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Time for me is by far the limiting factor. Short of a personal chef (too expensive) all the quick options are unhealthy. Edit: Loads of people suggesting cook

Time for me is by far the limiting factor. Short of a personal chef (too expensive) all the quick options are unhealthy. Edit: Loads of people suggesting cooking - I know how to cook, I just don’t have the time or energy. It’s not just preparation time but also the planning aspect. Meal prep delivery services suggestions are interesting. I have tried a few and found them expensive and low quality. Open to trying more though. Sunday meal prep: I did this as a student but I love food and I love deciding what to eat on the day. Going back to that would remove some of the joy from life. I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public. The economies of scale could make this price competitive and there’s less delivery overhead than the meal prep subscriptions. I like the social aspect too. I would definitely pay a subscription to a canteen. I think this is how Roman cities operated.

5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
'All' is a bit of a stretch. I have a relatively healthy diet, and food preparation time is a non-issue. If you're fine with simple dishes (like chopping up vegetables in a simple salad and eating them raw), it doesn't take more than 20 minutes per day total. Growing up poor in the middle of nowhere helps here.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  To add to this, preparing food for several days in advance is absolutely essential to eating healthy food regularly
growwrkr6 4y ago
Perhaps you should slow down. Adam Smith warned of extreme division of labor making for humans dumber than the dumbest animal (paraphrasing). Sticking with one career forever is an outdated story; king says someone is farmer, that’s just how it is! It would be costly to upend history, they say. Having worked in a kitchen, built houses from foundation up, helped deliver livestock, started in tech designing power switching equipment, coding professional now since 2006; having built muscle memory for numerous “professions” comes along with living in “flow state.” I can manage structured tasks across contexts without planning, without wincing at the difficulty or time being a factor; I can make way better than packaged or fast food faster than it can be picked up or delivered. Taking time to boot strap the habit pays off in time savings down the road.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
If you have the disposable income, you can dispose of it as you please of course. But still, there are ways to get good food prepared quickly as well. All you need is a pantry stocked with the essentials and some basic knowledge. Mostly the issue isn't necessarily time but giving into your cravings. Junk food is designed for that. People buy junk food because they like eating it and crave it. Even if the experience isn't great, the craving still drives them to eat it. Ever felt disappointed after eating at a burger chain? That's what happened. You craved something and the marketing triggered you enough to buy a burger or whatever. In the end the food is greasy, salty, not really hot, and doesn't have a whole lot of flavor. And you munch it down and forget about it. And particularly when people have worked a long day and just want to stuff food into their mouths. For me, going to a supermarket at the end of a working day generally leads to really bad decision making. And I actually know how to cook some food. A good way to get into cooking is to make your own junk food but do it better. This is super easy because most junk food is absolutely terrible. If you like burgers, get some meat and make some of your own. It's hard to do worse than good old McDonald's. That stuff is just really nasty. Use that as a benchmark and strive to do better. You can't fail. Burgers are a great example because this is historically how people made the most of their cheap and off cuts of meat. So, again, great if you are on a budget.
- tedajax 4y ago
  I enjoy cooking but it's pretty silly to suggest everyone do it. Beyond the time commitment there's also equipment and space concerns and also some people just aren't good at it.
  - leetcrew 4y ago
    it's not silly; you can't take ownership of your own health without having at least basic cooking skills. the "time commitment" is just another BS excuse. there are plenty of recipes that can be prepped, cooked, and served in the time it takes to order and pickup takeout. there are tons of youtube videos on this exact topic. search "but faster". the equipment and space concerns I'll give you. there are some people who literally don't own a functioning heat source. that's a non-starter. but if, like most americans, you do have a functioning oven/stove, you can made a wide range of tasty and healthy meals by adding just a couple cheap items to your collection. to get started, you just need a knife, cutting surface, and a sheetpan. cut things up, add a light drizzle of oil, and roast them in the oven. takes a couple minutes of prep followed by 20-30 minutes of doing something else while it cooks. bonus: add a meat thermometer to safely cook meats. or alternatively, try all the same combinations of meats, starches, and vegetables in a skillet if you want to put in a little more active time to get a finished meal faster.
