years. It's amazing what has happened. All the different diseases, the amount that they just shot up and ramped up, and so I wanted you to understand that where we've gotten to today is not your fault. It was over generations as the food companies came in. That's why I call it Reclaim Your kitchen. They've taken it over. They've made it so easy for us, and so convenient for us. They put it all in there, they've added all the ingredients, everything's into the process food that we go, “Oh well this is just simple. This is easy.” And we're hooked on it. Okay?

So here at reclaim your kitchen, my mission, my purpose is to help you take that kitchen back, to be able to cook from scratch. Simple, elegant, quick, wonderful, healthy meals. And why do we want to do that? Well, to save our health. That's why we want to do that. And I look back on my family and what's my mission about. I look back on my family and my mom died at 53 from cancer. Very young. My dad, my father, he died at 69 from basically diabetes, stroke, many things going on in his body, just physically poor shape. I look at our lifestyle, eating habits. These guys had no idea. They came through that generation growing up in the fifties and sixties with cooking. They were both working. We got home, they didn't have time. And so I look ... I don't remember seeing salad on the dinner table.

I don't remember seeing greens. I do remember seeing some vegetables, whether it be a big piece of meat, some potato, and then there'd be like a piece of broccoli on the side or something like that. I do remember that. But that's about it. And was there soda pop? Yep, absolutely. Was there chips, bacon, salami? I mean, weekend meals were white potatoes and bacon and eggs. Yeah, we had some eggs but they would be cooked in canola oil, and the bad oils. I don't remember extra Virgin olive oil put on foods. I remember canola oils poured all over it, and that wasn't their fault. I don't blame them because they came up through that, and that industry stole that kitchen from them because that's what they knew how to do. It was quick, it was convenient. Friday nights we went out. Now back then we went out on Friday nights as a special treat.

Dad got paid and mom got paid, and we went out to different fast food plates on a Friday night, as a treat. Okay, it was once a week, but still, we got into that habit. Well today, how often do people go out to fast foods? They're in line to breakfast at fast foods. I mean, Holy cow. I mean even once a week, I don't do that. I don't know, I don't do the fast foods at all. But you know, do people do it once a week now, or ... Fast foods is takeaways too. I mean, if you're getting takeaways, that's fast food. All right, let's admit it because I can guarantee you it's not healthy. There's all kinds of stuff that's going in it. Even if you think, “I'm just getting a nice stir fry.”, Well they're probably stir frying in canola oils and adding all kinds of other things to give it some flavor in there.

But you know, I don't blame my parents. It wasn't their fault. It wasn't their problem. And so for me the mission is understanding ... I want to help you to reclaim your kitchen, bring that back. Because I was going down that track as a professional chef. I was excellent at cooking, wasn't necessarily from the nutritional point of view. I, in my middle ages, was becoming a fat, old, grumpy, unhealthy man and basically I was turning on those DNA genes in me to become sick and die young. And I'm determined, myself, for that not to happen to me. At doing that, I can help teach you guys not to have that happened to you.

Not difficult, just simple things. Well you know what's in your food for you and your family. You might not even have a family, it might just be you or maybe it's just the two of you, but just so that you can reclaim your kitchen, you can feel great about what's going in you. You can be empowered to know, “I can cook healthy for myself.” We can do amazing things, we can do great things and that's what I want to do for you guys. So, that's what's happened. It's not your fault. All right, but let's overcome it, and take our kitchen back. Hey, been great being with you guys. I look forward to seeing you next Monday and through the week.

Have an amazing day, evening, night, wherever you are in the world. Great to see ya. Bye for now.