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Post by brownrexx on May 15, 2018 6:47:59 GMT -5
I hate to sound judgmental but laziness plays a part. I have some members of my own family who are too lazy to cook from scratch or use fresh produce. It's "too much work" so many times they don't even eat veggies with meals. It's appalling to me.
I "don't have time" plays a role too.
In general people don't cook from scratch as much as previous generations.
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Post by spike on May 15, 2018 7:16:48 GMT -5
are too lazy to cook from scratch or use fresh produce. It's "too much work" And if cooking fresh is to much work you know they ain't gonna be out there with a hoe!
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Post by guruofgardens on May 15, 2018 8:18:24 GMT -5
We try to be good role models by working TOO much. We have always worked for the betterment of family and friends. I was hoping my kids would be gardeners and enjoy all of the work that goes into the wonderful produce they eat.
These days it has been the “I don’t have time, I work too much” excuse. Maybe one day when we are gone they will miss our hard work in the garden!
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Post by paulf on May 15, 2018 8:23:28 GMT -5
Did anyone else see the perfect Bell Curve? Now explain what it means. I say retirement and kids out of the house are good explanations why gardening is so popular for the sixties somethings. And why on NJT? Young enough to compute and old enough to relax.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 15, 2018 10:13:43 GMT -5
I guess I am a weird one. I picked up the gardening bug a few years after my oldest was born, so when I was in my late 20s. I didn't even think about gardening (other than necessary landscape maintenance) one bit before I had kids.
Somehow kids, furry pets, and gardening all go together for me. They are all forms of nurturing life.
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Post by brownrexx on May 15, 2018 11:53:38 GMT -5
I gardened and learned how to cook from scratch, can and make jelly and other things when I was in my late 20's. I loved hiking, camping and living a sustainable life. Rodale's Organic Gardening Magazine and Mother Earth News had a big influence on me. Smartphones did not exist.
I took sort of a gardening break in my 30's and 40's when I was very involved with my career but I still grew tomatoes and peppers every year. I live in a farming area so there was always fresh produce available that I could purchase to fill in what I didn't grow myself. I really didn't have time for a big garden then but I do now and I really enjoy it.
I do have a smartphone now but I do not let it rule my life.
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Post by aftermidnight on May 15, 2018 11:59:04 GMT -5
What scares me is not that many young people have an interest in gardening, home preserving etc. is they don't know how or they're not interested in learning the basics. And then...all the building on farm land, once it's gone it's gone. We don't know what the future will bring. Our kids are in their late 50's and early 60's. The oldest boy is retired and does garden, mostly decorative but cans tomatoes and salsa every year, also loves to cook gourmet style. Our second boy is retired military, but went back to work for a catering company, he's worked the ice roads and at present he's running one of the kitchens on a military base, he's a red seal chef. He also gardens, mostly decorative but he has all the knowledge on how to grow anything. Our daughter she is part owner of a thriving marine business and is still working but they do grow vegetables and some fruit, she's a really good cook but so is her husband, lucky girl. Everyone cooks from scratch for the most part. Times sure have changed, one of my grandfathers owned one of the largest grocery/dry goods stores in the city, this was back in the 30's and 40's but most of what they ate was home grown. On a double city lot, they had 2 apple trees, a peach, a Queen Anne cherry and a apricot, a damson plum and a walnut tree, Gran made her own relishes and pickles even pickled walnuts. They grew raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and currants. They also had a big veggie garden, things I remember are beets, carrots, onions, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga (turnip) and squash. Scarlet runners, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. I know I've forgotten something, grandpa even grew peanuts one year. Oh yeah, a rhubarb patch and also cantaloupes and watermelon, summers were warmer back then. Gran baked and canned, made pickles, relishes, jams and jellies, she didn't have a fridge or freezer just a built in cooler, she did have an electric kettle tho . They had two breeds of chicken Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns meat and eggs. The only things they bought were other meats, staples, and bread, uncut loafs, gran liked her bread thin so buttered it before slicing. Also fruit that didn't grow here like bananas and oranges. The