phpisthebest 4y ago
I have been doing meal prep sunday for a few years, I found several recipes that keep well in the freezer and heat up pretty well. Also modern cooking styles like Air Fryers, and Water Bath (sous vide) can also help some with the timing. As these are often ways to cook with out having to actively monitor the cooking like you would using pans and skillets On the weekend I will prep most of my meals even if I do not cook them right then, then through out the week I drop something in the sous vide, air fyer or if it already cooked the micro.
0daystock 4y ago
This is the real reason people have unhealthy habits, especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up after a healthy home-meal made from scratch and made with care. For better or worse, past social norms dedicated an individual (usually the mother) to stay home and tend to these tasks, but now most households have the entire family working to make ends meet and in turn externalize food production (and many other "homestead-y" operations) to companies, which are not motivated by our well-being.
- devchix 4y ago
  > especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up Absolutely! You can't just buy a slab of chicken breast, it needs to be trimmed and put away until ready to be used. Hardest of all: planning, what to do with it, what else goes with it. Pointless to buy broccoli and kale if you don't know what makes it tastes good, and when the inspiration strikes you, there's an ugly head of broccoli you need to cut up, and a bunch of unwashed kale you need to trim. 80% of cooking is peeling, cutting, dicing, shredding, skimming, straining, pounding, deboning, deveining, and waiting. All unglamorous, time-consuming, boring, manual labor. You need to speed this up to gain efficiency. Technical and planning skills gets you probably 50% efficiency. Cooking food is labor intensive and it appears to me all attempts to commercially scale is failing.
  - csydas 4y ago
    I disagree at large, but give exception to at least the US due to how cities are built. I am not a chef by any means or even a cook, but I learned how to cook in University due to being unbelievably poor and got tired of "low budget fast meals". Quotes because I don't think that the meals that fall into this category are at all better than their "proper" counter parts. Prepping a quick pasta with béchamel does not take long at all, and with a common pot and pan from Ikea or even Target or Walmart and a fork and knife, you have all you need. Prepping a quick pizza by hand, some general Wok style cuisine, etc, it's all quite fast once you learn a few things about how to prepare food. I'm sure it's cliche, but watching Good Eats with Alton Brown a few times helped me understand why certain combinations work and gave me the confidence to understand how to make different things match. In particular, watching his episodes on knife skills helped me understand how to speed up a lot of prepping (an unabashed advertisement for Shun from Alton, but let's ignore that part) [0] When I was still in the US, long and laborious kitchen exercises were glorified; the longer and more putzy the recipe, the more most people I know fawned over the idea of the meal, but I'm here to tell you that taking the time just to understand the basics of cooking, you don't need the blogpost 2 hour narrative story for cooking, it's very basic chemistry at its best. Some meals have unavoidable time and complications, and that's fine, but you can make very tasty, very healthy meals quite fast while listening to your favorite show or some music or even just enjoying the silence of the kitchen and the sound of the cooking. > You can't just buy a slab of chicken breast, it needs to be trimmed and put away until ready to be used. Hardest of all: planning, what to do with it, what else goes with it. Absolutely not true IMO, but I get where you might have this if you don't have a more European style city to live in. I do not pretend to guess where you are from, but usually I heard and hear this from people I know still in the US, and it's distinctly because of how US cities are built. In Europe and in quite a few Asian countries, proper grocers are a dime a dozen and every couple hundred meters. I stock the basics (flour, salt, spices, other grains, and some slow-perishing sauces like tomato paste) and buy perishables on the way home since there's a fully stocked market no bigger than a chinese takeout shop at the base of my apartment or < 200 meters from it. The meat and produce I get are used immediately or over the next day for another meal, and it's very nice. Half of my lunch break for work is cooking, the second half eating a freshly cooked meal. I really feel that there is a bit of a cult around cooking that wants to overcomplicate the process because complex == classy, and I need to stress that when you're first starting, it is going to be slower because you haven't developed your technique. It's the same reason you'll probably fall a lot when first learning to ice skate or why you'll sound like a drunk playing a guitar when you first learn. The good news is that even if the end result of your first few meals is ugly, likely it still tastes pretty good. The time is very relative -- I'm monitoring a global market so I have 10+ hour days almost every day depending on how bad certain situations get, but I made cooking part of my skillset because I didn't want to be indebted always to food delivery. It absolutely is possible even for a family without a dedicated cook, and I think the first step most people need is admitting that it's not the time sink they make it out to be. Once you get a few basics, you are some sort of wizard to most people. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZFVjrlTo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZFVjrlTo8
