Who cooks at home? NPR readers weigh in

Plus: With war in the headlines, here's how to protect your mental health

View this email online November 26, 2023 Support This Newsletter Hello! Next week is Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to generosity and community support. As we approach this global day of giving, consider showing your early support for the NPR Network and the role it plays in your everyday life. Your contribution helps ensure that this free and vital public service continues to enlighten and engage communities everywhere.Let’s join forces to keep NPR thriving.  Your donation makes a difference. Thanks for considering.    - Carmel Wroth, NPR Health editor by Andrea Muraskin This week: While a recent survey says women around the world cook at home about twice as often as men do, a good number of our readers say: “Not in my house!” We’ve got a post-Thanksgiving feast of stories and opinions. Plus: Many of us feel dismay and horror in reaction to news about the Israel-Hamas war, even from afar. We asked a professional for advice on how to cope with those feelings. Plus: Artists envision how creativity could transform health care. Cooking and gender – Our readers have thoughts! Amriphoto/iStockphoto Big family meals often involve lots of time spent bent over cutting boards, peeking in the oven and adjusting temperatures or adding juices. As my mother would say, it’s “a big potchke.” If you find yourself reflecting on how food duties are distributed in your household, you’re not alone.  A few weeks ago Gallup and Cookpad published data from their worldwide survey of home cooking, showing that women cooked on average just under nine meals a week, while men cooked about four. This data, from 2022, actually showed a widening of the gender gap compared to the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, as NPR’s Allison Aubrey reported. Researchers did identify one country where gentlemen outcook ladies – Italy.  This made us curious about how our readers divide up meal duties at home, and how you resolve tensions if and when they arise.  So we asked, and the responses were bountiful. I’m sharing some of my favorites here, edited for length and clarity.  Let the expert shine. Many people living with opposite-sex partners spoke up for the contributions of males in the kitchen. Tichianaa Armah writes that her husband does most of the cooking at home, because – well – he’s better at it. “When I moved in I would cook, but honestly I like everything perfect and I took too long. He, on the other hand, could whip up a good meal fast, so he might have a bowl of cereal while waiting for my elaborate dinners. When friends would come over I would cook the majority of the food. After slaving in the kitchen for a long day preparing, he would come in at the end right before guests arrived and make one dish. Folks…would be floored by the one dish he made, unbeknownst to them. This, as well as the cereal situation happened enough times that I threw in the towel. I conceded that while I was a good cook, he was better…So he took over,” Armah reports.  Larry Ragan, a retiree, cooks for himself and his wife of 38 years, who works as a speech therapist. “I love the time in the kitchen, the food prep, creativity, cooking and eating. My wife does agree that ‘most nights’ my meals are very good,” he writes, noting that he makes use of produce from his garden during the growing season. Ragan’s wife does not like to cook, he says, “But this is where it gets tricky. She feels guilty when I do the cooking because she believes that should be her role. In my opinion I am the better cook, she’s the better baker (when she does it). Whenever we have these conversations things do not end well,” he writes. Mangia, say Italians. Several Italian-American readers wrote in to say that the statistic about men in Italy cooking more than women surprised them not one bit.  “For us Italians, knowing and creating good food is a matter of extreme pride,” writes Gabrielle DiFonzo. “Food is a gigantic part of our culture and heritage…For men, cooking is seen as a manly activity,” she writes. (She sent us this prison scene from Goodfellas as a piece of cultural evidence.) DiFonzo says cooking was an important part of her relationship with her father. “We loved to visit gourmet food stores together, and he passed down special family recipes to me… like fried eggplant and eggs Florentine. We were so strongly connected by food that after he died, I couldn’t bear to even look at an eggplant for two years,” she writes.   Second generation Italian-American Olivia Box writes that while the women in her family do most of the cooking, “the men cook certain dishes: my nonno made pizza, my cousin preps the entire feast of the seven fishes,” she says. Box says she spent last year in Italy, and noticed that her male cousins were always cooking and talking about food. “Cooking for Italians is not a chore; it is a part of their identity. Especially now, with southern Italians moving north for jobs, their foodways have followed. My cousins in their late 20s and 30s cook together with their friends on Sundays, the same dishes their mothers are making simultaneously in their cities far away in the south,” Box writes.  Men from the other boot cook, too. A couple of readers in Louisiana wrote that men do a fair share of cooking where they come from. Living in rural Acadiana, Nicole Poret says she'd love to see a version of the poll taken in Louisiana only. “A lot of men cook here,” she writes. “There are some dishes that my husband almost always cooks. His gumbo is so full of layers of delicious flavors that I hand that one to him. He is the pancake and French toast maker too. If you toured hunting camps around the state you would find lots of men cooking for groups of other men,” Poret writes. Imbalance is a problem, but pitching in in other ways can help. Emily Kephart, a 41 year-old mother of two, says she enjoyed being in charge of food when it was just her and her husband, but having kids changed the equation. “Now we have two children and two full time jobs and I still do 100% of the grocery shopping and meal planning, and about 75% of the actual cooking/food preparation,” she says. While other duties are divided pretty fairly, Kephart says, she still gets annoyed with her spouse: “What really irks me is that when I'm away or have other plans, more often than not my husband gets the 'easy’  ticket - they order pizza or burritos, or eat some freezer chicken nuggets. Why does he get the free dinner pass?”  