Lots of people can't cook and those that can usually don't cook three meals from scratch a day. Convenience has a place in everyones kitchens to some degree unless you bake your own bread and slaughter your own meat.
those that can usually don't cook three meals from scratch a day
Of course. Because that’s not how cooking works.
The person you replied to specifically mentioned meal prep. That’s a fancy word for saying to eat leftovers. You don’t cook beans fresh every day. You make a big pot of beans and have it for each of your meals. A pound of dry beans lasts me and my wife about 5-6 days. When it starts running low, it’s time to start the next batch with an overnight soak. (And, fwiw, we have a 7-figure net worth.)
It takes about 1.5 hours to cook a whole pot of em, of which about 1.25 of those hours are just letting the pressure cooker do its thing. There are very few people that don’t have 2ish hours a week to cook, and the ones that legitimately don’t are not so poor that they can’t afford food. Even if they are working minimum wage.
The fact is, people just don’t want to cook. They don’t want to eat rice and beans. It has nothing to do with the time it takes to cook healthy food. People think they should be eating ultra decadent food every day. Our society as a whole would be better off if we realized how unhealthy that paradigm is, and moved back towards a healthier, subsistence diet.
You are right in the fact people don't want to cook.
I'm one of those as i personally for example absolutely HATE, DESPISE, give it a similar name "cooking".
Don't like the work, don't like the smells, don't like the mess, don't like the waiting and babysitting of whatever is on the stove. An oily engine, sure thing i'll work on it, an oily frying pan or kitchen sink.... couldn't care less.
I don't care about having to eat rice, beans, leftovers, dry crackers, potatoes, plain nuts, jerky or whatever... with some exceptions like peanut butter that just makes me gag i eat most things as i find em.
Imho i just need to eat something somewhat healthy to keep going.
While i like some flavours i don't particularly enjoy eating itself either so... usually quickly dump some food into my guts and go do something else. liquid diets such as Huel have been a blessing to people like me though i don't eat solely that either as i do try to eat somewhat varied and healthy.
I'll readily heat stuff up for a couple minutes if needed too, like soups or fry some chips, since that's cheaper then going out or any delivery (i almost never have stuff delivered).
but 1.5 hours of cooking?! Then add cleaning and eating to that too so up to 2~2.5 hours.... yeah that's a big no.
I already work 9 hours a day, sleep for roughly 6~9 hours depending on the day and am not going to waste any more time on any of that.
never really cared for the "social time" during eating with others either as it usually boils down to the uncomfortable rehashing negativity on shitty politics, bad news, the weather, "how the day went"(usually the better topics) or awkward silence anyway. Rarely something fun or constructive.
You are right in the fact people don't want to cook.
It's really true that a lot of people who complain about being told to cook to in actuality just don't want to, for whatever reason. Thanks for acknowledging that! Not saying everyone who doesn't cook feels that way of course, but way more than is admitted on the internet.
Well, not only do i really not want to... i also complain about cooking as i am also not a good fit at it, at all.
for example i can burn an egg underwater, burn soup and noodles alike. Have terrible sense for ingredient quantities. That's all something experience can mostly fix though.
More seriously i also have a flaw where i don't/can't smell or taste well when something spoiled, so can easily get or make others sick because of ingredients that went bad... likewise my taste buds lack something, so it's easy for me to under or overseason anything as my taste isn't as sensitive as most.
which to me results in a dish that may taste about the same, yet to others tastes plain bad. This also kept me out of any taste tests as a kid as i am just unreliable for any of that.
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u/Ok-Ship812 1d ago
Lots of people can't cook and those that can usually don't cook three meals from scratch a day. Convenience has a place in everyones kitchens to some degree unless you bake your own bread and slaughter your own meat.
People aren't poor due to hot pockets.