sebmellen 4y ago
I would highly recommend https://factor75.com https://factor75.com. A bit pricey, but the food is worth it.
- shagie 4y ago
  (I've subscribed to Factor75 and am generally pleased with them) Yes, the food seems a bit pricy... until I head out and eat at a restaurant. Its certainly more costly than raw ingredients and making it yourself - but in terms of "the cost vs eating out" it is rather competitive. I'm also become a fan of Tovala ( https://www.tovala.com https://www.tovala.com ). Their thing is that its a "smart toaster oven" which scans a barcode or QR code and can do a complex set of instructions at programmed times. The oven is substantially discounted, the menu is competitive with other prepared meals but its cooked rather than microwaved which provides a different set of food options. The preparation is "cut bag into aluminum tin" and "add sauce or seasoning". You then scan the QR code on the recipe and it does its thing for 15 to 20 minutes. I don't live where Amazon has this as an option, but https://www.amazon.com/fmc/m/20190165?almBrandId=QW1hem9uIEZyZXNo https://www.amazon.com/fmc/m/20190165?almBrandId=QW1hem9uIEZ... is something to look at too. The primary advantage for me with both Factor and Tovala is that they have single serving sizes. Blue Apron appears to have added microwave meals to its menu... but its not quite the range of Factor and its non-microwave is still 2 or 4 with more meal prep than Tovala. Also check out https://www.reddit.com/r/ReadyMeals/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ReadyMeals/ for various reviews.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > I'm also become a fan of Tovala ( https://www.tovala.com https://www.tovala.com ). Their thing is that its a "smart toaster oven" which scans a barcode or QR code and can do a complex set of instructions at programmed times. Looks interesting, but for some unfathomable reason it requires WiFi access. So I assume it never disconnects and builds a giant database of everything you've ever cooked.
    - shagie 4y ago
      > So I assume it never disconnects and builds a giant database of everything you've ever cooked. Possibly - and in today's world I'd even go with "probably." The "scan a UPC and get the 'how to cook'" needs some external access. I haven't decoded the QR code to determine if the recipe instructions is encoded in there, or if that's a lookup - I suspect its encoded rather than a lookup (and the QR code based meals appear to work without wifi). The database, however, would only be useful/of the UPCs and raw ingredient based that you scan rather than the meal plan since with a meal subscription service, they've already got that data. And as a regular toaster oven, doing "bake 375°" isn't leaking any data about what you are eating.
midhhhthrow 4y ago
So eat a diet of mostly fruit (comes premAde from nature) and boiled potatoes. It’ll e x10 more healthy than the alternative nd save time
bushbaba 4y ago
Meal Prep and Cooking can be a huge time sink, but it doesn't need to be. At the most basic level a meal kit service will save you substantial time. Or just get a list of recipes you like and stick to them. Sure less meal diversity, but you can optimize your meals. For me it's generic salad (Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Dressing, Cheese, Seeds), Rice Dish (Chicken, Beef, etc + Frozen Veggies), Smoothies w/Frozen Veggie and Fruit, ..etc.
layer8 4y ago
I’m lazy and try to minimize food preparation time, and I don’t find it difficult. I don’t know how you define healthy, but I often just fry some steak or piece of fish in the pan with a side of frozen ready-made pre-seasoned vegetables in the microwave. It takes like ten minutes. Or a curry using a good curry paste with coconut milk and vegetables and/or meat, optionally some rice from the rice cooker, doesn’t take more than 20 minutes actual preparation time.
devchix 4y ago
>I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public I think what I want is an ordinary, a set meal at a local tavern "ordained" at a time and price. I think restaurants evolved to serve a variety of dishes, where the ordinary (sometimes a bed and board place) served only one meal, but different meals on different days. I'd buy a subscription to a canteen style Bouchon, one meal a day, 30 different meals in a month, community table, water or BYOB.
- progman32 4y ago
