Cooking Shows Can Actually Make Your Life Easier

Food Network was and still is the most-viewed network in our household. Over the course of 20 years, that hasn’t changed but the personalities and themes certainly have. While it’s not fair to say whether it’s for better or for worse because that would be so subjective, we can definitely say what we enjoy more or less. Everyone has strong feelings for Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, and all the baking contests, but there are just some shows that give you a little bit of everything. Cutthroat Kitchen is one of them.

For the longest time, we watched a lot of Chopped and we still do. It has its practical application. While the focus of most competition cooking shows isn’t being healthy, there are two major components that will make the life easier of the everyday chef, or the home chef. Those two factors are time and convenience. In most of these competitions, the chefs are only given 20-30 minutes to prepare a meal. That’s right, on Chopped they’re not making a single dish. They have to prepare four portions, which could be exactly how many you need to make for your family! Most of us don’t have hours every day to make fresh meals, so we often resort to opting for some not-so-fresh meals but that often sacrifices the health factor. Frozen food and fast food are time-friendly and have large portions, but typically are filled with unnatural ingredients, excess calories, tons of sodium, and a lack of nutrients. On these shows, top chefs show you how to save time. 

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Chopped also teaches you how to save money by using questionable ingredients that you often might find in the clearance section. For example, tripe is not expensive, but it is relatively healthy. The problem with tripe is your fear of it, but watching chefs soak it in milk or yogurt before cooking it is enough to make it tolerable in your household. Beef hearts are nowhere near considered expensive but have insane amounts of protein with a relatively low amount of calories. Again, these shows show you how to make these ingredients without making anyone sick. We all can’t afford halibut and organic chicken breasts for our protein sources. 

On Cutthroat Kitchen, you basically learn how to become MacGyver. Not everyone has access to a professional kitchen or chef’s knives, so it’s almost more relatable to the everyday chef to use a wooden knife or a saw than a set of industrial knives. Professional chefs show countless tricks of the trade and one interesting thing about Cutthroat is that you often see the chefs making a “healthy” version of some generally rich dishes because they had ingredients stolen. Still, they make it work and show you how to substitute butter for a banana while making a luxurious dessert. 

So, if you have a hard time in the kitchen, it might be far more beneficial to watch shows like Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Guy’s Grocery Games than Giada, Bobby, or Ina. While those three are all great chefs, the setting is so far from your reality that it’s hard to recreate. While I’m not saying you’re more likely to be in a clown car in the kitchen, you can’t tell me that you haven’t tried making a fancy date night meal from the clearance carts. We lived off the clearance section for a year, and we still stayed hungry and fit!

BONUS PUPPY PIC

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