Food is not just fuel. Your body is not a hairy SUV. Your kitchen is not a gas station.

There was a time when we knew this. Meals were not eaten off dashboards. Or over the sink. Food was prepared, not processed. Meals brought people together (in front of the TV doesn't count), nourishing the body and community.

And though our lives were more physically demanding, we somehow managed to plow fields, fight wars and settle the West without energy bars and meal replacement shakes.

Somewhere we went astray.

Which isn't to romanticize bygones. We had more respect for food, but far less for women (thinking nothing of tethering them to the home) and hunger hobbled huge swaths of the population.

Modernization of our culture and food supply system changed that. Women were freed and we learned to make more food faster and cheaper.

Trouble is, before long a little faster, a little cheaper and a little easier were too little.

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Now heat-and-eat food is too slow. If we can't nuke it, we won't eat it. Meals are optional; that's what vitamin waters and nutrient bars are for. And families who eat together are rare enough to be worthy of anthropological study.

Riding this wave of faster, faster, faster food? Food TV. People like Rachael Ray and the army of copycats who preach the less-is-best gospel when it comes to effort and energy spent on food.

It's sad when 30-minutes is too long. Yet stores are jammed with cookbooks offering 5- and 10-minute meals.

We're all busy. Arguably, far busier than previous generations. And we're asked to multitask more, balance more conflicting demands, be in more places and be proficient at more tasks.

And to do all that, something has to give. But why food? Why not our television addiction? Or Junior's fifth soccer practice of the week? Or the hours spent manicuring lawns?

We could find more time to treat food with the respect it deserves; we simply don't. And that's because we've confused food with fuel. Food does fuel us, but it also nourishes us. They aren't synonyms.

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Hunger isn't a low gas tank that needs to be filled with calories. It's a signal to stop, rest and eat. Eat real food. Enjoy real food. And enjoy it with people. That is an essential rhythm that has defined human culture for centuries.

And we wonder at broken families. At skyrocketing obesity rates. At chronic disease.

Making and eating meals with family and friends won't cure cancer. But it will connect you to people. It will satiate hungers deeper than physical. And we've forgotten how vital that is to the health of our bodies, relationships and communities.

And that's why food television — even Ray and her minions — may yet save us from a dangerous path.

Spending 30 — or even five or 10 minutes — in the kitchen is more than most people commit now. But folks like Ray are phenomenally successful at persuading people to do just that. And it shows.

Houses are being designed around kitchens, returning them to the focus of the home. People are excited about food, watching it on television, reading about it in magazines and cookbooks, even listening to Martha talk about it on the radio.

After two generations (X and Y) of letting food wisdom slip from the collective consciousness, people are again embracing food. It's a young movement and we're unlikely to ever see people spend the hours in the kitchen our great-grandmothers did.

But that's OK. It's an important step toward giving food its due. Toward respecting it and what it does for our bodies and communities. And if food television and its 30-second meals can help us get there... Godspeed.

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asap columnist J.M. Hirsch covers food, diet and nutrition for the AP. E-mail him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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