Junkfood as a consequence of irregular work hours

[matrixmann]

Long working hours and long range distances to drive steal quite a chunk of time from one's normal daytime to live.
Cooking and preparing of meals made with fresh ingredients take a bit of time too, so it's a question of: What do you want more? Sleeping or eating healthy?
Pretty often it's sleep what people "decide" for. Not only decide, but their bodies barely leave them a choice. Being worked down and tired is a thing that can't be overcome except for if you dope the body to strength and alert levels that it naturally only has when danger looms.
But your body doesn't have the energy left to play scenario "danger" every day, so it's going to decide for sleep in the long term development.
So, what will you do with your hunger which is present at the same time?
Yes, grab things that don't take much time to prepare. If you can even skip the whole preparation-process, your mind will decide to take those foods which can be consumed quickly. Those without requiring much effort from the state "ready to eat" to getting them down your throat.
So you have one more hour to rest.
If you'd need to prepare all your food after work still so that you can eat it, which time of the day you still wanted to get some sleep? After all those long working hours, long ways home and the irregular callings "Quick! You gotta come! Someone else didn't come to work, you need to compensate!"? You never really have time to take care of proper nutrition of yours. Not even to speak of the energy that's missing on you. That's why societies that rely on such a model for work literally are in need of such processed junk foods. Time for hand-making is not there, but food consumption still remains a vital interest of the human body to go on existing.
So they think of adding everything to the food prepackaged, that people (workers) can enjoy full supply with nutrients without still needing to bring in much effort themselves.
But, the chemicals and additives they put into the food to get it ready to eat and prolong the decay of the meals, in the end, prove more harmful to human health than they do good.
In other words: Those chemically boosted foods are none the better than if you ate an apple with a drip of sauce made of sulfuric acid.

Comments

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

And not only that. The processed food is way more expensive.

I cook and hate to do it after work but one thing I would sacrifice is a little bit of time to make a meal at home, which is by necessity is minimally processed. I don't have time to make fancy sides and salads that involve lots of chopping. What I do is marinate meat a night ahead and then throw it in the oven or rotisserie and some very simple side of couscous or something and salad with lettuce and simple dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Pretty much it. With few variations. This way I know I am not consuming junk they add to the processed food and I have no fetish about food in general. Otherwise it may become pretty scary looking at health problems and weight problems people are having and the money they spend.I mean there were very few overweight people in Russia even when I was a kid but now, at least half are pretty much fat. And unhealthy.

[matrixmann]

Processed stuff where you only have to add water or just put it in the microwave - yes, those pretty much are.
I think, in that point even the cheapest canned food is better as that pricewise and from the mass that you get for it.
Stew of various kinds and noodles with tomato-stuff is what that range of products starts with, I think up to a Euro for each can with 800 grams, which matches 2 good plates in portions. And at least it consists of stuff you can recognize as vegetables (what sometimes isn't that clear with the stuff you only have to add water to).
Portions also are much smaller regularly with the 1st kind of premade food.

Doing stuff yourself in the food sector for me is still very much tied to learning how to do things yourself, but also a thing of time and energy, with latter thing missing the most to do it regularly.
Although, I must say, perhaps I already know some more stuff than some others do. Tomato salad I haven't done often enough already to be confident in it, but at least I have a general idea of it (the rest is tasting when making it).
Think I also know cucumber salad, which is a bit different from that, but not too much. Also, basic dressing for any salad made of water and vinegar, maybe also salt and pepper on top of it at most (don't remember it that exactly).
Then - oh, yeah, meatballs! I never use minced meat in a different form than self-seasoned when it's not used blank. All that premade stuff tastes horribly and you never get rid of the idea of maybe just eating rat.
This remarkably is where I always sit there and prepare it myself. (Always only need to get one roped into doing the onions for me for it.)
Schnitzel I've also done myself (one of the few things I quickly remembered from mother's handmade cooking), roulades I've also done myself as well as different roasts you put into the oven. (I think in general for large meat dishes, I prefer this method of making. You got more space in the vessel.) Only takes a lot of time to prepare it for making. Schnitzel I also know the premade frozen stuff, I only endure to eat it (not me to decide) 'cause it often annoys me that you got sugar or dextrose on the ingredients list, but as said, preparing some on your own takes a lot of time.
But if I do, the mass not needed for that dinner then I put into the freezer, so you got some handmade ones for another time. (Only good to do with meat previously not frozen.)
Bare meat without any coating I think is a thing I'm not too bad at. Get mine very well done on the gas stove and not roasted too much on the outside. Something which one needs to figure out, really...
Actually, for me, that applies for anything you've got to do with a frying pan.
Edit: Oh, yeah - cooked red cabbage meanwhile is also known to me how to season it yourself (at least 1 peeled apple half, some vinegar, and a pinch of milled clove).