  By far the aspect of college life (USA) that I miss the most is this. The communal meal tables and optional community canteen subscription. I wish these kind of establishments were common across the USA.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Here in Spain this is a bit of a thing. You can get a three course meal for a fixed price of around 12 euro. Usually about 3-4 choices for each course that change each day. Pretty much every restaurant does this. Problem is it's only for lunch time and eating the big meal of the day at lunch doesn't work for me :( I end up being hungry at night and having 2 big meals. Whereas a small lunch doesn't bother me.
atmartins 4y ago
Here me out: this sounds like an excuse. If you really want to solve it you could. I did. I use a wok to cook and it's faster than going to McDonalds. It's slower than a frozen meal but not by much. I don't aim for perfection, rather, most of my meals I try and make healthy. I still love bacon. In less than 10 minutes you can chop celery, broccoli, tofu, chicken, etc. If it takes longer then solve that problem: better knife, cutting board always handy? Chop faster, fingertips aren't that important. Turn the wok up to 10,000 degrees and put a little avocado oil in there, throw it all in and stir. Put some low sodium soy sauce and monkfruit sweetener (if you want no sugar, otherwise brown sugar) and a little cornstarch+water too thicken. Ginger, whatever. Anyway, you can make tons of variants of this dish. Curry, yakisoba, subgum chow mein. Almost all will be 90% vegetables. Do some rice or noodles with them. Then solve salads. They are fast, easy, and can be delicious if you chop stuff up small and put a lot of variety. Keep trying different things. Watch YouTube videos about it. If you are thinking "I don't like salads" shut up. That's another excuse, there are an infinite number of ways to combine and prepare veggies. Explore and solve the problem just like a crappy little software app that needs to be built. You just have to want it and be willing to learn.
- pharmakom 4y ago
  You compared the cooking time to going to McDonald’s but didn’t include the time to go to the shops!
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Or the cleanup afterwards, which is often the most unpleasant part of actually cooking.
    - 8note 4y ago
      If you're cooking well, almost everything is clean by the time you put food on a plate. If you immediately put leftovers away, the cleaning can be 100% done by the time you start eating
      - 4y ago
Viliam1234 4y ago
Cooking can take a lot of time, but there are some tricks to make it more efficient. 1) Buy a large freezer. Then you can cook larger amounts, divide them into small boxes, and freeze them. That means you can have a cooked meal every day, without having to cook every day, or having to eat the same meal two days in a row. A large freezer also allows you to buy ingredients when they are cheap, without having to consume them immediately. Peel them, cut them, freeze them. Later, take them out of the freezer and put them into boling water. 2) Be selective about the recipes. Some of them require 2 hours of work. Some of them only require 30 minutes, and 20 minutes of that is literally waiting. You can decide to only do the latter. And the waiting time can be spent doing something else. 3) While you cook, you can listen to a podcast or an audio book. Download some good stuff to your smartphone, or buy a wireless headset. Cooking for 2 hours can be fun, if you simultaneously listen to Joe Rogan. An alternative is having someone to talk to. This may depend on how your house is organized. Sometimes the kitchen is at the opposite side from the living room; sometimes the two are connected. In the latter case, you can chat with someone while cooking.
Natsu 4y ago
I have found an air fryer is good to prepare meat that's juicy and doesn't take much work/skill to get it right beyond learning temperature & timing (and a bit about seasoning). Wish I had more freezer space/room for a chest freezer. I really feel you on the time/energy thing, though. It's just too damn easy to click an app and check out instead of planning a meal. The canteens you mention already exist... in Brazil. It's called almoço por kilo (lunch by the kilogram). It's essentially a buffet where they weigh your plate. Almost everyone seems to eat lunch at a place like that. I wish they were more common in the USA. I guess there are some things that are close, but it's just not common.
8note 4y ago
Time is always a prioritization issue, not actually a time one. You'd prefer to do more work or watch netflix instead
GekkePrutser 4y ago
> I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public. The economies of scale could make this price competitive and there’s less delivery overhead than the meal prep subscriptions. I like the social aspect too. I would definitely pay a subscription to a canteen. This would be amazing yes. I don't know why it's not a thing. It's normal not to do your own books. To fix your own heater. To milk your own cow. In fact I don't even do my own laundry, because there's a shop around the corner that washes, dries and folds a whole bag for 10 bucks. Nobody frowns at that. But not wanting to cook is viewed as really weird. I just really hate cooking and when I do I do it irritated and in a hurry so it turns out crap.

