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>, but in my experience most people prefer these foods because they think it's more convenient. [...] Everyone should learn how to cook some boring, staple meal
by jasode 6y ago
>, but in my experience most people prefer these foods because they think it's more convenient. [...] Everyone should learn how to cook some boring, staple meals using basic ingredients from the store. It's amazing how many people don't know how easy and cheap it can be to prepare simple crock pot or stir-fry meals that are healthy and delicious.
I'm a strict health food eater but I have to be realistic and concede that preparing healthy meals is more work.
For example, I have a green smoothie drink made from raw vegetables every day for breakfast for more than 10 years. I'm pretty efficient at it but it still takes more work (and time) than just putting an unhealthy Pop Tart in the toaster.
And my dinners of lentil soup or tofu are more prep work than tossing a frozen pizza into the oven. I have a diabetic friend who often "cheats" with junk food (McDonald's burger) because cooking supposedly "simple" healthy meals is still too much of a hassle even for him.
Yes, cooking healthy may be "easy" but it's still more work than junk food. Convenience junk foods are just... more convenient.
- jeromenerf 6y agoI totally agree. As I was until recently working in a food startup, producing "ready to cook" products (organic fair trade delicious mixes of grain, dried vegetables and spices), I can testify of a strong society injonction towards healthier food AND at the same time a rejection of this pressure.
- jriot 6y agoCooking in general is time consuming. You and I appear to eat vastly differently, yet we both make our own food from scratch. For breakfast I eat 10oz whole milk, 2 - 3 strips of bacon, 2 - 3 eggs, and grits with butter (at time I'll have potatoes or toast depending). Our other other meals will include roasted vegetables, potatoes and meat. Preparing each meal everyday is time consuming but I view as the best investment in my family's life. We rarely get sick, if so its a day cold when the weather changes. We sleep a solid 8 hours a day, and only go to the for our yearly health check-ups. We also highly naturally so this factors into it. Now I do live in Louisiana and Mardi Gras is right around the corner which means King Cake. Is this healthy for me? No, not at all. But it's once a year and we buy them from the local bakeries, where each bakery has their own recipe. Does this it make anymore healthy? Probably not, but they are good.
- selimthegrim 6y agoAre you a Randazzo’s devotee? Also curious about data science prospects in the area or remote, tbh
- jriot 6y agoRandazzo's is currently my favorite! Though I pre-ordered a Dong Phong's this morning as I was unable to get one last year. Local Data Science prospects are low to non-existent. I work remotely and remote prior to Covid. Companies reach out and don't seemed concerned about my location so I don't foresee being remote an issue.
- vram22 6y agoYou seem to have missed some words in your second paragraph. What were they? One, I guess, is doctor.
- jriot 6y agoAh, sorry about that. Edit - Preparing each meal everyday is time consuming but I view it as the best investment in my family's life. We rarely get sick, if so its a day (a cold) when the weather changes. We sleep a solid 8 hours a day, and only go to the doctor for our yearly health check-ups. We also highly active naturally so this factors into it.
- vram22 6y agoGot it, thanks.
- matheusmoreira 6y agoIt's extremely time consuming. It takes hours to properly cook meals for an entire family. That's time I'd rather spend doing something else since I don't really enjoy the process of cooking itself. There's also the time required to prepare the dining room, clean the dishes, shop for ingredients and supplies and more incredibly boring tasks that I'm probably forgetting. Doing this every single day is just so tiresome! Of course people would rather open an app and order some delicious fast food which arrives in about 20 minutes. It's not healthy but it wastes less time.
- ev1 6y agoDisappointingly, some people quite literally cannot cook - I don't have a stove. This is a lot more common[0] than one might think, and arguably hits the worst demographic for it - university students and fresh out of university students, where the only affordable place is $2-3k for barely a hundred square feet with a microwave and minifridge. There is a fair amount of places near tech companies where it's quite common that someone renting there pre-COVID would just have been getting meals catered at work or similar. [0] https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/rent-room-no-cooking-kitchen-law-habitability-13691981.php https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/rent-...
- senkora 6y agoDorms usually ban them, but for everyone else you can buy single induction burners relatively cheaply for cooking. Instant pots and similar products are another compact alternative. When I was a student, I did a fair amount of cooking in shared kitchens in dorms, mainly because I enjoyed it and it helped me relieve stress. My goto strategy was to pick an unpopular time (middle of the week during the day, ideally) and meal prep for 2-3 hours, then mix those meals in with restaurant/cafeteria meals for the next week. I was able to make that work reasonably well.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoGood strategy. Most people don’t know this but in San Francisco ferry market plaza whose first floor is full of restaurants, there is no gas connection. The code doesn’t allow for fire extinguishing infrastructure and the overhead foam sprayers etc. pretty much all of them have electric and semi prepped food made off site made in a commissary kitchen or at another restaurant branch. Restaurant code and permits are notoriously difficult and in San Francisco expensive ..a nightmare actually. If restaurants can do without a stove..cooking in a dorm is easy peasy.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoGet an airfryer and an instant pot. Neither one takes up much space on a countertop, and they are easy to clean and store. I hardly use my stove anymore unless I'm baking something.
