Meal Time 101

The Importance of the Family Meal

Meal times are, by far, my favorite parts of the day. I love coming together as a family to share good food, good drink, and good company. I love sharing our hopes and dreams with one another; I love discussing faith, politics, current events and anything else that's on our minds. I just love every part of it. Since the day my husband and I married we have eaten almost every meal that he's home for, together, at our table. This includes breakfast and lunch if he's off of work. We have continued this practice with the children from the time that they were both born and each meal we have together seems to reinforce, in my mind, the sacredness of family meals.

It's amazing to me that Christ placed such an importance on revealing himself through meals. He performed his first miracle during the marriage feast at Cana, he instituted the Eucharist at The Last Supper, he revealed himself to the disciples after his Resurrection over breakfast and then again in the breaking of the bread at the table with the disciples that were on the road to Emmaus. The Church herself carries on the tradition of revealing Christ to the faithful through the sacrament of the Eucharist. Christ is revealed to us and is truly present when we participate in this holy meal at Mass. The Church places importance on meals in the celebration of the liturgical year as well. There are feast days where we celebrate by feasting in remembrance of a Saint or an important biblical event and there are fast and abstinence days where we give up something we really want to eat or skip a meal in the spirit of sacrifice. Following the example of Christ and His Church, what better way is there for parents to reveal Christ to their families and pass on the teachings of the faith than through the breaking of bread together at the family table?

In addition to the beautiful spiritual aspects of meal time, there are obvious physical, psychological and behavioral benefits of the family meal as well. There are plenty of studies that have been done, and I'm sure everyone has heard of them, that show that children that eat meals with their family have lower delinquency rates than those that do not. A few years back, the grocery store I frequented even had the studies printed on the sides of the paper grocery sacks. You can't deny the benefits in that department. I also believe that children that eat at the table with their family will likely develop healthier eating habits, better manners, and better social skills. I'm sure I could find a study to back it up but it just seems like common sense to me.

Start Eating Together Today

So, with all of the benefits of the family meal, let's all start eating together today! I know...it's easier said than done. If you're already eating together, great! Keep it up and always remember how important it is. If you're not, there's no better time to start than now!

I have been married for almost five years. I know that's but a drop in the bucket to many of you wives and mommy's out there. I'm sure you can run circles around me in the kitchen and have learned more tricks over the years than experience has taught me thus far. But I'm also aware that there are many spouses and parents that were never raised eating family meals regularly and may be embarrassed about not even knowing how to begin this tradition in their own families. I have prepared around 1,700 family meals since I've been married (that's counting three a day minus our average of 12 meals out a year and other meals eaten on vacation, etc.) That's a lot of meals! Enough, at least, for me to have learned what works well for my family and to feel confident in sharing that information with you, if you're interested.

If family meals are not a tradition in your household right now, I suggest just jumping right in today--or tomorrow depending on when you're reading this...don't let excuses stop you. I don't care how bad of a cook you think you are, everyone has something in their refrigerator and/or pantry that can be turned into a meal. Do you only have canned soup? Heat it up, put it in a fancy soup bowl on a pretty place setting and serve it with some crackers or a slice of bread. Don't forget to turn OFF the TV...with TiVo there are no excuses. Add a glass of wine and a candle if you really want to improve the atmosphere. If breakfast is the next meal you have coming up, STOP reading this and get out some cereal, set the table for tomorrow morning and make sure everyone is up in time to spend 15 minutes eating together before work, school, etc. My point is that you have to start somewhere and getting in the habit of eating together, right now, is more important than the quality of food you may have available at the moment. Studies show it takes 21 days to learn a new habit, so start now!

If you have minimal to no cooking skills at all, learning to plan ahead, shop and prepare the food will come with time, be patient with yourself in this regard but start eating together now, even if it's mac n' cheese or canned soup! If you have teenagers that have activities, try your best to plan meals around them and if it seems they are gone every night then reach deep down inside of yourself, take hold of your God given parental authority, and explain that extracurricular activities need to be cut back. Trust me, they will benefit more by being home with the family for dinner an additional night a week than they would from whatever extracurricular activity they were involved in.

I am also aware that many homes have two parents working full time. Does this make eating meals as a family more difficult? Absolutely. I won't sugar coat my opinion on this one. It's a sad state of affairs when small children have to be woken at ghastly hours of the morning and are sent with a pop tart or another processed finger food to be eaten in the car on the way to daycare. Then, at the end of the day, parents are so tired that the easiest thing to do is run through the drive through on the way home from work, etc. Obviously this is an extreme example here, there are probably a lot of dual income households that have learned ways to make meal time a priority in their homes, so if you're one of them, good for you! If you and your spouse both work outside of the home and are struggling to prepare and eat meals with your family, then it may be time to look at your priorities in life and make a few changes. If you are a wife that struggles with feelings of resentment about changing habits to make more time for cooking, etc., it may help to prayerfully read about the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31: 10-31..."She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls" (verse 15). Copy the verses and paste them to your mirror for reading before you go to bed and when you wake up for some extra encouragement.