5e92cb50239222b 4y ago

'All' is a bit of a stretch. I have a relatively healthy diet, and food preparation time is a non-issue. If you're fine with simple dishes (like chopping up vegetables in a simple salad and eating them raw), it doesn't take more than 20 minutes per day total. Growing up poor in the middle of nowhere helps here.

orangepurple 4y ago
To add to this, preparing food for several days in advance is absolutely essential to eating healthy food regularly

growwrkr6 4y ago

Perhaps you should slow down. Adam Smith warned of extreme division of labor making for humans dumber than the dumbest animal (paraphrasing). Sticking with one career forever is an outdated story; king says someone is farmer, that’s just how it is! It would be costly to upend history, they say. Having worked in a kitchen, built houses from foundation up, helped deliver livestock, started in tech designing power switching equipment, coding professional now since 2006; having built muscle memory for numerous “professions” comes along with living in “flow state.” I can manage structured tasks across contexts without planning, without wincing at the difficulty or time being a factor; I can make way better than packaged or fast food faster than it can be picked up or delivered. Taking time to boot strap the habit pays off in time savings down the road.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

If you have the disposable income, you can dispose of it as you please of course. But still, there are ways to get good food prepared quickly as well. All you need is a pantry stocked with the essentials and some basic knowledge. Mostly the issue isn't necessarily time but giving into your cravings. Junk food is designed for that. People buy junk food because they like eating it and crave it. Even if the experience isn't great, the craving still drives them to eat it. Ever felt disappointed after eating at a burger chain? That's what happened. You craved something and the marketing triggered you enough to buy a burger or whatever. In the end the food is greasy, salty, not really hot, and doesn't have a whole lot of flavor. And you munch it down and forget about it. And particularly when people have worked a long day and just want to stuff food into their mouths. For me, going to a supermarket at the end of a working day generally leads to really bad decision making. And I actually know how to cook some food. A good way to get into cooking is to make your own junk food but do it better. This is super easy because most junk food is absolutely terrible. If you like burgers, get some meat and make some of your own. It's hard to do worse than good old McDonald's. That stuff is just really nasty. Use that as a benchmark and strive to do better. You can't fail. Burgers are a great example because this is historically how people made the most of their cheap and off cuts of meat. So, again, great if you are on a budget.

tedajax 4y ago
I enjoy cooking but it's pretty silly to suggest everyone do it. Beyond the time commitment there's also equipment and space concerns and also some people just aren't good at it.
- leetcrew 4y ago
  it's not silly; you can't take ownership of your own health without having at least basic cooking skills. the "time commitment" is just another BS excuse. there are plenty of recipes that can be prepped, cooked, and served in the time it takes to order and pickup takeout. there are tons of youtube videos on this exact topic. search "but faster". the equipment and space concerns I'll give you. there are some people who literally don't own a functioning heat source. that's a non-starter. but if, like most americans, you do have a functioning oven/stove, you can made a wide range of tasty and healthy meals by adding just a couple cheap items to your collection. to get started, you just need a knife, cutting surface, and a sheetpan. cut things up, add a light drizzle of oil, and roast them in the oven. takes a couple minutes of prep followed by 20-30 minutes of doing something else while it cooks. bonus: add a meat thermometer to safely cook meats. or alternatively, try all the same combinations of meats, starches, and vegetables in a skillet if you want to put in a little more active time to get a finished meal faster.

phpisthebest 4y ago

I have been doing meal prep sunday for a few years, I found several recipes that keep well in the freezer and heat up pretty well. Also modern cooking styles like Air Fryers, and Water Bath (sous vide) can also help some with the timing. As these are often ways to cook with out having to actively monitor the cooking like you would using pans and skillets On the weekend I will prep most of my meals even if I do not cook them right then, then through out the week I drop something in the sous vide, air fyer or if it already cooked the micro.

