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In yesterday's appearance on NPR's Fresh Air and his recent New York Times essay Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, Michael Pollan offers a fascinating look at how everyday home cooking has been replaced by a national obsession with television cooking shows, and how that shift is adversely affecting our health.  I admit to spending most of my TV time watching other people prepare food, yet I still spend plenty of time in the kitchen making meals from whole foods, which apparently makes me somewhat of an anomaly.

I understand the appeal of cooking shows and think they can potentially get people excited about cooking and in some cases actually teach us something (thank you Alton Brown), but as Pollan points out, most of the shows offer either "dump and stir" short-cuts, which often include processed foods (thank you Rachel Ray) or provide such a blinding spectacle of competition (thank you Iron Chef), that very few cooking skills can be gained and we remain captivated by eye-candy.  These shows are not only devouring the time that we allegedly lack to cook a wholesome meal, but they also discourage us from the idea that we can actually cook something healthy and delicious ourselves.

These shows and celebrity chefs aren't going away anytime soon, nor do I think they have to in order to show people that by spending a little more time in the kitchen they can find more nutrition and satisfaction in what they eat.  So, what's the missing ingredient?  Do we need another show that teaches the importance of taking the time to cook with whole foods?  Or do we need to unplug a bit, skip an episode and take the plunge back into the kitchen?  As Pollan points out, there are plenty of other forces working against us as well, including longer working hours, a food industry that heavily markets ready-made (highly processed and nutritional deficient) convenience foods, and an over-abundance of big-chain and fast-food restaurants.  We've been slowly, but strongly convinced that we don't have the time or skills to feed ourselves.  But I say they are wrong, and if we hope to successfully fight the rising trend of obesity and other health problems, and reduce our health care costs, we need to get off the couch and back into the kitchen.  Who's coming with me?

"You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It's short, and it's simple. Here's my diet plan: Cook it yourself."