gardening skipped a generation but landed back down on me, I might not do or have done all my gran did, I even attempted a Melton Mowbray Pork pie once, didn't look as good as hers but tasted pretty good, she was originally from Melton Mobray. But.... I know how to do and grow most things and I made sure as our kids were growing up they did too, I think this is where parents started falling down for whatever reason, teaching kids self sufficiency is so important, hopefully it will never come to it but should it becomes necessary at least they'll know how. My other grand parents lived a very similar life, grandpa was a retired coal miner and had a big veggie garden both in town and at their beach cottage. Nowaday, cities have all these bylaws of what one can do on their own property, sure not helping the situation, they have just allowed us to once again keep a few hens but no rooster. Some areas you can't even put up a clothesline and god forgive you plant vegetables in your front yard. Yep, times have changed. Annette
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Post by ladymarmalade on May 15, 2018 13:17:58 GMT -5
Do young people not garden? Or are they all at work or on Snapchat? I think it's less that the Young folks don't garden and more that the Young folks don't forum. I'm the youngest on here (so far!) and I took to forums in the pre-Facebook years. I still prefer the format for various reasons. I think a lot of teens and 20-somethin's either prefer Facebook and Reddit or just aren't sufficiently familiar with forums to understand the trade-offs. Woot! You get the Spring Chicken award! I think you're spot on here. I will never understand the appeal of FB conversations over forums. I think people don't realize all the valuable information that forums store for us to look back on. It is so difficult to find a conversation from last week on FB, let alone four years ago when you asked a question about growing okra! I started my gardening journey when I was just 23 years old with my first baby in arms. I had one pot on my back patio and I grew a fennel bulb in it. The next year I planted a cherry tomato. The year after that we moved and our new landlord suggested that we could plant a garden if we wanted, but when the day came for us to move out, she wanted the garden removed and the lawn seeded. We move in to that house in August, and I could not stop thinking about that conversation. DH built me my first raised bed and we've never looked back. Now that baby is turning 18 this summer, and I do believe she has the gardening bug! She always loves to help, and also loves to enjoy the fresh from the dirt produce. She will be a great help to me this summer as we relocate and try to Grow All The Things amongst the chaos. As to the young-uns buying flowers over veggies, in every rental I have ever lived in, they were always welcoming of people planting flowers in the yard. We've landscaped more than a few places over the years with all kinds of flowers and ornamentals. It's a way to scratch the gardening itch when you don't have the space to plant some green beans and zucchini.
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Post by bestofour on May 15, 2018 13:49:26 GMT -5
I lived in cities all my life and my parents didn't garden so I didn't until I married into it. I married a man who had grown up rurally and his family had a gigantic garden and I started with them and liked it.
Maybe it's region specific but in our area sustainable gardening and eating has become the "in" thing as has hydroponics. The schools have become involved so people are becoming aware of where food comes from and informed about what they eat. (that said statics from the Nation Diabetics and Digestive and Kidney Disease show that by 2020 50% of the US population will be considered obese)
I'm wondering if vegetable gardening is not popular with the younger generation because of farmers markets or is that a regional thing too?
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caesg
Pro Member
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Post by caesg on May 15, 2018 14:51:03 GMT -5
In regards to "don't have time." I grew up cooking from scratch and my taste buds strongly prefer healthy homemade food. When I was in college and largely had control of my time, I cooked from scratch just fine. When I entered the workforce and had an inflexible 9--5 M--F job, cooking from scratch became *extremely* difficult. A lot of cooking from scratch is down time. You can complete other tasks while things cook, but you still need to *be there*. And that's just the blocks of time necessary for the cooking. That doesn't include the time required for prep and planning. And, while crock pots are amazing, they don't fix everything. ☺
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 15, 2018 23:19:47 GMT -5
I think a lot of it is laziness, both in avoiding gardening and cooking from scratch, but a lot of people are simply afraid to do something that they will more than likely fail at, at least sometimes. But, this is how we find out what our favorites are, in garden varieties, as well as cooking.
