BY GUEST BLOGGER WENDY RIPMEESTER
If I could ask for one thing in my Christmas stocking this year, it would be the gift of time; filling it from red velvet tippy toe to fuzzy white brim. (A little spilling over onto the floor would be nice, if you can spare it, Santa.)
Now, American
adults (age 18+) spend an average of only 33 minutes a day preparing food,
including wash-up. And meal preparation is squeezed in between other activities
instead of being the day’s main event.
Cooking with Gas: Bio-gas systems that use manure to power cook stoves help cut down on fuel wood collection and cooking times without cutting down trees.
Water Well: Help dig a well for a village, and watch the community come alive as girls and women thrive; returning to school and finding fruitful ways to spend their new-found time.
It
only takes a minute to save hours, days – and lives. Will you take a moment today
to give a gift of time from the FH
Gift Guide?
BROWSE THE GIFT GUIDE ( YOU'LL SAVE TIME - IT'S ONLINE!)
If I could ask for one thing in my Christmas stocking this year, it would be the gift of time; filling it from red velvet tippy toe to fuzzy white brim. (A little spilling over onto the floor would be nice, if you can spare it, Santa.)
Between working full-time, keeping up with the kids’ activities,
household chores and errands, it seems there’s never enough free time to spend enjoying my family, having a cup of tea
with friends, or – in my wildest dreams – indulging in a little “me” time.
While doing the dishes one day, I reflected on where my time
goes. And doing a quick mental calculation (spoiler alert: I was never good at
math), I’d say half my life is focused on food: meal planning; grocery shopping;
then washing, peeling, chopping, boiling, frying, baking … and any other verb you
can think of that relates to cooking. (Except for fancy verbs associated with
French cooking, like flambéing – I don’t do that.)
Then there’s clean-up: washing, drying and putting away;
which in my house is usually only a moderate success. My counter is rarely
clear of dishes left to air-dry. Or dirty cups and plates that magically appear
sink-side after the dishwater is drained.
There’s just never enough time to
catch-up.
And it turns out I’m not the only
one who feels crunch time when it comes to munch time.
At a recent ladies’ weekend
retreat, we swapped stories on packed schedules and picky eaters – ironically
while enjoying a home cooked meal that none of us had any part in conceiving,
preparing or cleaning up after. What a treat!
“Thank goodness for Kraft dinner
and microwaves”, one of the ladies commented, prompting an exchange of favourite
time-saving meal strategies: from slow cooker meals that spawn leftovers to reheat
for a quick week night dinner – to signing the kids up for the school’s weekly pizza
lunch to have a welcome one-day reprieve from sandwich-making.
With grocery stores, modern
appliances, ready-to-eat foods and take-out options, meal preparation
isn’t as intensive or time-consuming as it used to be when meals were made
“from scratch”, and food preparation was the main focus of the day.
It’s not like it was for the
Italian Nona of one of the retreat ladies, who – like many women – handled the
whole farm-to-clearing-the-table-and-washing-up cycle, starting with
slaughtering and plucking the chicken. “It was hard back then”, my fellow
retreater observed, “I think women used to work until they died”.
Yes, some things
have changed – in some parts of the
world. Like here in North America.
But some things stay the same: women,
on average, still spend more time (47 minutes) preparing food than men (18
minutes). And though women do less work around the house than they used to,
their chores are the “never-ending” ones, like cooking, says
Geoffrey Godby, a time-use expert at Penn State University, “Working mothers with young children are
the most time-scarce segment of society.”
… ‘just sayin’, Santa.
Still, relatively speaking, the time we spend getting meals
together is miniscule compared to what is required in many countries; especially
among the poor. Here, women also do the brunt of the work - and in some countries
women do work until they die.
Why?
Because meal preparation involves so much more than making a
list and driving to the grocery store for reheatables. Let me explain.
Women are the
world's principal food producers and providers, including of the world's
staple crops (rice, wheat, maize), which provide up to 90% of the rural poor's
food intake. So women spend considerable time doing physical labour in the fields.
Then, cooking requires excessive amounts of time to fetch
water and gather firewood, which takes a lot of energy, too. Up to 85% of
women’s daily energy intake can be used up for these grueling tasks that also take a physical
toll on the body in forms of chronic fatigue and anemia; spinal and pelvic
deformities; and effects on reproductive health such as miscarriage.
More time is spent on cooking, too, on open fires or smoky
stoves that are much less efficient than modern ranges and convection ovens. Especially
in poorly ventilated homes, the regular
inhalation of wood smoke while cooking can lead to acute and chronic
respiratory diseases, burns, eye diseases, low birth weights and increased
infant mortality.
·
In some regions, women spend 5 hours a day
collecting fuel wood and water. In some parts of Africa, women and children
can spend up
to 8 hours a day collecting water alone.
·
In South Africa, women
collectively walk the equivalent distance of 16 times to the moon and back per
day gathering water.
·
Women and girls across the world collectively
spend about 200
million hours per day collecting water. That’s 22,800 years worth of walking – every single day!
So the estimate of me spending “half my life” preparing
meals is probably a little off … ok, maybe a lot. But – by the numbers – it’s
easy to see the concept of time poverty
accurately describes the situation of many women around the world.
Food preparation takes so much time, it comes at the cost of
spending it in other ways; like caring for children, helping them with their
studies, participating in family or social activities, or having a paying job.
For girls, water and fire wood
collection takes time away from their education, and in many cases prevents
them from attending school at all; a “colossal waste” of valuable time, according
to UNICEF.
And once all working hours are accounted for – whether paid employment
or unpaid household work – there is no time left for much needed rest and
leisure … let alone time to attend a ladies’ retreat.
So how about stuffing someone’s Christmas stocking with
seconds, minutes – or maybe even hours?
Food for the Hungry
Canada’s (FH’s) Gift Guide has great time-saving gifts that can help girls and women spend
less time preparing meals, so they have more of it to go to school, or to spend
with family and in their community.
And ordering from the
FH Gift Guide online saves you time
– so you can indulge in a little me
time.
Here are my top time-saving FH Gift Guide picks to put some “tick
tocks” in Christmas socks:
Cooking with Gas: Bio-gas systems that use manure to power cook stoves help cut down on fuel wood collection and cooking times without cutting down trees.
GirlPower: Keep girls where they belong – in school! – instead of spending most
of their time on household chores, by providing gender equality training.
School Garden: FH’s
solution to school “pizza day”, but a whole lot healthier. School gardens
provide fruits and veggies that supplement kids’ lunches, and helps them learn
essential life skills, like how to grow nutritious food themselves.
Water Well: Help dig a well for a village, and watch the community come alive as girls and women thrive; returning to school and finding fruitful ways to spend their new-found time.
BROWSE THE GIFT GUIDE ( YOU'LL SAVE TIME - IT'S ONLINE!)