Being European, and having been raised with consuming milk/cheese/yogurt products daily, I was stunned to learn that most people of the world are lactose intolerant, and have hard time digest milk.
Also, we Europeans do use bread a lot. And wheat bread is probably a lot healthier than rice, even brown rice.
No dice. Wheat and rice have a similar nutritional profile, however the more grains are processed, the more nutritional value they lose. Bread made from bleached flour is about as nutritional as sugar water; this is why it has to be fortified with vitamins, which sound pretty on the label but aren't actually digested the same way as they would be if the wheat was processed less. Rice (even white rice) beats out bread every time.
This factoid is taken for granted in these arguments, but if you look it up, it's not true. Japan has a higher life expectancy, but the other white rice eating areas have a lower life expectancy, or are maybe tied. For example, China is 5 years lower than the USA and UK.
- Only add the onions about 30 minutes before the stew is cooked, otherwise they'll dominate the flavour
- Add button mushrooms (again, about 30 minutes before the end) - they soak up all the juices and become wonderfully tasty.
- Use cheap meat: the miracle of the stew is how it transforms just about any lousy piece of beef in to wonderfully tender morsels that fall apart as soon as you look at them.
(We once cooked a beef bourginon (same thing really, but with some red wine in the stock) for 8 hours on a really low heat - around 100 degrees C. It was the most stunning thing I have ever eaten)
I disagree with this suggestion. One, the human body does not readily digest beans. Two, rice is a pretty heavily refined food, and white rice especially has been stripped of most of its nutritional value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice).
From the perspective of spending minimal time, I suggest the unintuitive solution of learning to use slow cooking techniques. Most slow-cooked food is fire-and-forget: quickly prepare the ingredients, start the heat source, and get back to your hacking. Three hours later, you have several dinners' worth of excellent food.
Example: A simple beef stew takes about twenty minutes to prepare. Chop up about 1.5 lbs of beef into small pieces, dice one onion, mix with 1.5 lbs of unpeeled (but properly washed and scrubbed) fingerling potatoes cut in halves. Mix with salt and some water in an enameled cast iron 5-quart Dutch oven. Put in a 375-F oven. Return in three hours. You now have about three days worth of dinners. Improvise with spices as you see fit.