I started gardening with my Mom; Dad did all of the flowers and the like - I already wanted something that I could eat at a young age! lol And Mom would let me experiment with different tomatoes and other plants, but that was long before I was starting things from seeds. Still, the seed was sown (sorry, I had to!), and I had to have a garden when I bought my house, years later.
I got into cooking a little by helping Mom, but it wasn't until I joined a co-op in the 70s that I started cooking from scratch, and baking my own breads, mainly to save money. I realized early on that one of the biggest rip-offs in the stores was bread - I couldn't believe how cheap it was to make, and how much better it tasted! Granted, bread is one thing that does take time to make, but it's so worth it!
Many people are intimidated if they see more than 5 ingredients in a recipe - thus, all of those CBs on the market for different types of food with "5 or less ingredients". While some things are best simple, like some of the veggies, many things simply can't be made with such few ingredients. So when people try these "simplified recipes", they aren't as good as "what they get in the restaurant", so they just figure that they can't cook! Not true...if they want to.
As for time, some things do take a long time to make, but a lot of it is not "work time". Many of the Asian cuisines that I love to make, are actually fast to make, despite having a lot of ingredients (that scary thing!). Often, When making a Thai or Chinese dinner for some people, I would set my rice cooker on, then start getting the rest of the dishes ready. Often, the dinner will be ready, and the rice still has 4 or 5 minutes left! Same with Indian foods - while many have over 20 ing., the cooking is fast, once all of the ingredients are organized. And some things that take a while to cook, like beans and grains, can be done in advance - only 4 or 5 minutes of work time, and I can have several meals worth, ready in the fridge.
There are a large number of people out there that do cook from scratch, otherwise, all of these ingredients (that I used to have to get in ethnic markets) would not be showing up in supermarkets! Things that I used to have to travel to NYC to get (they weren't even in my area, back then). However, the lazy crowd is still in the majority, given the propensity of prepared foods out there.
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Post by carolyn on May 16, 2018 7:07:55 GMT -5
I do agree on laziness to an extent. not only do we as a society want instant gratification we aren't allowed let our kids to work for a wage. I started working when I was 10 for a farmer about 3 miles from home. there were 7 of us kids and we all worked for farmers in the area. nowadays they can't hire anyone to work for them outside of the family due to OSHA laws. nor do many people have home lifestyles that make children participate in real life chores (not household chores like laundry dishes and vacuuming) feeding animals, driving tractors, cleaning stalls etc.... very few live on homesteads and even fewer have working farms. I do a farmers market near me and on the first day of every season I give away a free vegetable plant to any child who comes through the market... I don't think I gave away more than one or two last year. I didn't offer to do it this year ( my market starts next saturday) but if I have a repeat child who wants one i certainly will give them one.
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Post by aftermidnight on May 16, 2018 10:04:14 GMT -5
I think one of the biggest problems with society today especially young people that have lost their way, they were never taught to deal with failure, heck we all fail at something, so instead of worrying about their self esteem, we should be teaching them to try harder or if not good at whatever, concentrate on the things they are good at. Some parents over compensate when both work, kids have to learn to deal with that too, unfortunately it's not always a choice both parents working. It's a fact of life. Kids today have never learned that when you fail at something to pick themselves up, knock the dust off and get on with it. When they get out in the real world it's a different ball game altogether. There's nobody out there to hold their hand and wipe their noses.
Our kids were never handed anything on a silver platter, when it came to clothes for instance, our daughter wanted those expensive designer jeans, I gave her enough money to buy run of the mill, if she wanted something fancy she had to pay the balance from her allowance, baby sitting money etc. When in high school she worked evenings at a fast food outlet, at 16 she bought her own car, her dad co-signed. She had enough for a good sized down payment so one day her dad was waiting for her when she came home from school and took her car shopping, he was tired of being grounded in the evenings, got tired of taking and picking her up at closing time so gave her the keys, now he didn't have wheels soooo, car shopping they went. She had it paid off in a year.
