5 ms·

I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. Home cooked meals are way better. This is just a list of your personal pr

by vasco 3y ago

I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. Home cooked meals are way better. This is just a list of your personal preferences disguised as the right way to do things. If you want a small house and flying around to vacations, you can do it without looking down on who decides for another trade-off.

dayjaby 3y ago
100% agree with home cooked meals. You have the liberty of choosing among 100000 ingredients. No restaurant offers that variety. And for the "dining room just for parties" argument from above: it is actually possible to invite your neighbours, your friends, your colleagues, ... to dinner more than once a year. I almost never had people turn down such an invitation.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > No restaurant offers that variety. No single restaurant. But in a city like mine, there are countless restaurants that offer meals I have neither the knowledge nor equipment to prepare. It may not be 100,000 ingredients… but neither are the shops I'd buy the ingredients from.
- scaryclam 3y ago
  Heck, I have a kid in my life who has a severe peanut allergy. Going out to eat is restrictive as we can't go to some restaurants, so cooking at home is way easier on many occasions. We also like to sit an eat together "just because", so like you point out, a dining room can be used day-to-day, not just for parties (though it's also great for those).
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > it is actually possible to invite your neighbours, your friends, your colleagues, ... to dinner more than once a year Of course it's possible. But that kind of thinking is often the problem. Plan based on what you'll actually do.
  - briandear 3y ago
    Freedom means I can optimize for whatever I want, not what other people think I should want.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Nobody is trying to tell you what you should want. But you should try to increase your accuracy about what you will want when making big decisions. We all should.
oblio 3y ago
> I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. Home cooked meals are way better. If you: 1. Like cooking. 2. Are good at cooking.
- vasco 3y ago
  Enjoying it has nothing to do with it. It's better for you and better for taste even if you don't like it. I don't like brushing my teeth but I do it because it's better than not doing it and because I'm a functioning adult. I'm better at brushing than I was the first times I did it, and I'm also better at cooking than I was 20 years ago, because even if I don't enjoy it, I know I'll enjoy the flavor and the nutrition is good for me. This is basic "live your life" stuff. Imagine lecturing people about saving the planet while defending going out to eat in restaurants or ordering all your meals.
  - mrfumier 3y ago
    It's probably more carbon-efficient to eat at restaurants since they are cooking in larger quantities.
    - vasco 3y ago
      You can confirm that "probably" with 5 minutes of research and find out that the largest contributors to carbon emissions in eating are the production of the raw materials (which ingredients you use). Once that is controlled for, cooking method is the largest second factor (wood / coal / gas / electric). Once that's controlled for, going out to eat in a restaurant is worse than at home. The only communal eating that is more efficient is school / soviet canteen style eating, which is not what you were thinking about when you said restaurants.
    - erinaceousjones 3y ago
      Sadly, agreed. I love the idea of being self-sufficient and permaculture, but even myself as someone who grows vegetables on an allotment and batch-cooks nearly all my meals at home, I can't ignore the idea that, just as with agriculture, it's way more efficient to prepare food at scale than it is at the individual level -- unless we all shifted to just eating the food as raw as possible. If we look at the full chains of: - Equipment distribution (production and delivery of large domestic kitchen appliances) - Energy distribution (residential delivery of electricity/gas needed to power kitchen appliances, and water) - Space required in each home for a reasonably kitted out kitchen (more space to heat in winter, more materials used in building) - Ingredients and materials distribution (including the production and packaging of intermediate food products made from raw products, since everyone's cooking with canned things, packaged things, cured meats, pastes, pasteurized things, grains, ...) The restaurants, fast-food chains and ready-meal prep companies are able to operate on economies of scale that are vastly more efficient than the individualistic, nuclear-family domestic "you must cook home-made meals for your family, friends and guests" culture. We've made eating out seem either: - Decadent (cost) - Unhealthy (take-out and fast-food) But neither of those things need to be true. The problem with scale is the storage aspect - preservatives we use to reduce spoilage etc., which arguably affect the healthiness of the food. "Just-in-time" distribution works well until it doesn't (see: COVID). But I'd argue that the individual household probably spoils more ingredients than industrial production does - that just isn't evident; everyone has their little compost heaps or things go to landfill. Old ingredients go mouldy at the backs of cupboards, just as things run out their shelf life in supermarkets. Maybe the raw-food vegans and paleo bros are on to something...