Robin Pair has a unique perspective as a woman who’s raised kids both with her ex-husband and her wife. “When I was married to a man, I essentially did 100% of the planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and serving for all meals; we split the cleaning up pretty much 50/50. Now that I am married to a woman, it’s closer to a 50/50 division of labor for all of it. Having a wife has cut back on the time I spend on chores in general. It’s great,” she writes.  After 25 years of marriage, Kat Zagone writes that she sometimes resents doing most of the cooking. She doesn’t expect her husband, who survived grad school on pasta and raw carrots, to take over. But she says they’ve worked out a compromise: “To combat these feelings, I ask him to keep me company in the kitchen while I cook. He happily opens a bottle of wine and we chat about the day. I should note, my hands have only ever touched a dirty dish to pass to him for clean-up,” Zagone writes.  “I’m in a same sex couple, so either way it’s a man cooking!” writes Jeffery S. He says in their household, he and his husband both play to their strengths. “My spouse is the better cook and he loves cooking, therefore he cooks the most and I clean the most. That is a fair trade to me because I like having an organized and clean space. Him, not so much. He also thinks it’s fair to do the cooking and shopping because I’m the full time worker and main earner of the household. I’m fine with that. I do cook, though only I stick to things I make well, like pizza dough for home pizza night, baked mac & cheese, chicken soup, and grilled burgers,” Jeffery writes.  Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in! If you have thoughts about any of NPR’s health stories or about this newsletter, don’t hesitate to write to us at shots@npr.org. We love hearing from you.  Also: Back pain shouldn't stop you from cooking at home. Here's how to adapt   Newsletter continues after sponsor message Watching war unfold is distressing — here's how to protect your mental health MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images News about the war in Israel and Gaza is everywhere, with a volume and intensity like no other conflict in recent memory. On TV, in the papers, on social media, and yes, on your local NPR member station, the message seems to be: Don’t look away.  Like many of us, Malaka Gharib, digital editor for NPR’s Life Kit has been moved to tears by the images of violence in death. She says she feels compelled to bear witness to this war. And Gharib has noticed a change in her mental health: Even when she's not looking at the news, she’s on high alert. And though her baby son isn't in danger, she fears for his safety.  Gharib spoke to Dr. Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist who studies trauma, to learn how to cope better with exposure to violent images and heart-wrenching headlines. Javanbakht says this kind of exposure can activate our fight-or-flight response and push us into negative patterns. However, habits like limiting how often you check for updates, seeking out a diversity of perspectives or even working out can help you stabilize. Learn how to stay informed without being consumed by the news. Plus: A therapist’s advice for how to cope with repeated mass shootings: Lean into family Broadcast Your Support this Giving Season This week, give thanks to the NPR Network you love and rely on by supporting with a donation. Your contribution fuels in-depth journalism and meaningful stories from your community, your nation, your world. With Giving Tuesday, 11/28, right around the corner – every dollar makes a difference. Act now. Show your support today. Donate Could creativity transform medicine? These artists think so Laura Tafe/Procedure Press In her 2017 standup special Old Baby, comedian Maria Bamford describes checking into a hospital psychiatric ward. These places are “uniformly awful,” Bamford explains. So bad, she says, that it feels like a deliberate creative choice, as if it were a film set where the art director told the crew: “OK, I want to break five more chairs, and then we need at least three pieces taken out of every puzzle, and the big screen TV – let’s have it playing ultimate fighting championships at maximum volume. Lose the remote.”  Health care brand strategist Emily Peters also had a dehumanizing experience with health care – in her case when giving birth to her daughter. Peters observed that medicine has a "creativity problem." And she wondered if art could offer alternatives to the sense of powerlessness and resignation she saw among health care workers. That’s the idea behind her new book, Artists Remaking Medicine, a collaboration between artists, writers and musicians, including some doctors and public health professionals, to share ideas about how creativity might make health care more humane.  Creators profiled include Yoko Sen, a musician and sound designer who has made new, gentler sounds for medical monitoring devices in the ICU – think harmonized tones instead of harsh, dissonant beeping. And Kathleen Sheffer, a photographer and heart-lung transplant survivor who used her camera in the hospital as a way of claiming power.  Mara Gordon, a family physician and NPR contributor, spoke with Peters about the book, and how it challenges the idea that “sterility is synonymous with professionalism” in medicine. Read the interview to learn how a little creativity can go a long way in health care. Plus: Making art is good for your health. Here's how to start a habit Before you go: Oona Tempest How to think about COVID risk this holiday season Friendsgiving? Close friends can help you live longer but they can spread some bad habits too Bill of the Month: Why you should think twice about getting blood work done at a hospital COMIC: What it's like living with an underactive thyroid We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots. All our best, Andrea Muraskin and your Shots editors Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: shots@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? 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