Thuppal: Even for the fledgling chef, home cooked meals healthy, rewarding

One of the things I was most looking forward to this semester was moving off campus. After a year of signing in guests and eating semi-palatable food at Market Central, there was little more that excited me than being able to live on my own terms (except no pets).

As a new apartment dweller, however, I quickly realized I lacked a fundamental skill of independent living: the culinary arts. Upon moving in, I’d taken about a week’s worth of my mom’s cooking with me. Well, that’s long gone.

So commenced my diet of cereal for breakfast, Milano’s Pizza for lunch and cereal for dinner. From time to time, my friends would take pity on me, offering to make me dinner or bring me home some of their leftovers.

Tired of the gastronomic inadequacy of my lifestyle, I decided to take on my stove. With slight trepidation, I made the trip out to Market District (I’m not hipster enough for Whole Foods) and, upon my return, began my foray into cooking.

I tried something simple, hoping to avoid abject failure. And even though my pasta came out undercooked and my sauce a bit tasteless, a certain satisfaction followed in knowing that I had prepared the meal. The comfort of knowing what goes into my food and how it was prepared is a feeling you can’t get from a box.

Nearly everything in our supermarkets that is already prepared or in the frozen foods aisle is pumped with unnatural sweeteners and preservatives. Even the non-organic fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle are closer to being real food than their juiced and canned counterparts.

With so much debate over health care reform, encouraging Americans to reevaluate their diet is one of the simpler solutions. Instead of trying to finance elaborate and oft-ineffective procedures for our senior citizens, we should be looking to prevent conditions like diabetes, obesity and heart disease in persons of all ages by changing how and what we eat.

Rethinking our meals need not involve highly regimented diet plans. Making an active effort to avoid fast food or synthetic foodlike substances — anything made with more than 10 ingredients you can’t pronounce — is a crucial first step.

In a recent New York Times column, Michael Pollan underscored this point. He claimed that the $2.3 trillion that the United States spends on health care would be much more useful if it were applied to proactively preventing our afflictions rather than treating them for generations to come.

But it won’t be an easy task. According to Pollan, “reforming the food system is politically even more difficult than reforming the health care system.” And so long as the problems associated with unhealthy eating can be relegated to the future, they will not be taken seriously.

It is a sad truth that our health care industry profits more by treating diseases than preventing them. Treating chronic diseases like diabetes ensures that health care companies can profit for years off of a patient. Teaching that same patient to eat healthily and exercise proves much less lucrative.

Some will claim that taxing and publicly lambasting unhealthy food and drink makers is the answer. While New York failed to pass a tax on sugary drinks, state public health officials developed an ad campaign that links sodas and stoutness. But until individuals start buying into the notion of preparing food with natural ingredients, processed snacks and sugary beverages will continue to seem cheaper and more convenient.

So where does the average college student factor in to this? No one can promise that making dinner will solve the woes of our health care industry — but it will go a long way toward bringing you closer to your food and understanding what you’re putting into your body.

Yes, certain crops and animals are still raised with the help of pesticides and antibiotics. But at some point, it’s not so much about eating organic produce or well-groomed animals. It’s about discovering that cooking for yourself can be exciting, satisfying and much healthier than eating out.

It is understood that cooking is an undertaking that the average college student cannot afford to do every night. With exams and papers creeping up every week, it’s hard to devote time to the kitchen instead of the library.

But finding time in our schedules to make our own food can be a small step toward improving our health and saving some money.

It seems my newfound cooking skills are catching on. My roommate, Neil, is also beginning to recognize the benefits of home-cooked meals. Too bad he loves making me do the dishes.

E-mail Hay at hat23@pitt.edu.