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.

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.

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.

The older I get, the more concerned I am about health issues.  My parents both lived to be in their nineties, so if history repeats itself, I should live to be a ripe old age.  That’s good if I can be healthy while I’m living.  I look around every day and see people younger than I that can barely get around.  I also read the obituaries and find many people who are now deceased that I either went to school with or taught them in school.  However, visiting the nursing home is what really makes me want to get serious about my health.  The residents are in wheelchairs or bedfast, and many do not even know their own name.

I believe purchasing a cooking scale will be my first step toward a healthier lifestyle.  These scales can be used to measure ingredients when baking, but they can also measure my food portions to help me avoid overeating.  Obesity is a major obstacle to good health.  It is not easy to control, because food is a necessity and we have to be near it every day.  However, it does seem easier to control the amount of food I eat if it never gets to my plate.  The “empty your plate” lessons from my mom are hard to ignore.  If the food portions are measured and the correct amount is placed on my plate, I can “empty my plate” without overeating. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a magic wand to wave and make things happen instantly.  Wave the wand and the house would be instantly cleaned, bathrooms included.  Wave it again and the laundry is done with the clothes put in the closets and drawers.  Wave it one more time and dinner is on the table.  Wave it again and the kids have all been bathed and tucked into bed.  It seems like it would be wonderful, but life might soon become boring.

It would be nice, however, to wave a magic wand to make the extra pounds disappear from my body.  I know I would feel better, look better, fit into my clothes better, etc., if the pounds would leave.  I also know that no magic wand is going to make it happen.  I have to plan healthy meals, weigh my food portions on my kitchen scale to avoid overeating, and start an exercise routine if I want to get rid of the excess weight.  I can dream about a magical solution, but willpower and determination is the only answer to the problem.

When our house burned a few years ago, we built a log house.  I had grown up in an old log house and had inherited some old, old family pictures in large ornate frames, an old steamer trunk that my dad had carried to college in the early thirties, and an old dresser that belonged to my great-great-grandfather.  Since they had not been moved yet from my parents’ home, they did not burn, and I wanted a house where they would look appropriate.  The house is not what I would call “rustic”, but at the same time, it has a different feeling from a brick or vinyl siding house.  We used tongue and grooved lumber instead of sheetrock in the upstairs bedrooms, to avoid the more modern feel.

I like the old feel to the house, but at the same time, I wanted a modern kitchen.  I chose an electric cookstove made to look like an old wood cookstove.  Now I need a set of dial scales to set on the counter.  Not only will they give me accurate weights for my ingredients when baking and can weigh my food portions to avoid overeating, but they will add to the nostalgic look in my kitchen.  The house brings back my happy childhood memories, and yet gives me the modern conveniences.  What more could I want!