The boys, well that's another story, it took them awhile to get it through their heads if you want something bad enough you'll work for it. I don't think their dad ever handed over the keys once to our boys, why, I think you all know why, boys are, well boys. Their light bulbs turned on eventually:).
The boys ended up with careers, one military, one in a government managerial position and our daughter part owner of a thriving marine business.
Let your kids know how much you love them but also let them know up front you'll be checking up on them, don't be sneaky about it. We were really young when we had our kids, so we just didn't fall off the turnip truck. They never did figure out why we were always one step ahead of them LOL. Even as young as we were we must have done alright because their kids were and our great-grands are being raised the same way.
Now stepping down off my soapbox LOL.
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Post by brownrexx on May 16, 2018 11:10:01 GMT -5
I never did agree with the "everybody who plays the game gets a trophy" mentality. It doesn't work that way when you get a job and this is not a good way to prepare kids to interact in the real world where there are a limited number of winners and always some losers.
Showing love to kids is not the same thing as handing them everything that they want. They never develop a work ethic that way.
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caesg
Pro Member
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Post by caesg on May 16, 2018 17:46:43 GMT -5
When I read the messages regarding "laziness," what I hear is "If those young whippersnappers were just more hardworking then they'd choose to tend gardens and cook from scratch!" What am I hearing accurately? What am I misunderstanding? Caesg "I'm not a pansy! Pansies are tough! I'm a PETUNIA!" Whippersnapper
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 16, 2018 22:43:19 GMT -5
I think that the laziness is all over, not just in the younger crowd. However, I do see far fewer younger people gardening out there, and often, when I do, it is not for food as much as lawns and flowerbeds - things more for appearance. To each their own...
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Post by september on May 16, 2018 23:56:40 GMT -5
When I read the messages regarding "laziness," what I hear is "If those young whippersnappers were just more hardworking then they'd choose to tend gardens and cook from scratch!" What am I hearing accurately? What am I misunderstanding? Caesg "I'm not a pansy! Pansies are tough! I'm a PETUNIA!" Whippersnapper Your ARE tough! Hey, you're here in our old geezers gardening forum, aren't you, young whippersnapper? I remember I would get disgusted with my dad when he complained about the world being worse than when he was young. We're all products of our upbringing and opportunities, can't really complain about city folks with postage stamp lots and apartment dwellers not wanting to garden. It has to be something you enjoy, after working 8 hours a day and at least another hour or two commuting, people deserve to do whatever they want in their free time.
The role of technology in making lives "easier" has been immense. Like so many good ideas, when taken to extremes, it ends up dumbing people down when they become dependent on a device. First just a voice in your car telling you where to turn, now to driverless cars. And now you've got Alexa to do your household tasks and order stuff. I have to wonder what people will do with all the free time they will have from ordering the next generation of household robots around? Garden? I doubt they will want dirt under their fingernails, and besides there will be self propelled lawn mowers, so they won't even have to go outside if they don't want to. People used to garden because they had to, now they have to want to. It's hard, dirty work, not for everyone.
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Post by brownrexx on May 17, 2018 9:13:26 GMT -5
I don't consider it lazy to not want to have a garden. It is not for everyone but I do see an aspect of laziness in those who prefer to buy all prepared and packaged foods as opposed to cooking with fresh ingredients.
It would be different if those "easy" prepared foods were as nutritious as freshly prepared meals but they just aren't. The increase in heart disease and obesity shows that.
