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Dude it's insane. I don't understand how the hell these places stay in business anymore when the quality still sucks ass and it's all so expensive now. Like even taco bell, who used to be the king of cheap, costs a fuckton these days.
It’s become a habit for many people. Cooking is a really difficult habit to (re)learn. It’s possible though and good meal prep is very convenient on long days at work.
I just hate cooking. I cannot stand it. It takes so much effort and you have to clean all the mess you made (even cleaning as you go sucks). And then you end up with something that may or may not pan out. And if you're trying to meal prep then you have to eat the same meal for the whole week which I hate also.
If this was the only thing you'd ever have to do, fine. But the majority of the rest of our time is spent at work or sleeping. We have few precious hours where these things aren't the case. I hope this doesn't make me sound too much like an asshole, but I'm fortunate enough to purchase things like pre-prepared foods and get takeout a couple of times per week. So I take advantage of that because I don't want to spend my few moments of free time slaving away over a stove or cleaning the mess of pots and pans and cooking utensils.
Another this about cooking when you live alone...a lot of perishable foods can only be bought in somewhat larger quantities and then they go bad before you use them all up. I tried to make a recipe out of a cookbook several months ago and I was frustrated at how many things I had to buy a large thing of when I only needed a very small amount for the recipe. Ended up with a lot of food waste.
None of these problems mean you have to resort to buying fast food though.
You can buy things like crumbed chicken tenders that last over a week in the packaging and take 15 mins to cook in an air fryer. Mix some mayo and hot sauce, steam some veg and you've got a cheaper, healthier meal than most fast food, in about the same time it takes to drive through and order.
That actually makes up a decent amount of what I eat already. The majority of my diet comes from the frozen food section at the grocery store. I get both the prepackaged dinners and also the precooked meats and "steam in bag" veggies you're talking about. But on days where I don't want that, I get takeout as a treat. Most often, I actually order food delivery instead of fast food, but I get fast food now and then too. I've actually got into the habit of going to the chick fil a near me because it's literally a 5 minute walk and they have a good salad. McDonald's seemed like they stopped selling salads some years back for whatever reason.
One of the points of my previous post is that I don't care about the cost though because I'm fortunate enough to not be scraping by. I don't get this takeout or fast food every day, but it doesn't bother me financially to do it a couple times per week. Plus, sitting in your car listening to music and browsing your phone while someone prepares food for you is hardly a comparison to putting together something yourself. The time might be the same, but the effort is significantly lower which is the point.
Fair enough. I'm not scraping by either. I just choose to vote with my wallet because that's capitalism.
Most times I buy fast food these days (few times a year) I just feel ripped off, because I know I'm paying extra just for shareholders; not for actual value.
You can always ask the butcher to get you a smaller piece of meat. You can also separate pieces of meat and freeze part.
If produce is by weight, you can break the package to be smaller. Even things like squash can be cut in half (ask the produce people, places like Aldis will not do this).
Buy canned and frozen veggies as much as possible, they last longer. They won’t be as tasty, but will reduce your food waste.
Cook larger portions and freeze the leftovers and eat them in a week or two.
As far as spices, dishes, etc. look at them as “investments” cause you won’t be using them all on one meal…
Meat is actually the easiest one because you can just freeze it like you said. Powdered spices are also a complete non issue. It's fresh produce that I struggle with.
But for example, the recipe I tried called for...
Jasmine rice - could only find it in a whopping 5 lb bag which was ridiculous for a solo person who rarely ears rice. I know rice keeps, but since I don't at all like to cook, it was very excessive. Even if I were to have made a larger quantity of the meal or make it multiple times, I still would have an insane amount left over.
A clove of fresh garlic - I know you can get powdered garlic or garlic in a jar, but people seem to say that it doesn't at all work the same, so I wanted to try it the way the recipe wanted you to. So I had a shitton of cut up garlic left over because I could only find whole garlic bulbs at that particular grocery store if I didn't want to go canned or powdered. Can you even freeze a portion of garlic?
A portion of whole fresh ginger - again same issue as the above problem I had with fresh garlic. Only this one was even worse because ginger rarely present in any of the foods I eat
Etc. for a lot of the ingredients for that recipe.
Yes, I get that you can do some complex puzzles and math to figure out how to use all of these ingredients in different meals without wasting the excess, but that is absolutely NOT for me. That's a whole additional ordeal and one of the many reasons I hate cooking. I don't want to have to perform an elaborate game of ingredient/meal chess to avoid significant food waste when I'm grocery shopping. I do enough work at my job and there are still plenty of other annoying tasks to keep up with like cleaning and laundry.
The point is I don't want to look at any of these as "investments". That is is an insane amount of work to put into something I hate.
Where are you shopping? Only having a 5lb bag of jasmine rice is weird.
Just use powdered instead of the fresh herbs. I would consider doubling up on most spices if you are using powdered.
Garlic and ginger both can be frozen. They also last a good while, so you can keep them in your fridge
Yes, I fully relate with this as if you spoke from my heart. Agreed on all points, haha.
I do cook, kind of have to when you have kids. But I definitely do not enjoy doing it. Especially because I'll slave over a new dinner idea and my kids will just refuse to eat it.
My friend with kids also talks about this. She is like I work so hard to cook and even make it simple for them but they still refuse to eat it half the time lol
I don’t mind cooking, I just hate coming up with a dinner plan for the whole week. I’ve begun watching cooking videos on instagram to help motivate me. I do wish there was an alternative to instagram, but so far it’s the best.