Why did I eat the way I did?

A friend asked: what did you eat as a kid? Well, a lot of TV dinners.
Oddly, my mom was a great cook. She knew everything. She grew up on a farm and could cut up a half a cow into various steaks. Could make everything from scratch.
So when she no longer had to?
She didn't.
We had TV trays when I was a kid.
Aluminum folding trays -- one for each of us.
We would sit in front of the TV in the frontroom and eat the TV dinners.
It was like flying first class in an airplane.
It was like being in the future.
Now, kids could make dinner.
Each person could have something different.
It was the beginning of the processed and fast foods.
No wonder that two generations after -- 63% of the population is obese with hypertension.

However, today -- thanks to the Cooking Channel and Weight Watchers, the family is eating better. We get excited about making things from scratch and seeing how much unprocessed food we can use.

Going back even further in time for a moment -- I remember when I was going through my granola period in college. I was home for some vacation and making a loaf of bread.
Mom reflected.
Her mom had made homemade bread.
She made it for lunches for my mom as she was growing up on a farm.
Mom said her childhood dream was to get sliced bread.
It was a status symbol.
Mom said, the rich city kids no longer ate homemade bread.
Now, just a generation later -- mom reflected on her college son thinking it was cool to make bread, rather than buy it.

More below on TV dinners from the History of TV Dinners:



A confluence of factors accounted for the instant popularity: the baby boom, the advent of refrigerators with big freezer compartments, and the mesmerizing nature of a new home entertainment medium.
Given that cartoons and sci-fi movies tended to be on around dinner time in the '60s, kids like me hated to tear ourselves away from that massive Motorola in the family room. What better solution than to eat in front of the TV - and what better meal than one designed to enhance our viewing pleasure?
"The original TV dinner was an interesting concept. It was something new," says Mike Donovan, a Rowan University professor of radio, television and film. "You could argue the original TV dinner broke up the family unit, but I don't think it had anything to do with it," Donovan says, noting eating in front of the television actually extended the time a family could be together.
What changed all that, he adds, was the advent of cheaper, smaller sets, which gave rise to the contemporary phenomenon of multiple sets per household. Today, a latchkey kid can take his microwaveable meal to his room "and watch MTV 24 hours a day,"