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. 

You’ve probably noticed that very few homes now have an analog bathroom scale. These scales, which have a mechanical needle to indicate weight, are being replaced by a digital scale. Digital scales promise more features and better accuracy. It’s hard to be precise when reading an analog scale. Your weight could be 130 or 130 1/2 or 130 1/4. Who knows? The needle points somewhere near 130.  A digital scale (depending on its weight increments) may tell you that you weigh 130.2 or 130.5.

Digital Scales can offer features that are not possible with an analog scale. Some digital scales can keep track of several users. Some offer the choice of weighing in pounds or kilograms and the display can be brighter and easier to read. Advances in electronics have affected the scale industry as well as a lot of other areas. If your bathroom scales are older and out-of-date, consider shopping for a new digital scale.

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.

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.

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.

Have you ever tried cleaning a house for a luncheon while babysitting a 4-month old baby?  I clean a shelf in the refrigerator, then feed a baby, then wipe off the cookstove, then rock a baby, etc.  It’s a little here and a little there, but hopefully, it will all add up to a clean house in three or four days.  The baby doesn’t know she is interfering with my plans; she has her own plans and they come first.

The day before the luncheon, I’ve got to start the food preparation.  Some of it can be done a little at a time like the cleaning, but some of it cannot be.  My food scales will speed along the process, especially the cleanup part.  It has the Tare feature that subtracts the weight of the container, allowing me to measure my ingredient, reset to zero and measure the next one.  I need all the convenience I can get if I’m to be ready for the luncheon and not neglect the baby.  I guess you call this multitasking.