From Chaos to a Structured Meal Time

Chaos and disorganization can be a problem for many people that are just learning how to implement the practice of family meals. Here are some rules that we follow in our home that may help you to create a structured routine for your meal time:

-Give everyone in the family a 10 minutes until meal time announcement. During this time they are to clean up any toys or projects they are working on, wash hands and help with any last minute preparations like setting the table, etc. This will help settle everyone down into meal time mode.

-Wait until everyone is seated at the table to begin the meal. I feel that grace is a must in order to properly thank God and to teach children (and ourselves!) to be grateful for our blessings. Grace is a clear signal to everyone that the meal has started. This way you don't have half the family already eating while some are still working on getting seated, etc. Remember, once the meal has started, enjoy each other! Talk, laugh, tell stories, ask questions, try to include everyone in the conversation.

-Have procedures and rules for getting up from the table during the meal, children should ask to be excused to use the bathroom, etc. and adults should be a good example and properly excuse themselves if they need to get up as well.

-Decide ahead of time whether you prefer to serve from the table or bring the plates already filled to the table and know what the procedure is for getting seconds, etc. Teach the children to ask properly for more and not demand it.

-When everyone has finished their food, it may help to say a concluding meal prayer to thank God again for the food just eaten and to signal and end to meal time. Not
everyone does a concluding prayer, but I think it's nice. If you don't do a concluding
prayer make it clear that no one gets up from the table until everyone is done eating and any conversation that was taking place has been concluded.

-Children should then ask to get down and if they are of an appropriate age should help clear the dishes, etc.

Now, I know this all may seem very rigid and strict to some people, but if meal time seems chaotic to you right now just give these rules a try and I promise it will begin to bring order and peace.

Planning Meals

Once eating together is established as a nonnegotiable rule in your family for which ever meals are appropriate for your situation, start focusing on planning your menus in advance. Planning your meals should also become a habit in your life if you wish your meal time efforts to remain successful and develop into a long term family tradition. There may be some that object to meal planning with the excuse that they are a spontaneous person and don't perform well when held to a strict schedule. My response to this is be spontaneous about what clothes you're going to wear tomorrow or music you decide to listen to. Spontaneity is not conducive to feeding a family on a daily basis. This doesn't mean you can't change your mind at the last minute about what you're going to cook, but it's pretty hard to spontaneously cook chicken parmesan instead of cajun chicken when the chicken hasn't been thawed! Understand? Spontaneity (I prefer to call it what it is--irresponsibility) will also cost you a lot more money than being properly prepared at the grocery store and knowing what you need.

Everyone has a different style when it comes to planning, some prefer computer planners some prefer paper and pencil. I like to use a calendar specifically devoted to meal planning. The Dollar Tree has 8x1o yearly planners that have 12 monthly calendars with big daily squares for writing, they have worked really well for me and it keeps everything organized...and if you make it through an entire year of planning meals, you have an amazing guide to help you plan the following year! I leave the calendar in the Kitchen so my husband can easily see what's on the menu and help out if necessary or pencil in any requests he has for the month. Here is the method that works for me:

-I begin by consulting the family schedule and making note of any days we will be gone or have appointments that could interfere with cooking, and choose appropriate meals for that day. Then I fill in all of the days I automatically know what we're going to have. For example, in my family, every Friday we rotate between the same four meals for dinner, so I can easily fill in Fridays. There are also a few other meals that have become family favorites that we like to have every month, for some reason I have chosen Saturday for those meals, so I fill in the appropriate Saturdays with those meals. Also, since I'm Catholic, I consult a liturgical calendar and make note
of any feast days, memorials, etc. coming up and plan any special traditional meals I would like for those days.

-I then start focusing on the coming week by checking the weekly specials at the grocery stores and consulting my "recipe list", a master list I have developed over the last several years and am continually adding to. My recipe list is divided into warm weather recipes, cool weather recipes, and a miscellaneous section or year round recipes.

-Once I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to have for the next week, I make my shopping list. I check the fridge and pantry to double check what items I do or don't have and plan accordingly.

-I repeat the same process the following week and the following week, etc. until a new month begins and then I start back at the first step.

