The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate • Hacker News Board

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#31

Post by dylanjermiah » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 11:28 AM UTC

binarysolo wrote: post #25

"Millennials spend more on food outside the home than any other generation, averaging $50.75 a week." That's... actually way lower than I expected, though that's average across the US I suppose. Gonna provide a contrarian view since people seem to be surprised at eating out: some times you just want to outsource the thinking and execution of food to others while you focus on winding down, hanging out with friends, co…

Food variability is a large factor. I eat the same food, in differing quantities, every day. Total prep time per week is around 2 hours on Sunday, plus .5-1 hour per each other day. The health and financial benefits I get make it well worth my time. For others it might not be worth the effort.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#32

Post by Mikeb85 » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 1:33 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #29

Mikeb85 wrote: post #24

I cook everyday, often 2 meals, while going to university and working. I used to be a chef, and while it's much different cooking at home, I now feel I have a pretty good handle on it. My advice: - Buy a pressure-cooker and learn to use it - Salads are great - no cooking, healthy, tasty (for dressing use just lemon/balsamic/flavoured vinegar and olive oil) - Eat more vegetables (healthy, and easier/quicker to cook th…

UK: Birmingham food market has a good range and is fairly cheap (not organic stuff, its commercial grower stuff trucked in from Poland/Holand/Warwickshire). Part of the fun is seeing everyone else (real slice of life stuff). I like to support this market and I like cooking, so box of ingredients would not be something I'd pay for. Some local organic growers have £5 boxes or £10 boxes they deliver to your house each w…

> is this for beans?

Yes but not necessarily. You can cook a stew in a pressure cooker in under an hour, it's incredibly useful for cooking tough cuts of meat quickly. We make beef stews and curries at home all the time in the pressure cooker, to get the meat tender would normally take 3-4 hours, in the pressure cooker takes about 25 minutes. And we do use it for legumes as well (beans, dal, chickpeas for hummous, etc...).

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#33

Post by prawn » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #15

benkuykendall wrote: post #8

I can't imagine this service helping me. It would easily double my ingredients' costs, and I enjoy planning and cooking meals myself. However, one related problem I have is the accumulation of ingredients. Something I cooked yesterday called for mustard, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Now I have enough of each to last a decade, and as a college student in NYC, space is at a premium. I wonder if there…

Perhaps you could buy saches of these - small 10g wraps. They're given away in pubs in the UK as condiments. Repackage them as multipacks of different mustards, vinegars, etc? I'm sure eBay has someone doing this, if not, ?

I thought the same thing. Someone should sell a mixed pack of a couple dozen sachets.

I cook a reasonable amount and have a cupboard full of various vinegars, oils, etc but for someone who doesn't cook often, the mixed sachets could work well to cut down wastage.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#34

Post by billybofh » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #24

I cook everyday, often 2 meals, while going to university and working. I used to be a chef, and while it's much different cooking at home, I now feel I have a pretty good handle on it. My advice: - Buy a pressure-cooker and learn to use it - Salads are great - no cooking, healthy, tasty (for dressing use just lemon/balsamic/flavoured vinegar and olive oil) - Eat more vegetables (healthy, and easier/quicker to cook th…

Like you, I cook fresh pretty much every day. I find it quite relaxing (but then I find housework quite relaxing, so I may be broken!).

One thing I'd add to the list is a slow cooker. I don't use it very much in summer, but in winter it can be great (the winters here are fairly bleak. Actually, so are the summers - but let's not go there...).

Keep an eye on your local supermarket for special offers on cuts of meat - shove it in the slow cooker in the morning with some tomato/herbs/spices and when you get back in the evening it's done (and your kitchen has that lovely warm home-cooked smell that takes the winter chill off!). You can easily cook enough for several days in one go too.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#35

Post by joshstrange » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

I've used Plated and looked heavily into these services as way to eat healthier and try new things. If I had to put my finger on one part I liked the most it's sourcing. I like cooking and have no problem looking for and finding new recipes online but I HATE with a firey passion going to the grocery store. I hate not knowing where things are and spending a fair amount of time googling on my phone in the store to find out if cornmeal == cornstarch == cornflour. Sometimes I can't even find what I'm looking for and even asking the help results only in a blank stare. This is particularly annoying for things I need that I've never heard of or cooked with before. I can follow recipes perfectly and have food turn out very good but finding the ingredients is the hard part for me.

Plated results in way too much waste for me as well as sometimes sending me ingredients/recipes that I don't like/want which is why I've gone back to just buying all of my ingredients directly (when I can find them).

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#36

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

benkuykendall wrote: post #8

I can't imagine this service helping me. It would easily double my ingredients' costs, and I enjoy planning and cooking meals myself. However, one related problem I have is the accumulation of ingredients. Something I cooked yesterday called for mustard, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Now I have enough of each to last a decade, and as a college student in NYC, space is at a premium. I wonder if there…

Think of them as signposts to expand your creativity. I often sautee green beans in a mixture of half soy sauce and half apple cider vinegar, for example.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#37

Post by jasode » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 2:37 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #24

I cook everyday, often 2 meals, while going to university and working. I used to be a chef, and while it's much different cooking at home, I now feel I have a pretty good handle on it. My advice: - Buy a pressure-cooker and learn to use it - Salads are great - no cooking, healthy, tasty (for dressing use just lemon/balsamic/flavoured vinegar and olive oil) - Eat more vegetables (healthy, and easier/quicker to cook th…

>Total time from start to finish - 20 minutes. Probably only 10 minutes of my actual time, [...] > It saves what, 5-10 minutes at most,

Well, you are committing the same miscalculation that books and magazine articles about "healthy meals in 30-minutes or less" make. You leave out...

1) meal planning,

2) shopping for fresh vegetables & other ingredients

3) prep work (washing, cutting vegetables, etc),

4) clean up

Healthy meals prepared by someone else saves a huge ton of time -- if one honestly accounts for all the extra time before & after the heating of the food.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#38

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

> As the two of us consider starting a family, we worry about how our culinary ineptitude will impact our future children. We are beginning to wonder whether we even have what it takes to put a proper, nutritious dinner on the table for our little ones.

This is marketing bullshit at its finest. Not only is our product convenient, no, it's essential to the health and well-being of your children!

It's easy to eat healthy if you have $140 per week for four dinners (Blue Apron) prices. We order fresh fish delivered to our house once or twice a week, along with seasonal vegetables. Oily fish like salmon or steelhead trout can be cooked easily with just a few minutes under the broiler, and while the oven is hot you can bake some root veggies or green beans. If you're smart and use foil to protect the baking sheets, it's a 5-minute prep/cleanup operation. If you've got 10-15 minutes, marinating some chicken thighs overnight then grilling is tasty and healthy.

I'll plug the vendor since I think it's a much better deal than meal services: https://www.relayfoods.com.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#39

Post by oldmanjay » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

the article lost me when the opening sentence started right out with hipster horseshit. this generation did not invent farm-fresh food.

Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate

#40

Post by joesmo » Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

These prices are ridiculous for something you still have to cook. In many parts of the country they are easily as much if not more than an equivalent meal at a diner or similar establishment, even including tip, and of course much more than any fast food joint. I could see this as a complement to one's regular eating strategies (whatever they may be) but not a replacement, which is apparently what is being sold but not what is marketed. You get three or four meals a week out of 21. The other big failing is selection. I'm tempted to try it out for a week, but most of the services don't even tell you what you'll get and only one or two offer exclusively vegetarian options.

Still, if one of these companies slashes prices in half and offers a wide selection of food that can be selected a la carte, I do think they're offering a service that is quite valuable. Until then, it's mainly a curiosity at best.