You don't need to have a garden to eat healthy but it surely helps.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 17, 2018 9:52:09 GMT -5
Every generation seems to complain about how the younger folks are wimpier and lazier. Sometimes it's even true. And sometimes the younger generation's effort is simply spent elsewhere - their priorities for life are different. Technology's rapid advancement seems to exacerbate the generational divide as well. But september is very right that for most of human history, most people had to grow/raise/hunt to get at least some of their own food. Now a smaller and smaller percentage of the population (especially in developed countries) is involved in the food supply in any way other than buying or cooking. Most of us have the option to garden and it seems that few people choose it. Lots of other things seem to be more fun to the most folks than doing hard work in the dirt, under the hot sun, and sometimes for no return if the bugs, critters, diseases (or even human thieves) beat us to the crop. Face it: everyone on this forum is a weirdo by modern standards.
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Post by ladymarmalade on May 17, 2018 10:08:10 GMT -5
When I read the messages regarding "laziness," what I hear is "If those young whippersnappers were just more hardworking then they'd choose to tend gardens and cook from scratch!" What am I hearing accurately? What am I misunderstanding? Caesg "I'm not a pansy! Pansies are tough! I'm a PETUNIA!" Whippersnapper I've been thinking about a lot of these comments also. What amuses me is that I see this in reverse. DH's parents, who are approaching 80 years old, are city dwellers. Have been their whole lives. I will never forget DFIL looking at my garden, swelling with fresh vegetables, and asking me point blank what I was growing and why would I do that? OMG, a piece of my precious lawn was growing food? This man will take a tweezer to his lawn to make sure there are no weeds in that precious grass. They shop at a farmer's market, but when they do so, I swear it's with the mindset that the commoners are growing these vegetables so that the upper crust of society can spend a pittance at the market to buy those vegetables from them. Gardening, growing food, even picking an apple from a tree is beneath them! We took them to an apple orchard on one visit and it was a total bomb. What on earth could we do with 40 pounds of apples? And why would you go pick them yourself like this when you can buy them already picked? They cannot actually fathom the process that it takes to get that precious cream in the carton that they have to have in their coffee every day. It comes from the carton (though, it used to come in glass bottles and was so much better...) and they buy that at the store. No clue how cows are milked today, how they separate most of that cream out and then homogenize what remains in the milk. Last time we visited with them, they launched into this story about how they took a tour of an urban composting facility in the major city they live in. They could not believe that someone would want to go to the trouble of taking kitchen and yard scraps and making a business out of it. And... my IL's are definitely not well-to-do. They think my gardening is quaint, and they certainly have no trouble inhaling the meals I make from that garden when they visit. But I really think that at the root of SO many people of my generation and younger not gardening is role models like them. Their 3 sons have the same mindset, though I've gotten DH to come around. He is now gleefully anticipating our move so we can get chickens and really freak his parents out. The only thing better would be to have an actual farmette and have a cow or a goat! But I think a generation or two back really embraced the modernity of the times and as such, a disconnect happened between where our food comes from and the plate. Fortunately, there have been huge food movements that I think are turning the tide. Cooking is now glamorous and farm-to-table is no longer a rare sighting. People ARE getting more of an interest in growing their own food. At least, I see that in my area!
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 17, 2018 10:15:37 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL , Weird? That's me to a T. Growing up, I hardly ever got to eat out except when we were going someplace and then it was only at some old truckstop my stepdad knew about. Mom cooked all meals at home! My older Brother married at 21 and he was the first one to introduce me to fast food! I remember the summer he, my older Sister and a bunch of his friends went to the lake. Afterwards we all went to Tacobell. I was 9 years old and didn't even know what a freaking Taco was. I must have eaten everything on the Menu! They used to have this thing they called the Bell Beefer. I remember eating it that day too. My brother was also the one who took me to my first Pizza Hut. Oh my GOSH, I was in hog heaven! Between my brother and older Sister, I guess I have them to thank for my love of fast food. I have my Mom to thank for my love of Fried Chicken, Pinto Beans and Cornbread. Me and my wife love to eat out. We've been known to jump it of bed at 2 am to drive 40 miles for Pancakes. I can also take 2 cans of Beenie Weenies and a bag of Doritos and eat like a king. Wierd? Yes, I am without a single doubt, Wierd.
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