puuh 3y ago
It isn't about looking down on others. It is that in communities where the extra resource are spent on things like slightly better cars or houses eventually many of the local stores, restaurants or other places ends up closing. Many on Hacker News have some sort of ambition. To create a startup, a side business, an open source project or have a hobby, be more knowledgeable or become better programmer. In theory that can happen having a home office and extra space in the garage. In reality it often doesn't because making any greater strides often requires coming together with others forming connections, exchanging information and sharing resource. Yes, I can learn to cook for example Chinese food. But that isn't the same as having a good food industry with restaurants, entertainment, staff, importers and whatever else that actually enable a numbers of different experiences for many people. Eventually many tend to realize that it isn't that great. But then they often end up blaming the government, the taxes, major cities, lack of investment or support, or anything other than the reality that they didn't invest in their local community neither through taxes for services or with their own income. But instead there are millions of dollars standing around in things like more expensive cars. It isn't like I don't understand why someone would want those thing. I just don't think many who do want those things understand that to have a decent career many of their kids are going to have move somewhere where there are good education, successful companies, major airports or other resources. And then, while they get some use of their guest room, won't see them much overall.
- Gravityloss 3y ago
  There's got to be some name for the "tool fallacy". I like to buy tools. I like to have the capability to cut wood in certain ways. Yet I end up very rarely doing that. I would like to have a personal garage workshop space. I can think about all the things I would build. I would like to be a person that builds things. But in reality, if I had it, I'd probably still be just sitting browsing Hacker News. It's just way easier than to actually get up and start doing something. I've realized something similar with sports. I could go running any time, but I don't. I could buy some equipment that I rarely use. But if I sign up for some scheduled weekly team sport, and some friends are also going, it's much easier to keep the routine happening. Or if I do some sport together with my spouse. The same happens with music. I could play and train on my own, and I do some. But it's really with a band and a commitment to an upcoming performance or upcoming recording session that I start more purposefully doing stuff, both on my own and in the rehearsals. Computers, content and social networks and the pandemic have provided us opportunities to do cool stuff online and share with and learn from others, but I think we have atrophied some physical social aspects there. We need more electronics clubs or garage meetups or whatever method to do something as a group and share the motivation burden or get a bit of help etc.
JohnFen 3y ago
I agree (in the US). I much prefer home cooked meals over eating out. Occasionally, though, the convenience of not cooking is worth the tradeoff.
JoeNr76 3y ago
> I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. You haven't eaten at a 2 or 3 star restaurant then. They use ingredients you don't have access too, using techniques you can't use at home and pair them with wines or juices you haven't heard about. However good you think your home cooking is (I think I'm a fairly good cook), you don't come to the knees of a chef with such a restaurant. Yes, they are not cheap. But neither is buying a bigger house. And if it's about getting together, who cooked the food doesn't matter. Or even get together without food, that works too.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  ... I've eaten at enough Michelin-starred restaurants in my life that if you summed them it'd be well over 200. I'm not a stranger to fine dining. ... and I still want to host people at my house and cook for them? Fine dining for you may be a strictly superior replacement to home cooking (or alternatively: home cooking is what you do when you cannot have fine dining instead) - but many of us don't see it that way. They are complementary. Yeah, my cooking isn't Thomas Keller... but that's not actually what it's about? In the same way I'm not Chris Nolan but yet I want to take video at family events? And if I can say so: seeing fine dining as a strictly superior replacement of home cooking is a regretful way to view the world.
  - ay 3y ago
    It is very curious for me that in a lot of comments there is no allowance for even a possibility that there is more than a single metric of “betterness” for different people and different occasions. What these “unnecessary extras” or in the contrary “smaller footprint” give is the increased freedom of choice for that particular individual’s situation. There is no free lunch - every benefit comes with its set of drawbacks. Extra rooms need furnishing and taking care of, cars need maintenance and parking etc. Different people put different multipliers for each of them. And this is fine, by the standards of a modern western society.
  - JoeNr76 3y ago
    What you find regrettable is your problem, not mine. If I invite people, I do it for the people, if I go out to eat I do it for the food. I don't see why this regrettable just because you think it is.

