Meals for the Millennial Generation

Meals for the Millennial's are not typical of any generation from the previous 125 years. They have their selection of Smoothies, Juices, Energy Bars, Salad Bars, Fast Food, Eat In, Eat Out and Eat on the Run. If they live in a small to large city, their selection can go from good old fashioned Western Cuisine to the most exotic spices from India, Pakistan, China or Vietnam.  Our taste buds have gone global! I am truly happy about that.


Hoisin Sauce, Chicken Curry and Fish Sauce are no longer foreign to our plates. Flavours from all over the world are readily available in pre-made sauces, packages and jars. I believe this selection is common in many cultures now, and we have technology to thank for the variety. We went from wind powered ships to jet propelled Air Planes in a few centuries.  Science and the human brain are AWESOME! We are not very smart though. Being intelligent without the use of forethought to help balance change, seems to be something we lack as a whole.


Millennial's have so many more choices and pressures on their plates then many generations before. They have knowledge at the fingertips which wasn't available to many of us until the last 2 decades. Things have definitely changed. Rural areas may still have a slower pace, as do parts of Europe, but Western Lifestyle is pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in your inner cites. Consumers seem to demand it. Or have they been programmed to expect it? I think it's more programming than anything.

Scrambled Eggs and Asparagus

My husband and I make a breakfast prior to leaving home for our weekend errands. The 40 minutes it takes to stop, prepare our meal and eat it, gives us a few minutes to talk about our plans and reflect over the week past. It gives us a chance to connect as a couple too. It additionally ensures we aren't stopping for a bite of whatever to quell hunger pangs while on the fly, I do have to wash up, but at least I am not adding to the pile of coffee cups and their lids heading to a landfill. Eating out all the time does add to the ever increasing amount of non-compostable trash we generate.


Today, Millennial's are likely finding themselves grabbing a quick bite on the run and adding a specialty coffee or iced drink to wash it down with. Just yesterday I watched several young couples leaving a coffee shop with overly Large Cups of coffee,  Breakfast Sandwiches and getting into their cars to go run whatever errand they were on.  They seemed a little rushed for a rainy Saturday morning.

Berries and Nuts for Breakfast

The choices available to all of us these days are staggering in comparison to when I was growing up. Many of these quick meals are far more processed then the decades past. Sizes are now all over proportioned for what is considered a typical meal size. A couple of weekends ago, My husband and I went to a Pita Shop which is locally run. I hadn't had anything from them in quite a while and decided to have a small Shawarma. We waited for our ordered meal's to be made and I watched as another plate of food was being created for a young man ahead of us. As I watched him take his finished and packaged plate out the door, I calculated that he had the equivalent to 4 portions of food in his take away container.




The Small Chicken Sharma I ordered was far too large for me to consume too, I calculated 2 portions, and I ate more than I should have as well.  That's the challenge with having too much food in front of you. You have a tendency to keep picking at it, even though you are full.





My thoughts on this matter have been discussed by many others, this is not new information. When you eat out, expect to over-indulge. If you eat out or grab a specialty drink once a week, that in itself is not a problem, if you have healthy eating habits and are active. Eating out and eating processed food more than once a week ... you are exposing yourself to more sugars, calories and preservatives then you should be intaking. Eating out should be a treat, not a daily routine.


I do know there is a problem with how the Millennial's are eating, Gen Xer's are no better and the Baby Boomer's have adopted many of the same bad habits. The more we progressed and adopted the conveniences offered to us in the past, the more our belief system about Food and Portions was changed.

The Gen X Appetite
Burger Wars

Even educated, we tend to fall into patterns of picking up what is more convenient than taking the extra time to prepare our own meals. I know of people who become so anxious prior to preparing their food they are literally working themselves into a frenzy as they think the effort to create and clean up after their own dinner is an Olympic feat.


It doesn't need to be. Much of that anxiety is coming from media, not the reality of it.

Crab Cakes and Poached Eggs

Our society is drowning us in images of perfection, oversized plates and over consumption. I'm even guilty of showing off images of my husband's plate of food, rather then my own, as it's what is "expected" to be viewed as a "better" plate with extra meat, additional sauces, dressings or sides. That's called marketing and we do eat with our eyes. Anyone in marketing will tell you that the messages they send you are designed to encourage you to make a purchase. You are far better off to make your own choices and turn away from all of the extra marketing and processed food out there.


Make time to cook, make time to shop. You don't need to create gourmet meals every day and you don't need to re-create a restaurant's menu for your use. Simple foods are as enjoyable to eat and create as are the 5 course meals you may wish to try out in future. Getting to know the ingredients you cook with, additionally allows you to understand the convenient choices you can treat yourself to. I Love a big breakfast on Sundays, I splurge, with the knowledge that dinner will be a little lighter and I may not serve a meat protein if I doubled up in the morning.


The more I Blog about food, the more I understand how we have moved away from making intelligent choices for our meal planning.





That's it for this post. I will be discussing more history and exploring different ways of cooking using time management as I progress with my blog. I have so much knowledge from researching Medieval food, I'll be posting about why we have preservatives, why they did help in times of famine, and the best way to cook with heavily salted ingredients.

We are now a global population of over 7 billion people and we keep growing. Preservative methods are not "evil", nor is the introduction of food which has aided people in their survival. But like all things, "moderation" should be maintained, that seems to be where we are lacking, in the Western World at least.

Have a wonderful day.

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