You can limit prep time to almost nothing with canned, frozen, or dehydrated produce and still come out ahead of the heavily processed stuff. If you are cookin

You can limit prep time to almost nothing with canned, frozen, or dehydrated produce and still come out ahead of the heavily processed stuff. If you are cooking with whole grains it can take a while, although buckwheat, (proso) millet (and other tiny grains), wild rice, and many lentils are fairly quick and more aren't too bad in a pressure cooker, although it still takes an hour until it is ready to eat. With electric pressure cookers you can just push a button and wait until it is done, although you should stay in ear shot for those rare cases where it doesn't seal fully correctly or the contents bubble out. Spending more time at the computer makes this easier, not harder, although of course the variety is limited vs stuff that takes more effort (however many people can enjoy various entertainment while cooking). I'm suspicious that a big part of the issue is that advertising has convinced many people that cooking is necessarily more difficult than it actually can be. Particularly cooking for one person can be quite easy, although it gets harder with multiple people with different tastes. Fruit is usually somewhat expensive in the US, although still quite a good deal compared to even poverty line income. Unfortunately, it seems like there has been a division where only membership-oriented or online stores have decent bulk while everywhere else tries to sell tiny quantities of grains, lentils, beans, and various other stuff.