0daystock 4y ago

This is the real reason people have unhealthy habits, especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up after a healthy home-meal made from scratch and made with care. For better or worse, past social norms dedicated an individual (usually the mother) to stay home and tend to these tasks, but now most households have the entire family working to make ends meet and in turn externalize food production (and many other "homestead-y" operations) to companies, which are not motivated by our well-being.

devchix 4y ago
> especially with food: it takes a lot of time to source, prepare, serve and clean up Absolutely! You can't just buy a slab of chicken breast, it needs to be trimmed and put away until ready to be used. Hardest of all: planning, what to do with it, what else goes with it. Pointless to buy broccoli and kale if you don't know what makes it tastes good, and when the inspiration strikes you, there's an ugly head of broccoli you need to cut up, and a bunch of unwashed kale you need to trim. 80% of cooking is peeling, cutting, dicing, shredding, skimming, straining, pounding, deboning, deveining, and waiting. All unglamorous, time-consuming, boring, manual labor. You need to speed this up to gain efficiency. Technical and planning skills gets you probably 50% efficiency. Cooking food is labor intensive and it appears to me all attempts to commercially scale is failing.
- csydas 4y ago
  I disagree at large, but give exception to at least the US due to how cities are built. I am not a chef by any means or even a cook, but I learned how to cook in University due to being unbelievably poor and got tired of "low budget fast meals". Quotes because I don't think that the meals that fall into this category are at all better than their "proper" counter parts. Prepping a quick pasta with béchamel does not take long at all, and with a common pot and pan from Ikea or even Target or Walmart and a fork and knife, you have all you need. Prepping a quick pizza by hand, some general Wok style cuisine, etc, it's all quite fast once you learn a few things about how to prepare food. I'm sure it's cliche, but watching Good Eats with Alton Brown a few times helped me understand why certain combinations work and gave me the confidence to understand how to make different things match. In particular, watching his episodes on knife skills helped me understand how to speed up a lot of prepping (an unabashed advertisement for Shun from Alton, but let's ignore that part) [0] When I was still in the US, long and laborious kitchen exercises were glorified; the longer and more putzy the recipe, the more most people I know fawned over the idea of the meal, but I'm here to tell you that taking the time just to understand the basics of cooking, you don't need the blogpost 2 hour narrative story for cooking, it's very basic chemistry at its best. Some meals have unavoidable time and complications, and that's fine, but you can make very tasty, very healthy meals quite fast while listening to your favorite show or some music or even just enjoying the silence of the kitchen and the sound of the cooking. > You can't just buy a slab of chicken breast, it needs to be trimmed and put away until ready to be used. Hardest of all: planning, what to do with it, what else goes with it. Absolutely not true IMO, but I get where you might have this if you don't have a more European style city to live in. I do not pretend to guess where you are from, but usually I heard and hear this from people I know still in the US, and it's distinctly because of how US cities are built. In Europe and in quite a few Asian countries, proper grocers are a dime a dozen and every couple hundred meters. I stock the basics (flour, salt, spices, other grains, and some slow-perishing sauces like tomato paste) and buy perishables on the way home since there's a fully stocked market no bigger than a chinese takeout shop at the base of my apartment or < 200 meters from it. The meat and produce I get are used immediately or over the next day for another meal, and it's very nice. Half of my lunch break for work is cooking, the second half eating a freshly cooked meal. I really feel that there is a bit of a cult around cooking that wants to overcomplicate the process because complex == classy, and I need to stress that when you're first starting, it is going to be slower because you haven't developed your technique. It's the same reason you'll probably fall a lot when first learning to ice skate or why you'll sound like a drunk playing a guitar when you first learn. The good news is that even if the end result of your first few meals is ugly, likely it still tastes pretty good. The time is very relative -- I'm monitoring a global market so I have 10+ hour days almost every day depending on how bad certain situations get, but I made cooking part of my skillset because I didn't want to be indebted always to food delivery. It absolutely is possible even for a family without a dedicated cook, and I think the first step most people need is admitting that it's not the time sink they make it out to be. Once you get a few basics, you are some sort of wizard to most people. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZFVjrlTo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZFVjrlTo8

sebmellen 4y ago

I would highly recommend https://factor75.com https://factor75.com. A bit pricey, but the food is worth it.

