5 ms·

Yeah, I'm not American. I've heard something like your last paragraph there a lot. I don't really understand cooking as something that takes a lot of skill or

Yeah, I'm not American. I've heard something like your last paragraph there a lot. I don't really understand cooking as something that takes a lot of skill or time. I just made a stew whilst chatting on here, it took less than 10 mins and you just throw things in a pot. Hell, if I had a McDonalds or whatever _next door_ it would take me more than 10 mins to get food from there. What it does require is some level of capital investment - you need pots and pans, a hob, a stable place to store that stuff, etc. Which is a barrier. The whole "Americans can't cook" thing just seems like a silly joke to me though. It's not like other countries don't have that sort of person. They'd figure it out if you took away their microwave bullshit, they're not gonna starve and die. And of course, this is all tangential to the issue of straws. There we're talking about opening a tap and putting a cup under it. Or a bottle if you have no running water.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
My parents bought a house when I was three. When I was 18, my father asked me how to turn on the oven in this house we had lived in for 15 years. My dad was very old fashioned and never learned to cook. My oldest son found cooking scarily intimidating, though he did eventually learn to cook. My mother is German and she cooked up a storm, plus sewed and knitted and crocheted. I'm actually one of the least domestic ladies of my extended family. I don't really like cooking and I never learned to sew or crochet or knit or quilt. I feel like some terrible failure of a woman in the eyes of my relatives, but Americans often seem to think I'm some kind of domestic goddess because I stayed home with my children, I cooked dinner most nights and we didn't live in squalor. My oldest son was saying to me just recently that he thinks something went very wrong somewhere in the world that we don't know how to teach people to cook. Maybe it's some weird American thing. I wrote a smidgen about him learning to cook here: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ I'm actually planning to start a blog about feeding yourself well because this seems like such a big issue for so many people.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Heh. Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. I know it's a thing - I have old friends with extended families that are like this. I'm pretty sure it is a weird American thing. It doesn't help that you guys have seemingly super cheap fast food. One thing that might be interesting to look at is - if fast food just disappeared tomorrow - imagine every restaurant below say $15 a head just was gone overnight, microwave meals disappear, etc - would there even be enough food? Would the local supermarkets have enough or would there have to be an adjustment period?
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Are you redirecting all the ingredient shipments from the restaurants and factories to the grocery stores? If yes then the supply side of things is perfectly fine. Stores shelves might be low for a few days from the rush, but that will be over very quickly. All the interesting stuff is out of scope. If no then I don't think the scenerio says anything useful about the places people eat. You're just deleting a chunk of the food supply, and you would cause similar problems no matter what random chunk you deleted. Even if it wasn't particularly big. So the scenario tells you nothing about whether any kinds of food are too popular. It just says that a sudden cut to the food supply is bad.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      I'm more thinking about the whole thing Americans talk about with 'food deserts' - e.g. are there people surviving on fast food that are really too far away from a real grocery shop to buy supplies - you can't build shops overnight. How many people don't have a stove i.e. they're effectively homeless if not literally on the street? Stuff like that. I have no idea. It'd definitely be alright in the UK but the way I see Americans go on about this stuff on here makes it seem as if McDonalds is critical infra.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        The US and UK have similar rates of obesity* and fast food availability, as far as I can tell. *The US is noticeably higher overall, but there are about 13 US states including NY and California with lower averages than the UK.
pjc50 7y ago
Specifically in the context of disabled people, it may not be as easy as you claim at all. Arthritis can make the holding and cutting of things extremely difficult. If it's hard for someone to stand, it's hard for them to stand at a stove. And so on. > There we're talking about opening a tap and putting a cup under it Requires a minimum grip strength and coordination.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Oh, sure, of course.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

My parents bought a house when I was three. When I was 18, my father asked me how to turn on the oven in this house we had lived in for 15 years. My dad was very old fashioned and never learned to cook. My oldest son found cooking scarily intimidating, though he did eventually learn to cook. My mother is German and she cooked up a storm, plus sewed and knitted and crocheted. I'm actually one of the least domestic ladies of my extended family. I don't really like cooking and I never learned to sew or crochet or knit or quilt. I feel like some terrible failure of a woman in the eyes of my relatives, but Americans often seem to think I'm some kind of domestic goddess because I stayed home with my children, I cooked dinner most nights and we didn't live in squalor. My oldest son was saying to me just recently that he thinks something went very wrong somewhere in the world that we don't know how to teach people to cook. Maybe it's some weird American thing. I wrote a smidgen about him learning to cook here: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ I'm actually planning to start a blog about feeding yourself well because this seems like such a big issue for so many people.

esotericn 7y ago
Heh. Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. I know it's a thing - I have old friends with extended families that are like this. I'm pretty sure it is a weird American thing. It doesn't help that you guys have seemingly super cheap fast food. One thing that might be interesting to look at is - if fast food just disappeared tomorrow - imagine every restaurant below say $15 a head just was gone overnight, microwave meals disappear, etc - would there even be enough food? Would the local supermarkets have enough or would there have to be an adjustment period?
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Are you redirecting all the ingredient shipments from the restaurants and factories to the grocery stores? If yes then the supply side of things is perfectly fine. Stores shelves might be low for a few days from the rush, but that will be over very quickly. All the interesting stuff is out of scope. If no then I don't think the scenerio says anything useful about the places people eat. You're just deleting a chunk of the food supply, and you would cause similar problems no matter what random chunk you deleted. Even if it wasn't particularly big. So the scenario tells you nothing about whether any kinds of food are too popular. It just says that a sudden cut to the food supply is bad.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    I'm more thinking about the whole thing Americans talk about with 'food deserts' - e.g. are there people surviving on fast food that are really too far away from a real grocery shop to buy supplies - you can't build shops overnight. How many people don't have a stove i.e. they're effectively homeless if not literally on the street? Stuff like that. I have no idea. It'd definitely be alright in the UK but the way I see Americans go on about this stuff on here makes it seem as if McDonalds is critical infra.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      The US and UK have similar rates of obesity* and fast food availability, as far as I can tell. *The US is noticeably higher overall, but there are about 13 US states including NY and California with lower averages than the UK.

pjc50 7y ago

Specifically in the context of disabled people, it may not be as easy as you claim at all. Arthritis can make the holding and cutting of things extremely difficult. If it's hard for someone to stand, it's hard for them to stand at a stove. And so on. > There we're talking about opening a tap and putting a cup under it Requires a minimum grip strength and coordination.

esotericn 7y ago
Oh, sure, of course.