Try adjusting the planning to what works for you, because in the end, if it's working for your family and you like it then stick with it regardless of what I or anyone else does. Also, I think it's best to start simple and only plan dinner menus...do try to have a basic idea of what you want for breakfast and lunch so you know what to buy at the store, if you want to later expand into planning breakfast and lunch as well, great!

Other miscellaneous tips:

-This may seem obvious, but keep a running shopping list in the kitchen where everyone knows it's location. The minute you notice you are low or are out of a staple, put it on the list. Everyone in the family should know the procedure for this.

-I have found it very useful to keep a "freezer list" handy. Take an initial inventory of what you have in your freezer and make a list. Everytime you take something out and use it, cross it off the list. If you add something to the freezer add it to the list. This will eliminate a lot of confusion and wasted time in your life.

-If you feel you are in a planning slump or just can't make a decision about what to have ask your spouse or children if they are craving anything special. Sometimes a little inspiration is all we need to get us through planning a few days, and there's nothing that will motivate your family to get to the table more than a favorite meal they got to choose.

Choosing Recipes and Cooking Basics

There is way too much information about these topics for me to even think about condensing and writing about in a few paragraphs for this blog post. In fact, there are already so many good books out there, that if you need help in this department I suggest you check out the library, and if you're too cool for the library or don't feel you have the time then just surf the web and you can find out pretty much anything you want to know about cooking. I will share a few tips though that I think are useful.

-If you're just starting out with cooking...KEEP IT SIMPLE! There are a ton of easy, fast recipes that use things like condensed soups, frozen vegetables and easy to handle cuts of meat that anyone can put together. Manufacturer websites, like Kraft, Betty Crocker, etc. usually have great recipe sections for quick and easy meals. And, no matter how advanced your cooking skills get, it is always a good idea to keep a few of these tried and true, simple recipe ingredients around for emergencies and last minute meals, etc. because you're not going to be the perfect meal planner 100% of the time.

-My Grandma always taught me that some of the best recipes are on the ingredient packages. I have found this to be true on more than one occasion. The company wants you to buy their product again so they're going to put a recipe the works on the package.

-If you have made the goal to really learn about cooking and improve your skills then start taking mental notes. Don't just blindly follow recipes, really try to learn the purpose of different ingredients and how they interact with each other. What does adding cornstarch to the sauce do, and how much of it do you need to do it? What ingredients can be substituted for other ingredients? Can you vary the amount of oil in a certain recipe without affecting the results too much? Do you have to have exactly one cup of a certain ingredient or can you just eyeball it? ETC, ETC. The goal in my opinion is that you eventually get to a stage where you really don't need to use recipes on a daily basis except as a guide or when trying something new.

-Try challenging yourself on a regular basis, try a recipe once a week that involves a new cooking skill so you can learn about it. Are you intimidated by cutting up a whole chicken? Give it a shot! You may be surprised at how simple it is to do. Confidence naturally flows from experience, so if you want to become more confident, then try new things and don't give up if you fail the first time.

-Learn to cook and eat a variety of different foods and teach your children to at least try them. Yes, I said "Learn to eat". I think it's reasonable that everyone has some foods they just don't like...me...I can't stand stinky gourmet cheeses and there's no way I'll ever eat them unless I am a guest in someone's home and it is on the menu, then I just suck it up and do it. But, come on, saying the only meat you'll eat
is chicken or beef and the only vegetables you'll eat are broccoli or carrots and you don't eat whole wheat bread and you don't like any dressing other than Ranch is just plain immature and picky. They say it takes 10 times of trying a new food before you get used to the flavor. So try new things, then try them again and again and you will eventually learn to eat a variety of different foods and may even come to really enjoy them.

-Try to keep daily meals healthy. Save heavy meals and desserts for once a week or special occasions.

-Make sure to keep your recipes organized and make sure to make a list of recipes you decide are keepers. There is nothing worse that recalling what a good meal you had last month, but you've forgotten what and where the recipe is.

No More Excuses!

Now that you have a basic idea of how to implement family meals into your life, I hope you'll start doing it if you weren't already. Really, you have no excuses not to. I don't mean to sound harsh. But these are our families, Ladies (or men if you're reading this). I'm sick of worrying I'm hurting someones oversensitive feelings. We are responsible for the well being of our families in every way and it is just plain irresponsible to not be providing them with well balanced, well structured meals on a regular basis. Stop arguing with your spouse about how much you have to do and who's job it is to do what and JUST DO IT! Remember if you need some extra inspiration read about the Proverbs 31 woman and try to make it a goal to live up to her standards.