shagie 4y ago
(I've subscribed to Factor75 and am generally pleased with them) Yes, the food seems a bit pricy... until I head out and eat at a restaurant. Its certainly more costly than raw ingredients and making it yourself - but in terms of "the cost vs eating out" it is rather competitive. I'm also become a fan of Tovala ( https://www.tovala.com https://www.tovala.com ). Their thing is that its a "smart toaster oven" which scans a barcode or QR code and can do a complex set of instructions at programmed times. The oven is substantially discounted, the menu is competitive with other prepared meals but its cooked rather than microwaved which provides a different set of food options. The preparation is "cut bag into aluminum tin" and "add sauce or seasoning". You then scan the QR code on the recipe and it does its thing for 15 to 20 minutes. I don't live where Amazon has this as an option, but https://www.amazon.com/fmc/m/20190165?almBrandId=QW1hem9uIEZyZXNo https://www.amazon.com/fmc/m/20190165?almBrandId=QW1hem9uIEZ... is something to look at too. The primary advantage for me with both Factor and Tovala is that they have single serving sizes. Blue Apron appears to have added microwave meals to its menu... but its not quite the range of Factor and its non-microwave is still 2 or 4 with more meal prep than Tovala. Also check out https://www.reddit.com/r/ReadyMeals/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ReadyMeals/ for various reviews.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > I'm also become a fan of Tovala ( https://www.tovala.com https://www.tovala.com ). Their thing is that its a "smart toaster oven" which scans a barcode or QR code and can do a complex set of instructions at programmed times. Looks interesting, but for some unfathomable reason it requires WiFi access. So I assume it never disconnects and builds a giant database of everything you've ever cooked.
  - shagie 4y ago
    > So I assume it never disconnects and builds a giant database of everything you've ever cooked. Possibly - and in today's world I'd even go with "probably." The "scan a UPC and get the 'how to cook'" needs some external access. I haven't decoded the QR code to determine if the recipe instructions is encoded in there, or if that's a lookup - I suspect its encoded rather than a lookup (and the QR code based meals appear to work without wifi). The database, however, would only be useful/of the UPCs and raw ingredient based that you scan rather than the meal plan since with a meal subscription service, they've already got that data. And as a regular toaster oven, doing "bake 375°" isn't leaking any data about what you are eating.

midhhhthrow 4y ago

So eat a diet of mostly fruit (comes premAde from nature) and boiled potatoes. It’ll e x10 more healthy than the alternative nd save time

bushbaba 4y ago

Meal Prep and Cooking can be a huge time sink, but it doesn't need to be. At the most basic level a meal kit service will save you substantial time. Or just get a list of recipes you like and stick to them. Sure less meal diversity, but you can optimize your meals. For me it's generic salad (Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Dressing, Cheese, Seeds), Rice Dish (Chicken, Beef, etc + Frozen Veggies), Smoothies w/Frozen Veggie and Fruit, ..etc.

layer8 4y ago

I’m lazy and try to minimize food preparation time, and I don’t find it difficult. I don’t know how you define healthy, but I often just fry some steak or piece of fish in the pan with a side of frozen ready-made pre-seasoned vegetables in the microwave. It takes like ten minutes. Or a curry using a good curry paste with coconut milk and vegetables and/or meat, optionally some rice from the rice cooker, doesn’t take more than 20 minutes actual preparation time.

devchix 4y ago

>I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public I think what I want is an ordinary, a set meal at a local tavern "ordained" at a time and price. I think restaurants evolved to serve a variety of dishes, where the ordinary (sometimes a bed and board place) served only one meal, but different meals on different days. I'd buy a subscription to a canteen style Bouchon, one meal a day, 30 different meals in a month, community table, water or BYOB.

progman32 4y ago
By far the aspect of college life (USA) that I miss the most is this. The communal meal tables and optional community canteen subscription. I wish these kind of establishments were common across the USA.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Here in Spain this is a bit of a thing. You can get a three course meal for a fixed price of around 12 euro. Usually about 3-4 choices for each course that change each day. Pretty much every restaurant does this. Problem is it's only for lunch time and eating the big meal of the day at lunch doesn't work for me :( I end up being hungry at night and having 2 big meals. Whereas a small lunch doesn't bother me.

