"Why I Don't Cook at Home" from The Oatmeal:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home
(I myself do cook, but I also go out when I need a break from my own cooking.)
By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#32"Why I Don't Cook at Home" from The Oatmeal : http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home (I myself do cook, but I also go out when I need a break from my own cooking.)
"I don't cook because I don't decide what to eat until I am so hungry that a Chinese take-out leaflet is appealing, and when I tried to make bison casserole with an empty fridge instead of ordering Chinese, it didn't work out for me". Got it, Oatmeal.
Sorry, did I kill the frog?
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#33The author leaves out one advantage of not eating out so much, cost. It is difficult to spend more on ingredients for a home cooked meal than a nice restaurant meal would cost, and not hard to spend a lot less. The downside is time, but the upside of is a fun cooking hobby.
It is definitely not harder to spend more cooking at home than eating out. You just have to geek out, just a little bit, and not shop at supermarkets.
Note also that if you eat meat but won't eat Tyson chicken or Swift pork, your meal cost is automatically higher than most midrange restaurant meals --- but then again, those restaurants are probably serving you wholesale chicken & pork from the same crappy sources.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#34I eat lots of supermarket 'ready meals'. There seems to be an assumption that this is worse for my health that if I prepared and cooked the ingredients myself. Can someone point me to some concrete scientific evidence that that is true, or at least some convincing theories on why it might be true? (Ready meals are really convenient - if I'm going to motivate myself to give them up, I need some concrete evidence that…
(1) Healthfulness of food is a continuum, not a boolean. (2) "Ready made" meals covers almost the full spectrum. (3) Achilles heel of the best (really, all) frozen meals (say, Gardenburger with side of broccoli, or vegetable-centric Amy's) is high sodium. (4) If you cook healthfully (say a reasonably faithful version of the Indian or Italian traditions), your meals will have a much better balance of nutrients and esp…
Does sodium actually matter to most people? My understanding was, no, not even a little.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pre-made meals aren't intrinsically bad for you; it's the preservatives and other questionable ingredients (and quantity of) that the manufacturers may add that is detrimental to your health.
I believe the parent post is referring to the "Meals For Two" that some grocery stores are offering these days. In my area, two chains--Market Street and Central Market, for reference--have hot food restaurants/delis in the store. They use the same stock that is sold in the store and prepare lunch and dinner servings prior to the store opening and then throughout the day. Those are then packaged in containers, placed…
If you think that stuff doesn't taste like total crap, you are kidding yourself. In the last two years my wife and I moved from Portland (where you can get healthy tasty restaurant food) to the Bay Area (where you can't) and so we started cooking at home all the time.
Anything that isn't a home cooked meal tastes like industrial crap to me (even most restaurants). Once you have tasted sauteed greens, rice and home-roasted chicken, all those prepared foods you thought were normal will reveal themselves to you as suddenly not even worth the category "food".
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#36I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either. These kinds of articles are weak window-dressing attempts. Processed food lobby is far more powerful[1,2] (though I suspect Dutch know about industrialized food), so the NYT article is somewhat ton…
You know, this sounds truthy, but as much packaged food as the supermarket does sell, just by store volume, it seems like most people are still cooking. The meat section at my local Safeway-affiliate is, for instance, larger than the frozen meal section.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#37I began eating red beans and rice (plus peppers, onions, and garlic, never ever gets old) a year ago as a staple and the improvement in my health has been noticeable. I have put on 25 pounds of 90% muscle and have stabilized near my ideal "fighting weight" again.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#38I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast. Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a…
I just got back from Holland about a month ago and this is something I very much disliked about your country. There pretty much is no such thing as breakfast.
Breakfast in America is something of a tradition to eat a large one. I walked around many mornings looking for something to eat, and the best I could find most of the time was a sandwich.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#39We don't cook because our parents didn't. Prepackaged convenience foods have always been something of a status item. This whole "return to cooking" is something of an amusing rebellion to me, since it was something of a stigma in my childhood. If your parents had money, your lunch was filled with tasty items sealed in plastic from a factory. I used to bake bread in my dorm kitchen. My floormates thought it astounding…
The last thing you said is what I came in here to write. Everything in the NYTimes article is correct (about how easy it is to cook those 3 basic meals etc), but it misses one thing: there is no way that someone goes from eating burgers and prepackaged foods to salads and lentils instantly, and it's not because it's difficult or time consuming to cook (it's not really for most things).
Restaurant food has a major convenience factor, but the NYTimes article completely disregards that it also just plain tastes better than a salad to most people.
As someone who hates healthy food, lives in NYC where I can literally order delivery off the internet, and is trying to cook a lot more, you can't force two things on people at once: healthy eating AND cooking. I'm beginning to really like cooking, but only because I'm making things that aren't super healthy. My mother is a librarian and highly encourages her kids to read comics because to her they are a) totally valid reading material and b) are sometimes a gateway drug to much more reading. It's the same with cooking: teach someone to cook a butter burger and fry up some potatoes first (they'll still probably be knocking a few hundred calories off a restaurant version of the same meal anyway) and get them hooked on it. Maybe they'll transition to healthier stuff, worst case you at least have them eating SLIGHTLY healthier, and far closer to the source.
TLDR: Make a man a salad and he will order delivery for a night, teach a man to make salad and he will order deliver for a lifetime.
Re: By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind
#40Growing up, I only knew how to cook spaghetti and chocolate chip cookies. I figured everything else was in the realm of gourmets, and then I went to work for Google, and I never really needed to cook.
But lately I got interested in cooking again and discovered that its surprisingly easy to cook delicious meals. Here are my staples: - Beef & veggie stir-fry (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/beef-and-veg... - substitute "cauliflower rice" for noodles for lower carbs) - Pan-fried salmon w/asparagus or green beans (cooked in butter, garlic, and salt)
I wish someone had shown me the joys of a frying pan and sea salt before. It's brilliant. I feel so gourmet now. ;)