Thing that actually pisses me off most in the story about food in general is, when you use any kind of "help" or anything to shorten the time of cooking because you use something that already is premade - no matter what it is, always there's sugar in it in some way or anything that biochemically can slow down the process of feeling satisfied.
That's the big thing to annoy the shit out of you and which is a huge obstacle when you want to lose weight.
Some old-school ingredients you can still find that aren't that further processed and contaminated with such additives (milk, eggs, plain yoghurt, sour cream, spices, fresh vegetables and fruits (except for the usual pesticides, of course)), but, for example, already see loaf of bread and you wanna get angry because of stuff being in there that shouldn't be in there.
And so it is with a lot of foods.
I know that 'cause I study such stuff, lately artificial sweeteners and sugar-replacements have become a focus 'cause I'm not sure if I could already witness health problems caused by these. If you do that, you find a ton of crap being present everywhere which you wouldn't wanna have in your food or which you'd regard critically in terms of topics like being fat or getting sick.
And, as far as I know that from others from overseas, they got their own pendants to that stuff here too that shouldn't be foods. Corn sirup is a huge plague over there.

[onb2017.livejournal.com]

Looks like you are ok with cooking. Man, I hardly ever bother to put cucumbers and tomatoes in my salad. If you have a routine though it should be pretty easy. Planning ahead saves time and energy. I generally like fruit and vegetables as they are. Just plain fresh. Too much work. Although I make an apple cobbler sometimes. I can give you a recipe if you want, super easy and very few ingredients.

Canned food cannot be that healthy I would imagine but microwavable is the worst probably. Added crap is really bad and besides it doesn't fill you up. I would rather fry an egg or something. That's why people can eat two bags of potato chips and be still hungry. I can eat couple eggs for breakfast and feel full even for lunch. So all natural food fills you up and makes you satisfied too besides having no junky ingredients added.

[matrixmann]

Turning those two into salad is an option that most often occurs to me when there are tomatoes or a cuccumber left and it is about saving them from needing to throw it away because it's starting to catch on mould. I think this is even something that was done in earlier times...
Normally it's the same way with me. Too lazy to do anything with them on purpose, just fucking grab and eat them. Don't even need salt for tomatoes or cuccumbers (some people look at you and give you a strange view for that).
Only apples it's somehow different, those I cut to waste the least from hollowing out. And prepared fruit stuff I'm totally not to catch for again whereas, strange as it is...

2 bags of potato chips and still hungry? I don't know what sizes these people consume, but I already get troubles with the last bits of a low budget 200g bag. And after that, don't ask about supper... Hunger just isn't there. The stuff keeps the metabolism busy for the rest of the day. Maybe even a little bit until next day.

[maadmike.livejournal.com]

I could not live without good sleep - I was constantly founding a place and time to sleep on my previous job. To eat healthy is on my second point after breathing fresh air maybe though I don't see that to eat healthy is a difficult task to maintain - just grab the vegetables before the working day, boil, cut them to some pack, take a bottle fresh water with you - what is the problem?

[matrixmann]

Rings a bell in me... Did that in my past life in school in the upper classes of high school. Whenever and wherever I could. For my understanding, that's not how school, not even to talk about how work should be run like...
It also got you burned out mentally, with no will to do anything else anymore over the day than just sleeping and doing some of your own free time stuff.