I agree with the concept, but the article struck me as alarmist. I think the onslaught of pre-packaged meals and the ultimate path we're on towards not knowing how to make anything at home is driven by the two-income household. With one parent at home, time wasn't as valuable of a commodity as it is today. The tradeoff of health/cost vs. convenience/time had a clear winner. I'm not being sexist either. The idea of a farming family with all members of the family working together to keep things humming/self-sustaining is wonderful and something that we should try to recreate.
Except that a lot of people and articles (this one included) have pointed out that the perceived "convenience" of a packaged item is often far greater than the actual convenience. If more people realized that, perhaps the scales would tip more in favor of cost and health. There's even an entire book on what's optimal to make at home and what's better to buy. "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" by Jennifer Reese.
A class like home ec, as envisioned in this article (and the parent article) would go a long way toward showing people that cooking at home really isn't all that inconvenient. It's just marketing that's made it seem so.
If the article seems alarmist to you, it doesn't seem out of proportion to me when the problem is that most people in our society don't know ANY basic skills about how to take care of themselves, their health, and their finances. That's alarming! We should be scared by that.
