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The Messenger-Inquirer Dan Heckel Column

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

Jul. 24--I didn't know who Gerry Thomas was until I read of his death Thursday, but I had to wonder what he thought of the eating habits these days of the American family.

Thomas was the man credited with inventing the TV dinner in 1954. As a salesman for C.A. Swanson and Sons, Thomas got the idea of packaging frozen meals into divided foil trays. Busy families could pop the tray into the oven and in 25 minutes have a balanced meal that fit on their TV tray, so they could still watch their favorite show.

It's a good reminder of the wisdom of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for, or you will surely get it."

These days, the idea of an entire family sitting down to dinner together seems like a quaint reminder of bygone days. We are much more likely to share dinner with either A) a television or B) food that a nonfamily member cooked.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average American family spends more than $2,000 per year on dinners away from home. More than half of the dinners eaten by overweight children are consumed in front of the television.

According to a July 6 article on the New Age Media Concepts Web site, a Harvard University study of 16,000 9-year-olds found that those who regularly ate dinner at home with their parents were more likely to have higher intakes of essential nutrients and vitamins.

The way to be successful in the service industry is to give the people what they want. Thomas understood that the television was a growing fixation for Americans in the 1950s, and that business success lie in finding ways to continue the routines families were accustomed to while also being able to work in more TV watching.

I don't think they called it multitasking then, but perhaps that was its invention.

Two other creations changed the way Americans eat dinner over the past half century.

One was fast food. With both parents often working, the ability to stop on the way home for something hot, tasty, fast and relatively cheap was seen as a godsend to many Americans. These days, adults with children find themselves spending most of their family time in their vehicles, taking children to ballgames, gymnastics, Scouting or a myriad of other interests. Or, they are on their way to their own activities and find comfort in a burger and fries to stop the groaning in their stomachs.

The other creation was the microwave oven. Prepackaged meals (the more advanced cousin to the TV dinner) or leftovers suddenly made meal time never more than a few minutes away. And with microwaves so simple that a child can operate them, that's just what happens. Mom's running late, and the kids are hungry? Call home and tell them what's in the fridge to pop in the wave.

There's nothing sinister afoot in all this, but I doubt the American family ever consciously decided to make this their mealtime ritual.

I'd like to say my family all sits down together every night, free of interruption, but it wouldn't be true. I usually arrive home after my wife and son have eaten, and there's a TV that's usually on. But the three of us are at least in proximity to one another, able to talk about our day and our plans for the evening.

Perhaps that's as much as we can ask for in 2005.

While not ideal, the key to keeping the American family strong, it seems to me, is making sure that whatever time we have together is time well spent.

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Source: Messenger-Inquirer

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