Curing the "I Don’t Cook" Syndrome
by Janet Peterson

How many times have you heard someone say "I don’t cook" and really mean it? Whether newlyweds, young families, families with busy teenagers, empty nesters, or singles living alone or with roommates, a home-cooked dinner with the family is as rare as mom-and-pop grocery stores.

Half of American adults eat out one or more meals a day. One out of three children consume at least one fast-food meal a day. Three times as much is spent on food outside the home than just a generation ago, requiring a much larger family food budget.

The I Don’t Cook Syndrome has become epidemic. What happened to dinner?

“The word dinner once conjured images of warm, delicious smells emanating from the kitchen as everyone gathered around the table not just for nourishment but for family conversation as well,” stated Michael and Mary Eades in the book The Protein Power LifePlan. “Dinner in this fast-paced world has often become a catch-as-catch-can proposition—grabbed on the run from whatever fast-food haven lies in your traffic pattern or the one the kids seem to prefer. It too often comes in recyclable polyfoam boxes or paper bags, eaten between stoplights on the way to or from this practice or that meeting.”

Ya Gotta Eat!
The exclamation “I don’t cook” seems to be equated with other choices such as, “I don’t do windows” or “I don’t ski” or “I don’t play the piano.” Eating, however, is not optional—our bodies need food. The concept that fleeing the kitchen is liberating or sophisticated is false and comes with increased expenses, health risks, and loss of family time together. For a family to eat commercially prepared food the majority of meals is a high priced tradeoff for the time that the cook is pursuing other endeavors, whether it be work, hobbies, or carpooling.

But the responsibility of disappearing home-cooked dinners should not only be shouldered by the family cook, who may be very willing and able to prepare a tasty and nutritious dinner. When dinner’s on the table, where is the family to eat it?

Work, school, the gym, a meeting, sports, dance, or music lessons, hanging out with friends, errands, or the mall—our fast-paced and over-programmed lives can exact a high toll on a family’s happiness, security, and closeness. We know that the family is under assault. Today it is critical that we connect more consistently and effectively with our families and those we love.

A Sacred Setting
At a BYU Women’s Conference, Elder Bruce C. Hafen said, “A family dinner table surrounded by parents and children who share their laughter and their lives is a sacred setting, not just a place setting.”

The time and effort spent in preparing satisfying and nutritious meals is one of the best investments a family can make. Eating dinner together regularly provides more than good nutrition; it enables families to share their day with each other, relax, laugh, discuss issues, socialize, and strengthen family relationships.

Attitude, encouragement, invitation, and sometimes insistence can bring families together at mealtime. In Mary Pipher’s The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, one father wrote that showing up for dinner was not an option in his home. “We’ve done our share of things wrong as a family, but one of the things we did right was to insist that the evening meal be a family event.

I cook these meals myself and I go to a great deal of trouble over them. We eat good food and we eat it together. My children, who can sometimes seem thankless, have often said how much they appreciate these efforts, and my daughter, who is now away at college, tells me all the time how much she misses dinners.’”

A friend named Liz Doxey was seventeen years old when her mother died. As the only girl, trying to manage the household, she realized that something was missing in their family life. “Naturally, growing up in a religious home, I thought we should read the scriptures together or pray together more often. I decided to pray about it even though I thought I already had the answer.

It didn’t take long for the answer to my prayers to come, but I was so surprised by the feeling I had in my heart. I couldn’t get it out of my head that we needed to have regular family meals and that I needed to learn how to cook. Was that supposed to keep our family together? Was that the answer? The feeling wouldn’t leave, and I knew I had received my answer. I began looking through cookbooks and asking neighbors for recipes. Everyone was so helpful and encouraging. The meals weren’t elaborate or fancy, but the time together was priceless. We discussed our day, upcoming events, the future. I cherish those times we had together and now hope to pass on the importance of regular family meals to my own children.”

Finding a Remedy
The I Don’t Cook Syndrome is a modern malady that can be remedied by planning, cooperation, commitment, and effort. While it may not be possible for families to meet every single night around the table, the frequency of dinners served at home can be increased significantly with a bit of dedication. Here are some remedies that can help bring your family together around your own dinner table.

• Have a weekly family planning meeting that includes putting dinner on the schedule.

• If eating dinner together is happening infrequently, hold a family council to evaluate the number and kinds of outside activities that are occupying family members at dinnertime. Enlist family members’ support and ideas to reschedule and improve the situation.

• Lure your family to the table with new recipes. Search the Internet and cookbooks, or ask friends and ward members for tasty new dishes. Remember, “If you cook it well, they will come.”

• If schedules conflict with dinner at an earlier hour, consider serving dinner late—even as late as 8:00 or 9:00 P.M. Rather than skipping dinner or having everyone fend for themselves, enjoy a fashionably late dinner as the finale for the day.

• Have family members take turns cooking dinner, with adults assisting younger children in planning and preparing meals. For some cooking tips and recipes perfect for youngsters, check out May/June 2006 article "Teaching Tots to Cook."

• Use a little creativity to gather your family to the dinner table. For example, send each family member personalized invitations to dinner.

• Once a week prepare dinner as a family. Assign each family member (younger children with parents or older siblings) different courses. One person could prepare salad, another vegetables, another the main course, and another dessert.

• Make sure dinnertime belongs only to you. Let the answering machine respond to phone calls, turn off the television, and put away the newspaper.

• Eat together around a table, rather than at a bar or as you watch TV, so you can connect through conversation.

• Don’t make dinner a time to solve family problems or differences. Use a family council for that and strive to make meals enjoyable experiences.

By making dinner time a priority, it can become a valuable opportunity to strengthen your family and create lasting memories.

LDS Living Magazine