Not arguing with you that it takes a considerable amount of time to prepare and clean-up a home cooked meal. But as someone who is not living alone (have a wife and kids), I'd say you probably have a lot more free time than you think you do, and I'm not sure that cooking just for yourself takes up any more time than it would cooking more food, for more people with varying tastes, allergies, etc. Add to the fact that most of the people being cooked for (kids) are basically freeloaders, I think that people living alone really have less excuse to eat healthy.
sotajensede|3 years ago
Not to sound harsh, this is just how I frame these sorts of things for my own benefit: If you have free time and are getting takeout or eating hot pockets, you're just borrowing that time from the end of your lifespan to use between work and sleep. It's like borrowing from a 401k on a fixed income.
Speaking of, the same goes for finances. We feel like certain essentials are disproportionately expensive because we can otherwise afford previously unheard of luxuries on average incomes, but we are actually just much less wealthy than consumerism makes us feel.
So if we live wisely and with discipline, it is quickly obvious that time and money are in much shorter supply than most realize. That isn't necessarily grim, but this framing is much more useful in good habit forming in my experience.
The value culture in the West has so quickly changed in only a generation or two depending on the specific region, that I'm more suspicious over time of the perceived unobtainability of certain ways of living that we frequently romanticize.
ParksNet|3 years ago
I just throw in Chicken Thighs, Rice, Frozen Vegetables. Add water. Set for 7 minutes. Come back to several servings of perfectly cooked food. Add things like peanut sauce and seasoning to taste before or after pressurization.
Total human involvement time to prep, monitor, and serve: about 5 minutes, ingredients are available at any Walmart. Electric pressure cookers are regularly on sale for $40 at Best Buy.
Cooking the same meal using pots and pans would take 60 minutes of human time and require many more pieces of equipment to buy, use and wash.
Give every poor household in the USA an electric pressure cooker, and the instructions on how to use them. Poor households wouldn't even need cooktops or ovens anymore.
cj|3 years ago
sudden_dystopia|3 years ago