atmartins 4y ago

Here me out: this sounds like an excuse. If you really want to solve it you could. I did. I use a wok to cook and it's faster than going to McDonalds. It's slower than a frozen meal but not by much. I don't aim for perfection, rather, most of my meals I try and make healthy. I still love bacon. In less than 10 minutes you can chop celery, broccoli, tofu, chicken, etc. If it takes longer then solve that problem: better knife, cutting board always handy? Chop faster, fingertips aren't that important. Turn the wok up to 10,000 degrees and put a little avocado oil in there, throw it all in and stir. Put some low sodium soy sauce and monkfruit sweetener (if you want no sugar, otherwise brown sugar) and a little cornstarch+water too thicken. Ginger, whatever. Anyway, you can make tons of variants of this dish. Curry, yakisoba, subgum chow mein. Almost all will be 90% vegetables. Do some rice or noodles with them. Then solve salads. They are fast, easy, and can be delicious if you chop stuff up small and put a lot of variety. Keep trying different things. Watch YouTube videos about it. If you are thinking "I don't like salads" shut up. That's another excuse, there are an infinite number of ways to combine and prepare veggies. Explore and solve the problem just like a crappy little software app that needs to be built. You just have to want it and be willing to learn.

pharmakom 4y ago
You compared the cooking time to going to McDonald’s but didn’t include the time to go to the shops!
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Or the cleanup afterwards, which is often the most unpleasant part of actually cooking.
  - 8note 4y ago
    If you're cooking well, almost everything is clean by the time you put food on a plate. If you immediately put leftovers away, the cleaning can be 100% done by the time you start eating
    - 4y ago

Viliam1234 4y ago

Cooking can take a lot of time, but there are some tricks to make it more efficient. 1) Buy a large freezer. Then you can cook larger amounts, divide them into small boxes, and freeze them. That means you can have a cooked meal every day, without having to cook every day, or having to eat the same meal two days in a row. A large freezer also allows you to buy ingredients when they are cheap, without having to consume them immediately. Peel them, cut them, freeze them. Later, take them out of the freezer and put them into boling water. 2) Be selective about the recipes. Some of them require 2 hours of work. Some of them only require 30 minutes, and 20 minutes of that is literally waiting. You can decide to only do the latter. And the waiting time can be spent doing something else. 3) While you cook, you can listen to a podcast or an audio book. Download some good stuff to your smartphone, or buy a wireless headset. Cooking for 2 hours can be fun, if you simultaneously listen to Joe Rogan. An alternative is having someone to talk to. This may depend on how your house is organized. Sometimes the kitchen is at the opposite side from the living room; sometimes the two are connected. In the latter case, you can chat with someone while cooking.

Natsu 4y ago

I have found an air fryer is good to prepare meat that's juicy and doesn't take much work/skill to get it right beyond learning temperature & timing (and a bit about seasoning). Wish I had more freezer space/room for a chest freezer. I really feel you on the time/energy thing, though. It's just too damn easy to click an app and check out instead of planning a meal. The canteens you mention already exist... in Brazil. It's called almoço por kilo (lunch by the kilogram). It's essentially a buffet where they weigh your plate. Almost everyone seems to eat lunch at a place like that. I wish they were more common in the USA. I guess there are some things that are close, but it's just not common.

8note 4y ago

Time is always a prioritization issue, not actually a time one. You'd prefer to do more work or watch netflix instead

GekkePrutser 4y ago

> I think what I really want is a work canteen, but open to the public. The economies of scale could make this price competitive and there’s less delivery overhead than the meal prep subscriptions. I like the social aspect too. I would definitely pay a subscription to a canteen. This would be amazing yes. I don't know why it's not a thing. It's normal not to do your own books. To fix your own heater. To milk your own cow. In fact I don't even do my own laundry, because there's a shop around the corner that washes, dries and folds a whole bag for 10 bucks. Nobody frowns at that. But not wanting to cook is viewed as really weird. I just really hate cooking and when I do I do it irritated and in a hurry so it turns out crap.