Scales For You

Our grandmothers cooked on an old wood stove with a few pots and pans and a measuring cup or two.  Wouldn’t they be in awe of the modern kitchens of today!  Every kind of appliance and gadget is available to cooks now, but guess what–we all eat out!  One lady said, “I wouldn’t have a kitchen, but it came with the house.”  With the gas prices rising, we may all need to go to cooking school and learn to cook at home again. 

If we’re really going to get serious about cooking, we need to take a look at our kitchen and its appliances and gadgets.  Do we have a set of food scales.  Food Scales are useful for accurately weighing ingredients such as butter or shortening, as well as measuring food portions as specified by diet requirements.   Oh, I didn’t mean to mention diet, but it is an important word if you really want to stay healthy.  Many health conditions require specified diets and a good set of food scales can make it easier and more accurate to follow the plan. 

Do you have extra money that you just don’t need? I don’t! I like to spend the money I have as wisely as possible. Many times we spend more money for a product to get extra “bells and whistles” that we probably will never use.

A digital scale is not always essential.  A spring scale or dial scale can fill a need and may be more durable and economical. They come in different styles, colors and sizes.  Look for an easy to read display and a scale that can weigh in pounds, ounces or grams.  We can often save our hard-earned money just by buying a product that matches our need.

Life is too fast.  We drive too fast, we live too fast, and we eat too fast.  Everybody has somewhere they need to be and they’re in a hurry to get there.  We shovel our food down as fast as possible, because we’re already late getting to somewhere.  Even the ones of us who are retired seem to have a heavy schedule, largely because everyone we know thinks we have plenty of time to do whatever they need done, or serve on some committe they don’t want to fool with, and we haven’t learned to say, “NO!”

Every diet I’ve been involved with says chew your food slowly so your stomach can tell your brain it doesn’t need anymore before we’ve overeaten.  If we would all take a deep breath, back up, slow down, and reprioritize our lives, we could eat slowly enough to actually enjoy our food.  By eating smaller amounts, but enjoying it more, we might lose some of that excess weight or, at least, stop gaining.  It helps to weigh our food portions on a food scale before placing them on the plate, then we’ll know how much we’re actually eating.  Many times, we don’t realize how much we have consumed until we have that too full feeling.  Life is complicated.

Sometimes it’s funny what we treasure or collect.  Many of us collect so many treasures that we don’t have a place to keep them.  One of my friends retired and was going to reorganize her collection of treasureable junk, but couldn’t decide where to start or how to accomplish it.  I told her to leave it in the boxes in the closets and when she dies, her children will dump it.  There’s a lot of truth in that concept, because often, our children don’t treasure our keepsakes and souvenirs that we collected over the years.

I wonder if my children will treasure my pocket scales.  They’re neat because I can stick them in my pocket or purse, get them out in the restaurant and weigh my food portions.  Some dieters may not feel it is necessary to be that particular about food portions in restaurants, but when my work keeps me away from home a lot, I can’t afford to leave my diet at home.  These handheld scales are one of my usable treasures.  Many of my treasures are not usable, just treasured.

Happy Fathers’ Day to all the fathers out there!  I lost my father in 1996 and still miss him.  However, my children have a good father and I celebrate Fathers’ Day with him.  Fathers are important to children.  I think our society, especially the courts, are realizing the role the fathers need to play in their children’s lives.  It used to be that when there was a divorce with children, many times the father seemed to divorce the children along with their mom.  Now, the courts and judges appear to be trying to keep both parents involved in their children’s lives.  In fact, reseach is showing now that children who do not have both parents involved in their lives are having trouble developing emotionally like they should.  When a parent disappears from a child’s life, the child’s first question is, “Why doesn’t my parent love me?”  The second question is, “What’s wrong with me?”  If my parent doesn’t love me, something must be wrong with me.

Obesity also adds to a child’s difficulty in developing emotionally.  Many children in America are now suffering from obesity.  It’s too easy to run through a drive through, order fast food, and go home.  The children grow up thinking fast food is the only good food.  Why not get a set of cooking scales and teach the children how to cook at home?  It will help build a good parent/child relationship, while forming good eating habits. 

Have you ever heard the term “nutrient density”? This refers to the concept of getting the most nutrition for the leaast amount of calories. For example, whole grain products are nutrient dense.

Getting your nutrients from nutrient dense foods is clearly an asset in the process of losing or even maintaining your body weight. Get a set of good kitchen scales and look for recipes that call for nutrient dense ingredients and you’re on your way to a healthier body.

Why is it that every time I need to go on a diet, every program says, “Don’t think ‘diet’”? What am I supposed to think? I need to lose weight. Is that not connected with going on a “diet”?

Maybe I need to rethink the entire thing. Maybe I could think “withdrawal”. Withdrawal from food! That should help me feel better! I’ll get some pocket scales so I can weigh the food I’m not going to eat! On second thought, I think I’ll just go on a “diet”.

It’s hard to get a full meal cooked for several people, especially getting it all done at about the same time so everything will be warm.  It takes a lot of planning and coordination, and knowing about how long each item takes.  It’s reasonably easy to cook one dish at a time, but that doesn’t compare with cooking a complete meal and serving it.  When I was growing up, my mom would have me peel the potatoes, or make the cornbread, or set the table; however, I had never tried to cook a meal until I married.  I had a lot of learning to do in a hurry.

Things are so much more convenient now.  The old wood cookstove has been replaced by an electric stove with a convection oven accompanied by a microwave oven.  In addition, the food scales can weigh each ingredient when baking cakes, cookies, etc., and avoid having to wash measuring cups and spoons.  Many things have improved, but it’s still difficult to get a complete meal done, everything on the table, the table set, and be ready to eat at the time everyone is expecting to eat.  Life is complicated.

We have just finished a one-day Vacation Bible School at our church.  It was lots of work, but lots of fun for all of us.  It took several months of planning, many hours of decorating, and a lot of studying and preparing.  Then the children descended upon us and the fun began.  Children learn so much and enjoy learning when they are young; and it’s so much fun for adults to watch the little lightbulbs go off when they catch on.  The teenagers wrote and performed a skit at the end of the day, which was fantastic.

It’s also fun and entertaining to teach children while working in the kitchen.  A good set of kitchen scales can be fun while teaching them measuring skills, as well as the importance of measuring accurately.  There’s no better way to bond with your children or grandchildren than to spend time with them in the kitchen.  You’ll be glad you did!

Numbers are very precise.  If you don’t believe me, reverse two numbers in a phone number and see if it works.  Or let the bank run a check through the bank as $425.32 when it was supposed to be $25.32.  Just one number can make a big difference!

Scales need to be precise, also.  Whether you’re measuring in grams, ounces, pounds, or pennyweights, you want the same item to weigh the same amount each time it is placed on the scales.  If it doesn’t, you can’t depend on the results, whether you’re cooking, measuring medicines, or weighing yourself.  Escali scales are accurate and precise.  Check them out.