- dcolkitt 6y ago> Yes, cooking healthy may be "easy" but it's still more work than junk food. One advantage of intermittent fasting is that it's much less burdensome to make a single, large healthy than it is to make three healthy meals plus snacks. (Though this can be a double-edge sword. If you wind up eating junk food, like pizza, for your large meal, then it becomes the equivalent of eating junk food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)
- UnFleshedOne 6y agoWho the hell makes 3 meals a day anyway? Unless you include reheating something prepared in bulk several days ago in that count?
- kazen44 6y agoalso, what consists of three meals? the way I learned to cook (and most people I know) is you get a couple of ingredients for a dinner, and use the leftovers for lunch/dinner the next day. breakfast usually consists of something simple like bread + cheese or a kind of meat. (some people don't even eat breakfast and just start the day with a coffee or a glass of water).
- ska 6y agoI typically do, although some dinners or lunches will have a component that is reheated (e.g., reheat some frozen braise from last weekend, but with fresh cooked veg and potatoes, say.) If I'm in a hurry, there are lots of things I can make in 30 min or less. More often if I'm busy I'll make something that doesn't require much interaction; e.g. 10-15 min prep and 60 nearly untouched in a 500 degree oven for a roast chicken with root veg in one pan. I do other things in that hour. Honestly, I've been doing this long enough I'm pretty efficient. I could save a little time buying more prepared food, but my meal quality would go way down so I don't mind. Shopping is pretty efficient too, as I mostly don't shop by recipe. To be fair though, I find cooking relaxing as a way to wind down after work, so sometimes I'll do something more involved just for the hell of it on a random Wednesday.
- mssundaram 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoIf you have an instant pot, air fryer, and a microwave you can cook a healthy meal in 15 minutes. That's what I do when I got home from work most days: cook some rice in the instant pot, chop up some meat and cook it in the air fryer, and steam some vegetables in the microwave. Sure, it's not as fast as heating up a burrito or something, but it's not that much longer either and once you've done it a few times you can just do it on auto-pilot.
- bonoboTP 6y agoI bet the same people who "don't have" 15 minutes to cook spend way more time scrolling Facebook or watching TV.
- inglor_cz 6y agoI wonder what is the effect of the widespread loneliness on the willingness and ability to cook. If you are two or a family, cooking for the others to enjoy is a pleasure. If someone lives alone, I can see why they rather eat something quick-and-dirty.
- vram22 6y agoThe effect is sure to be high.
- stanford_labrat 6y agoAnecdotal, but I am much more motivated to cook a nice meal when my partner is staying over. When I’m alone I find it easy to slip into grabbing fast food on the drive home from work.
- maccard 6y agoI love to cook, and cook for both me and my partner probably 5 nights of 7, but the moment she leaves for a night or a weekend it's takeout or ramen. Anecdotally, most of my couple friends have a similar dynamic.
- ummonk 6y agoThat's why I love Trader Joe's. It has the convenience of junk food but the ingredient lists actually look like something I'd prepare myself.
- Spearchucker 6y agoIf being healthy is too much work then I guess obesity wins. I cannot imagine eating fast foods. Cooking is cheaper, besides the healthy thing. It's also FUN. I mostly cook German stuff, some French, a little Chinese and a fair few BBQs in the summer. I have quick and easy things I make, and more elaborate stuff that tastes unlike anything you can buy ready-made. I shop at local markets where you get to know the farmers, smallholders who sell what they grow. Food is way too important to me to not put the effort into it that I do. Lastly, I'm not a health nut. I don't go to the gym. I see my GP once a year and age usually tells me to try get more sunlight in the winter but otherwise gives me a clean bill of health. I'm approaching 50 and sleep 8 hours most nights.
- sg47 6y agoCan you share your green smoothie drink recipe?
- jasode 6y agoMy greenie is not the sweet kind and very simple. The 2 bulk ingredients are kale and tomato. To save time, you can use canned tomatoes (half can of diced tomatoes). Then add for flavor... basil, olive oil, lemon/lime juice. I sometimes add spoonfuls of ground flax seed and hemp. The purpose of olive oil is to add some fat to satiate the appetite and also give it a buttery flavor. The purpose of lemon/lime juice is to mask the bitterness of raw greens. If you prefer sweet smoothies, there are lots of youtube videos showing recipes with bananas/apples/blueberries/cherries/yogurt, etc. EDIT ADD: you can try spinach instead of kale or mix kale+spinach. To add even more flavor, you can try sun-dried tomatoes (in jar of oil) but that ingredient makes it more expensive to drink every day.
- sg47 6y agoI'm actually trying to avoid sweet smoothies. So you just add kale, tomato and other ingredients you mentioned? I'm just worried if that much kale will bother my stomach. I'll give it a shot though. Seems like a great breakfast.
- car 6y agoThe “How Not to Die” cookbook also has some good smoothie recipies.
- mssundaram 6y agoMy go to meal when I don't have much time is lentils and frozen broccoli. I put 180g red lentils in my pressure cooker with 500ml water and 400g frozen broccoli. Done in about 10 minutes. Very filling, tasty and healthy. I usually eat it with rice. Add whatever spice you like but I recommend turmeric, cumin, cayenne, mustard seed, and black pepper. But it also tastes good with just salt!