Why would anyone bother with takeaway?

Take-away foods are marketed to us as convenient time-savers. Come home from work, worn-out after a long day of meetings, pick up some pizza or Thai food, and plonk yourself on the couch to eat dinner out of a box. No preparation, no serving, no dishes. Sound enticing?

Well, actually, no it doesn't. The hidden costs of take-away food include fat and sodium, not to mention all sorts of additives that aren't found in fresh ingredients. I may be a purist and a food snob but, to me, take-away food is no more fast and convenient than home-cooked food and nowhere near as tasty.

A new survey by CHOICE concurs with this view. Surveying the nutritional value of take-aways, CHOICE found that these meals were generally high in saturated fat, sodium and kilojoules. Thai food was found to be the unhealthiest choice overall because of its high levels of saturated fat, salt and kilojoules. Pizza, especially those with stuffed crusts and extra toppings, is high in sodium, fat and kilojoules. While CHOICE found that Chinese and Italian take-away food (excluding pizza) were generally better for your waistline in terms of kilojoules, they were still high in saturated fat and sodium.

"On average, most of us spend 10 per cent of our weekly food budget on takeaway food and the percentage is on the rise. But with the convenience comes a cost in terms of nutrition," said CHOICE spokesman Christopher Zinn.

I know we don't all have hours to spend in a kitchen, making a slow-cooked casserole or soup (and nor do some of us have the inclination), but there are many dishes that you can make just as quickly as if you ordered in take-away. The key is preparation. By that, I mean you need to have a pantry stocked with some key ingredients. These ingredients can form a meal on their own, or they can be supplemented with some fresh vegetables you pick up on the way home.

Many may groan at the thought of planning and preparing for meals, particularly if you don't enjoy cooking. But we plan for many other things, so why not food? You wouldn't let your car run out of petrol just because you couldn't be bothered to go to the petrol station that week. You wouldn't forget to book plane tickets to get to your holiday destination. So why should your meals be any different? Food is an integral part of life, even if you don't enjoy cooking and regard food only as fuel. What you put in your body, though, will have an impact in every other area of your life, so why would you choose to fill it up with fat and salt when there's so many healthy, tasty options instead?

Top of my list for a quick, standby meal is tuna tortellini with peas. Cook a packet of Barilla cheese tortellini, adding a cup or two of frozen peas about four minutes before the pasta finishes cooking. Heat a large tin of Sirena tuna in a frypan (I usually saute some chopped garlic, anchovies and capers in some of the tuna oil before I add the tuna). Mix all together, add a little of the pasta cooking water if extra moisture is needed, and serve (adding some chopped parsley if you're feeling fancy). Dinner is on the table in about 15 minutes, with enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

Other fast options include:

• Pizza. You can make your own dough if you have the time and the inclination. Otherwise, use low-fat pita breads as the base - you can keep these in the freezer and pull out for last-minute meals. The other bonus is that you get to decide exactly what goes on your pizza and can make it as healthy or unhealthy as you like!
• Stirfrys. Keep some noodles in the pantry and all you have to do is pick up some chicken or beef and some vegetables on the way home. An even better idea is to shop on the weekend and have these ingredients already in the fridge and freezer. Chopping up the vegetables for stirfry does take some time but, once it's done, dinner is cooked in a flash.
• If I cook rice to accompany a stirfry or similar, I always cook extra. That rice can then be used to make a quick fried rice for lunch or dinner the next day.
• You can do worse than have a meal of meat and three veg - after all, it fortified a generation of Australia's farmers! It's also surprisingly quick. While some steak, sausages or lamb chops cook, boil some potatoes for mash and cook some carrots and peas in the microwave.
• Even soups can be quite quick to make. Last night, I sauteed some onions and garlic in some olive oil, added three diced parsnip and two diced potatoes, poured in 2 cups of vegetable stock and simmered for about 20 minutes, until the parsnip and potatoes were soft. A quick whizz with the Bamix, a sprinkling of salt and pepper and the soup was ready to eat.
• You can always plan ahead and make a batch of soup or some bolognaise sauce on the weekend and freeze to have on standby during the week.
• Invest in a Donna Hay cookbook. Most of her meals are quick, tasty and use readily available ingredients.

I can't vouch for the calories in these meals above, as I'm not a calorie counter. I simply believe in keeping food as fresh and unprocessed as possible and having control over what you put in your mouth.

In the aftermath of the bushfires

Today I had a chicken salad sandwich for lunch. It was the simplest sandwich imaginable - some chicken loaf and salad vegetables squashed between two slices of fresh white bread - but it was significant, because this sandwich came from a shop in Kinglake.

Kinglake and Marysville were two of the towns hardest hit by the horrific bushfires of Black Saturday, 7 February that swept across large parts of Victoria. Kinglake suffered widespread property losses and at least 45 people were killed by the inferno that raged through. Roads into the area were only re-opened two weeks ago and, since then, people have been urged to visit these towns to help support local businesses (but to also show respect for the locals who have suffered such a terrible tragedy).

We did not initially plan to visit Kinglake, as I felt uneasy about intruding into a town where the grief is still so raw. But Adam and his friend Michael undertook a gruelling bike ride from Newport to St Andrews and, when Michael's wife Angela and I arrived with the children for an early lunch, we decided it would be better to spend our money supporting Kinglake.

Images of burnt-out homes and charred forest were broadcast and published everywhere in the aftermath of Black Saturday but it is still far more confronting to witness the devastation in real life. St Andrews is less than 10km from Kinglake but the scenery was from another world. A narrow road twists around the hills, offering sweeping views over the nearby valleys. I've never travelled this road before and imagine that it would have offered heart-stoppingly beautiful views. Now, however, it looks like Armageddon, with the hills covered in rows of thin black trees that look like stubble protruding up from a giant head. The road signs are dazzlingly shiny and new and bright white fence posts steer motorists away from the unstable edges of the road. A couple of the old road signs, melted and jagged, stand testament to the intense heat.

Kinglake itself was surprisingly busy, with many motorcyclists and cyclists thronging in the main street. The bakery was extremely busy and we stopped at another cafe, which reopened today for the first time since the fires. The sandwiches were simple fare but we were glad to have them and the volunteer staff were pleased to have customers to serve. We sat outside to eat and pondered the unpredictability of bushfires: just a few metres across the street was the burnt-out petrol station, now a pile of twisted metal and grey rubble.

Rather than going back to St Andrews, we headed out of Kinglake, through Kinglake West and into Whittlesea. The devastation continued along this road. Solid homes have been reduced to small piles of ashes, rubble, blackened bricks and twisted corrugated iron. Amid the scorched earth and black trees are paddocks of green grass, which looks shockingly bright amidst the barrenness. Many of the trees still have their leaves, which are an almost autumnal shade of red-brown, until up close you can see that they are crackly-dry.

The scars of 7 February will take a long time to heal - if they ever do fully heal - but one of the best things to happen in the aftermath of the fires was the way the community rallied to help towns such as Kinglake and Marysville. I hope we will continue to help them as they rebuild.