by vasco 3y ago

dayjaby 3y ago

100% agree with home cooked meals. You have the liberty of choosing among 100000 ingredients. No restaurant offers that variety. And for the "dining room just for parties" argument from above: it is actually possible to invite your neighbours, your friends, your colleagues, ... to dinner more than once a year. I almost never had people turn down such an invitation.

ben_w 3y ago
> No restaurant offers that variety. No single restaurant. But in a city like mine, there are countless restaurants that offer meals I have neither the knowledge nor equipment to prepare. It may not be 100,000 ingredients… but neither are the shops I'd buy the ingredients from.
scaryclam 3y ago
Heck, I have a kid in my life who has a severe peanut allergy. Going out to eat is restrictive as we can't go to some restaurants, so cooking at home is way easier on many occasions. We also like to sit an eat together "just because", so like you point out, a dining room can be used day-to-day, not just for parties (though it's also great for those).
Dylan16807 3y ago
> it is actually possible to invite your neighbours, your friends, your colleagues, ... to dinner more than once a year Of course it's possible. But that kind of thinking is often the problem. Plan based on what you'll actually do.
- briandear 3y ago
  Freedom means I can optimize for whatever I want, not what other people think I should want.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Nobody is trying to tell you what you should want. But you should try to increase your accuracy about what you will want when making big decisions. We all should.

oblio 3y ago

> I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. Home cooked meals are way better. If you: 1. Like cooking. 2. Are good at cooking.

vasco 3y ago
Enjoying it has nothing to do with it. It's better for you and better for taste even if you don't like it. I don't like brushing my teeth but I do it because it's better than not doing it and because I'm a functioning adult. I'm better at brushing than I was the first times I did it, and I'm also better at cooking than I was 20 years ago, because even if I don't enjoy it, I know I'll enjoy the flavor and the nutrition is good for me. This is basic "live your life" stuff. Imagine lecturing people about saving the planet while defending going out to eat in restaurants or ordering all your meals.
- mrfumier 3y ago
  It's probably more carbon-efficient to eat at restaurants since they are cooking in larger quantities.
  - vasco 3y ago
    You can confirm that "probably" with 5 minutes of research and find out that the largest contributors to carbon emissions in eating are the production of the raw materials (which ingredients you use). Once that is controlled for, cooking method is the largest second factor (wood / coal / gas / electric). Once that's controlled for, going out to eat in a restaurant is worse than at home. The only communal eating that is more efficient is school / soviet canteen style eating, which is not what you were thinking about when you said restaurants.
  - erinaceousjones 3y ago
    Sadly, agreed. I love the idea of being self-sufficient and permaculture, but even myself as someone who grows vegetables on an allotment and batch-cooks nearly all my meals at home, I can't ignore the idea that, just as with agriculture, it's way more efficient to prepare food at scale than it is at the individual level -- unless we all shifted to just eating the food as raw as possible. If we look at the full chains of: - Equipment distribution (production and delivery of large domestic kitchen appliances) - Energy distribution (residential delivery of electricity/gas needed to power kitchen appliances, and water) - Space required in each home for a reasonably kitted out kitchen (more space to heat in winter, more materials used in building) - Ingredients and materials distribution (including the production and packaging of intermediate food products made from raw products, since everyone's cooking with canned things, packaged things, cured meats, pastes, pasteurized things, grains, ...) The restaurants, fast-food chains and ready-meal prep companies are able to operate on economies of scale that are vastly more efficient than the individualistic, nuclear-family domestic "you must cook home-made meals for your family, friends and guests" culture. We've made eating out seem either: - Decadent (cost) - Unhealthy (take-out and fast-food) But neither of those things need to be true. The problem with scale is the storage aspect - preservatives we use to reduce spoilage etc., which arguably affect the healthiness of the food. "Just-in-time" distribution works well until it doesn't (see: COVID). But I'd argue that the individual household probably spoils more ingredients than industrial production does - that just isn't evident; everyone has their little compost heaps or things go to landfill. Old ingredients go mouldy at the backs of cupboards, just as things run out their shelf life in supermarkets. Maybe the raw-food vegans and paleo bros are on to something...

