Article by Roy Primm

Free soul food recipes continues to adapt to a demanding health conscious consumer. With the holidays on us, this is the time experts predict the average person will pack on 3 to 5 pounds. Not only will they gain 3 to 5 pounds, but they will keep and even add to it for the rest of the year. This is an alarming statistic in a country where the following statistics from the Center For Disease Control (C.D.C) hits home.

Free soul food recipes continues to adapt to a demanding health conscious consumer. With the holidays on us, this is the time experts predict the average person will pack on

The post Free Soul Food Recipes: Getting More User Friendly For The Holidays appeared first on Catering on the Move.

The cost of eating out continues to increase as restaurant owners pass higher food cost and overhead on to cash strapped customers. With the economic outlook growing more risky by the minute, more people with a craving for southern food are turning to the many free soul food recipes available online.

Soul food, considered one of the original American foods, dates back to the time of slavery when slave owners gave the food they couldn’t or wouldn’t eat to the slaves. This food ironically turned out to be some of the healthiest foods, judged by today’s standards.

Most of the food consisted of green vegetables (known as greens), turnips, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, corn pone, and more. To survive the long and often hot work days in the sizzling sun, the black worker required food that was not only cheap in cost but filling and nutritious. Soul food provided the needed energy slaves needed to work the long hours.

Today soul food is a multi-million dollar food industry and growing. Now online sites offering free soul food recipes continue to rise. This is evidence of the growing popularity and demand for ways to cook soul food by a demanding market. Some of the more popular soul food dishes such as collard greens, black eye peas and gumbo have had a resurgence in popularity by young people, a group that had overlooked soul food for hamburgers, pizza and other fast foods.

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Popular southern recipe desserts such as sweet potato pie, peach cobbler and sock-it-to-me cake have also grown in popularity by at-home cooks. Not only are soul food recipes growing in demand by new-school cooks, but also preparation techniques, shortcuts and time-saving kitchen tools experienced serious growth in the past six months.

Not only has the bad economy influenced more people to eat more meals at home, but the need people have for home cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious have increased. With the growing problem of obesity facing more people, along with diabetes and high blood pressure, more people are taking their health and diets into their own hands by preparing more meals at home.

More soul food lovers are taking to preparing their meals and taking them to work instead of going to a restaurant. This has been estimated to save many people hundreds of dollars a month. In addition, it’s more notorious as well.

With the popularity of video, more free soul food recipe sites are offering video demonstrations to site visitors. This adds more clarity to preparing the recipes, offering a show-and- tell element for cooks to enjoy. Indeed these soul food sites are not your grandmothers recipe sites.

Yes, with the popularity of home cooking and soul food combined, the demand for free soul food recipes will continue to grow as the economy worsens. People are constantly looking for more ways to cut their food cost. More families are finding the best way slash their food cost is to prepare more meals at home instead of paying others to prepare it at restaurants.

The post Soul Food Recipes: Recession Forcing More Healthier Home Cooking appeared first on Catering on the Move.

Free soul food recipes,  with it’s tradition of southern flavor and satisfaction, is making a comeback among African American teens. In the past this traditional southern cuisine had  fallen out of favor with many teens thanks to the fast food movement, the fact that people cooked less and because it was stylish to eat out. But now thanks to the recession, less discretionary income and the need to save, more teens are rediscovering soul food recipes all over again.

Yes, thanks to the economic downturn more families are forced to cook and eat at home and more and less at fast food establishments. In addition, the movement and trend seems to be toward eating healthier, home cooked meals at the dinner table again.  Family dinner time is slowly making a comeback. All these factors seem to have  fuel the popularity of soul food recipes to teens again, much like their baby boom parents and grandparents.

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For example, surprisingly many teens are tasting black eye peas, candied yams and hush puppies for the first time. And those who aren’t tasting them for the first time is seeing them and other traditional soul food in a whole new light.

This cuisine is also growing in popularity among teens as it adjust to new eating habits many teens are now moving to. A healthier food that taste good.  With southern fried chicken, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie among the top 3 favorite foods among African American teens today.  The industry have found creative ways to make these popular dishes healthier while maintaining the taste.

Another major influence on teens and soul food recipes is the hip hop movement. For example, you can hear  many hip hop stars mentioning soul food in their lyrics, showing it in their videos and eating it themselves with great delight.  These combination of factors have joined to make soul food cooking and eating popular again with African American teens.

But a new market is looming on the horizon as well, what is this new market? White and Latino teens are slowly discovering soul food recipes, thanks again to the hip hop industry. Many non-African American consumers are joining. Some of the new converts are joining  out of curiosity, others out of a need to try new experiences in food. But most are trying it because of African American friends introducing them to this popular southern cuisine.  Could soul food cooking  play a major role in uniting the cultural divide. Stay tuned.

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