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Where do you live? I am in Vermont. There is an abundance of farm stands and greenhouses nearby, and my food budget is lower than when I frequented supermarkets

Where do you live? I am in Vermont. There is an abundance of farm stands and greenhouses nearby, and my food budget is lower than when I frequented supermarkets. I can buy 30lbs of fresh veggies for $20. It does cost considerably more time to prepare and cook fresh food. But I enjoy cooking, so it isn't much of a chore for me.

coldtea 10y ago
>Where do you live? I am in Vermont. There is an abundance of farm stands and greenhouses nearby, and my food budget is lower than when I frequented supermarkets. I can buy 30lbs of fresh veggies for $20. It does cost considerably more time to prepare and cook fresh food. But I enjoy cooking, so it isn't much of a chore for me. This already makes eating healthy costlier (if, of course, we don't count medical costs from not eating healthy), as this "considerable more time" is an opportunity cost.
- candu 10y ago
  True, but then you also have to counterbalance that cost with the value of the skills gained by preparing food. It's really, really difficult to evaluate this value, but it does exist, much as if you spent that same time learning to do basic home repairs, vehicle maintenance, woodworking, etc.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > as this "considerable more time" is an opportunity cost. We have been restricting cost in this discussion to monetary cost, not opportunity cost. Why bring in this separate definition just to muddy the waters, when in the parent comments we're just talking about dollars and cents?
- endless1234 10y ago
  If you count "lost time" as an opportunity cost, IMO you should also count "lost health".
- VLM 10y ago
  Op claims to like cooking; hobbies inherently don't have opportunity costs. Cooking is a rare hobby where the result of the recreation displaces a cost. I've never made anything in my carpentry shop or electronic lab that I couldn't live without or I'd just have to pay someone else to do, those hobbies are 100% financial loss, whereas every meal a hobbyist makes displaces filler material they'd have to have otherwise purchased from someone, and often enough the financial loss of the cooking hobby is negative, or rephrased a net financial gain.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Op claims to like cooking; hobbies inherently don't have opportunity costs. Hobbies, like everything else, have opportunity costs attached, which even applies just between hobbies (e.g. practicing your X more happens to the detriment of Y, your other hobby), but obviously also between hobbies and work or other lifestyle choices. There are tons of people whose hobbies have run afoul of their work, or family relations, or health, etc, as the effort, time, etc, for doing a hobby could apply to any of those other things.
CJefferson 10y ago
I often don't have the time to prepare and cook from scratch. I feel a good rule (I should have said this in my original post) is : "cheap, tasty, healthy, fast" -- pick at most 3. At the moment I alternate between dumping 'cheap' and 'tasty' most of the time, with the occasional 'fast' when I have the time.

coldtea 10y ago

>Where do you live? I am in Vermont. There is an abundance of farm stands and greenhouses nearby, and my food budget is lower than when I frequented supermarkets. I can buy 30lbs of fresh veggies for $20. It does cost considerably more time to prepare and cook fresh food. But I enjoy cooking, so it isn't much of a chore for me. This already makes eating healthy costlier (if, of course, we don't count medical costs from not eating healthy), as this "considerable more time" is an opportunity cost.

candu 10y ago
True, but then you also have to counterbalance that cost with the value of the skills gained by preparing food. It's really, really difficult to evaluate this value, but it does exist, much as if you spent that same time learning to do basic home repairs, vehicle maintenance, woodworking, etc.
jimmywanger 10y ago
> as this "considerable more time" is an opportunity cost. We have been restricting cost in this discussion to monetary cost, not opportunity cost. Why bring in this separate definition just to muddy the waters, when in the parent comments we're just talking about dollars and cents?
endless1234 10y ago
If you count "lost time" as an opportunity cost, IMO you should also count "lost health".
VLM 10y ago
Op claims to like cooking; hobbies inherently don't have opportunity costs. Cooking is a rare hobby where the result of the recreation displaces a cost. I've never made anything in my carpentry shop or electronic lab that I couldn't live without or I'd just have to pay someone else to do, those hobbies are 100% financial loss, whereas every meal a hobbyist makes displaces filler material they'd have to have otherwise purchased from someone, and often enough the financial loss of the cooking hobby is negative, or rephrased a net financial gain.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Op claims to like cooking; hobbies inherently don't have opportunity costs. Hobbies, like everything else, have opportunity costs attached, which even applies just between hobbies (e.g. practicing your X more happens to the detriment of Y, your other hobby), but obviously also between hobbies and work or other lifestyle choices. There are tons of people whose hobbies have run afoul of their work, or family relations, or health, etc, as the effort, time, etc, for doing a hobby could apply to any of those other things.

CJefferson 10y ago

I often don't have the time to prepare and cook from scratch. I feel a good rule (I should have said this in my original post) is : "cheap, tasty, healthy, fast" -- pick at most 3. At the moment I alternate between dumping 'cheap' and 'tasty' most of the time, with the occasional 'fast' when I have the time.