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Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

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Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#41

Post by uoaei »

sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

Frozen dinners seem to have come a long way, even in the past 10 years. My father is on a diet plan and the way he does it is to have basically nothing in his house except "healthy" frozen meals and healthy-ish snacks like nut mixes and apple chips. The word healthy is in scare quotes but actually they seem relatively okay: a good amount of grains, usually enough veggies to satisfy a serving or two, and enough protein to feel sated. Just don't reach into the freezer aisle blindly and you can come out with something decent.

If you can't muster the energy at the end of your day to cook a meal, these are a pretty decent substitute.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#42

Post by Jernik »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

A quarter protein? That's insane. You only need about 60 grammes of protein a day. Why are you eating a quarter of your food in protein?

I'm assuming they mean "a quarter protein heavy dish like a meat, etc"

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#43

Post by porknubbins »

shantly wrote: post #15

I like cooking well enough but not so much that I'd still do it if I could get the same results, at the same price, without doing it. Ditto house/construction stuff—I kinda like it but not enough that I'd keep doing it if there were no value in the work, i.e. I could wave a wand instead and the work would be done and I'm out the same amount of money as materials. Hell, in either case I'd pay a smallish premium—tens o…

Interesting argument but I think you’re overthinking it if you’re requiring people to only enjoy the performance of a task with zero expectation of reward. For example I deeply enjoy the process of soldering and assembling small electronic devices in itself as its a chance to slow down and focus on exercising logic and physical dexterity, but I can’t bring myself to make something I have zero need or plan to use without feeling guilty that I’m wasting time. Knowing a device will be useful allows me to stop worrying and just go into the process of making.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#44

Post by shantly »

porknubbins wrote: post #28
FussyZeus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of this is due to the proliferation of ridiculous recipes from the 70's and 80's. Like so much of that stuff is unhealthy as hell, takes FOREVER to make and involves a list of ingredients longer than my leg. Meanwhile I can bang out a rosemary chicken that's low calorie and delicious in like 10 minutes of actual work and a half an hour playing games on my couch, and steam up some vegetables to go wi…

Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something. Here check an Nytimes recipe and it will have you doing hours of prep and ridiculous steps like getting one pan out and dirty just to slightly toast something to make it restaurant quality presentation. Don’…

> Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something.

Glad you threw in "modern". We do have regional food cultures but they're too boring for most people, especially if you do it right and shift the menu with the season ("Stew and cornbread? Again?" well yes, it's Winter, want a side of hardy greens to go with it? "ew, catfish! Gross!" yes, that's... what's around. What, you want mahi mahi?).

We want more variety and to eat all kinds of produce year-round. You can just pick any "ethnic" cuisine (especially if it has a similar climate to the one you're in) and get like results, but people in the US don't do that either, mostly, probably for the same reasons: that they'd start to find it too dull, or would prefer not to eat so many of the dishes for one reason or another that they'd have to sub in others from other cuisines to make up for it.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#45

Post by enthdegree »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

A quarter protein? That's insane. You only need about 60 grammes of protein a day. Why are you eating a quarter of your food in protein?

weightlifting folklore says you should eat at least 1g of protein per kg of body weight to gain muscle efficiently

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#46

Post by CommieBobDole »

impendia wrote: post #38
sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

As someone who doesn't enjoy cooking all that much, I've noticed this too and been distressed by it. Restaurants, almost uniformly, serve unhealthy food. There are exceptions to this, but they don't seem to be all that popular. When I go out to eat with friends I am often stuck eating something heavier and less healthy than I would like. Is there some good reason for this?

Yes; restaurants, especially nice restaurants, are in the business of selling food which people eat primarily for pleasure, not for nutrition. It's an indulgence, not sustenance.

Even those restaurants who want to appeal to a 'healthy eating' audience find that their less healthy items sell better; considering the difficulty of succeeding or even surviving in the restaurant business, they start to emphasize those items and eventually become a source of relatively unhealthy meals. It's the same phenomenon that caused all of the niche cable networks to fill their schedules with general-interest reality shows unrelated to their original programming over the last couple of decades.

tl;dr: Restaurants sell unhealthy food because people want to buy unhealthy food.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#47

Post by paxys »

- People are working longer hours.

- People are getting married/having kids later in life.

- Both spouses are working in more and more households.

- More families are living in urban areas with smaller houses/apartments and less kitchen space.

It seems that most industries are unwilling to confront the fact that American society is fundamentally changing, and their decades-old business models will have to change as well. A perfect example of this is every product ad still depicting the middle class family as a working dad, stay-at-home mom, 2 kids+dog and a massive house in the suburbs.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#48

Post by war1025 »

impendia wrote: post #38
sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

As someone who doesn't enjoy cooking all that much, I've noticed this too and been distressed by it. Restaurants, almost uniformly, serve unhealthy food. There are exceptions to this, but they don't seem to be all that popular. When I go out to eat with friends I am often stuck eating something heavier and less healthy than I would like. Is there some good reason for this?

Along this same line, something I've been extremely surprised by every time I visit someone in the hospital is how unhealthy hospital dining options are.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#49

Post by zargon »

impendia wrote: post #38
sonofaplum wrote: post #24

I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult…

As someone who doesn't enjoy cooking all that much, I've noticed this too and been distressed by it. Restaurants, almost uniformly, serve unhealthy food. There are exceptions to this, but they don't seem to be all that popular. When I go out to eat with friends I am often stuck eating something heavier and less healthy than I would like. Is there some good reason for this?

For about a year, Noodles & Company had an option to replace the noodles with spinach and double the veggies of any dish. It made a few of their menu items decently healthy. I was sad when it was discontinued shortly after I discovered it.

Re: Grocery Industry Confronts a Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking (2017)

#50

Post by dpau »

abeppu wrote: post #34

A "demography is destiny" aspect to this: Since households are smaller (we marry later or not at all; have fewer children), those who do cook are cooking for fewer mouths, which leads to more time spent per meal consumed. 5 single people cooking and cleaning for themselves put in substantially more time than a one person cooking/cleaning for 5. Also there's some amount of waste from scaling down recipes originally wr…

as a kid my parents would be home after five and fix up our dinner. today people seem to be working longer and less predictable hours. stagnant wages can't help much either. my partner and i would love to have time each day to cook and eat together, we just don't have any time. so along with your point i wonder if people really hate cooking or just can't afford to?
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