puuh 3y ago

It isn't about looking down on others. It is that in communities where the extra resource are spent on things like slightly better cars or houses eventually many of the local stores, restaurants or other places ends up closing. Many on Hacker News have some sort of ambition. To create a startup, a side business, an open source project or have a hobby, be more knowledgeable or become better programmer. In theory that can happen having a home office and extra space in the garage. In reality it often doesn't because making any greater strides often requires coming together with others forming connections, exchanging information and sharing resource. Yes, I can learn to cook for example Chinese food. But that isn't the same as having a good food industry with restaurants, entertainment, staff, importers and whatever else that actually enable a numbers of different experiences for many people. Eventually many tend to realize that it isn't that great. But then they often end up blaming the government, the taxes, major cities, lack of investment or support, or anything other than the reality that they didn't invest in their local community neither through taxes for services or with their own income. But instead there are millions of dollars standing around in things like more expensive cars. It isn't like I don't understand why someone would want those thing. I just don't think many who do want those things understand that to have a decent career many of their kids are going to have move somewhere where there are good education, successful companies, major airports or other resources. And then, while they get some use of their guest room, won't see them much overall.

Gravityloss 3y ago
There's got to be some name for the "tool fallacy". I like to buy tools. I like to have the capability to cut wood in certain ways. Yet I end up very rarely doing that. I would like to have a personal garage workshop space. I can think about all the things I would build. I would like to be a person that builds things. But in reality, if I had it, I'd probably still be just sitting browsing Hacker News. It's just way easier than to actually get up and start doing something. I've realized something similar with sports. I could go running any time, but I don't. I could buy some equipment that I rarely use. But if I sign up for some scheduled weekly team sport, and some friends are also going, it's much easier to keep the routine happening. Or if I do some sport together with my spouse. The same happens with music. I could play and train on my own, and I do some. But it's really with a band and a commitment to an upcoming performance or upcoming recording session that I start more purposefully doing stuff, both on my own and in the rehearsals. Computers, content and social networks and the pandemic have provided us opportunities to do cool stuff online and share with and learn from others, but I think we have atrophied some physical social aspects there. We need more electronics clubs or garage meetups or whatever method to do something as a group and share the motivation burden or get a bit of help etc.

JohnFen 3y ago

I agree (in the US). I much prefer home cooked meals over eating out. Occasionally, though, the convenience of not cooking is worth the tradeoff.

JoeNr76 3y ago

> I think nobody in my country would say going out to eat is better than eating at home. You haven't eaten at a 2 or 3 star restaurant then. They use ingredients you don't have access too, using techniques you can't use at home and pair them with wines or juices you haven't heard about. However good you think your home cooking is (I think I'm a fairly good cook), you don't come to the knees of a chef with such a restaurant. Yes, they are not cheap. But neither is buying a bigger house. And if it's about getting together, who cooked the food doesn't matter. Or even get together without food, that works too.

potatolicious 3y ago
... I've eaten at enough Michelin-starred restaurants in my life that if you summed them it'd be well over 200. I'm not a stranger to fine dining. ... and I still want to host people at my house and cook for them? Fine dining for you may be a strictly superior replacement to home cooking (or alternatively: home cooking is what you do when you cannot have fine dining instead) - but many of us don't see it that way. They are complementary. Yeah, my cooking isn't Thomas Keller... but that's not actually what it's about? In the same way I'm not Chris Nolan but yet I want to take video at family events? And if I can say so: seeing fine dining as a strictly superior replacement of home cooking is a regretful way to view the world.
- ay 3y ago
  It is very curious for me that in a lot of comments there is no allowance for even a possibility that there is more than a single metric of “betterness” for different people and different occasions. What these “unnecessary extras” or in the contrary “smaller footprint” give is the increased freedom of choice for that particular individual’s situation. There is no free lunch - every benefit comes with its set of drawbacks. Extra rooms need furnishing and taking care of, cars need maintenance and parking etc. Different people put different multipliers for each of them. And this is fine, by the standards of a modern western society.
- JoeNr76 3y ago
  What you find regrettable is your problem, not mine. If I invite people, I do it for the people, if I go out to eat I do it for the food. I don't see why this regrettable just because you think it is.