Yep there you go. If it's something you enjoy, you almost want to slow things down a bit.

> It’s so easy to fall into the pattern of just getting delicious restaurant food all the time

Absolutely. Virtually all of my friends & family are 100% addicted to other people cooking & bringing them food now.

I try to eat out rarely, especially any sort of cheap fast food. The quality & nutrition you get out of a $5 burger these days is absolutely appalling.

>The issue really isn't that you can't live for cheap. The issue is that living for cheap takes time.

>It takes prep work to turn cheap vegetables into something edible

The thing is, it saves money and time. I've been working late so I started getting into the habit of ordering food most nights for the last month or so. It was costing me $30-40/night.

The last couple weekends I actually put the effort in to make some things that'll last the week.

For $40 worth of vegetables and meat I made meals that lasted me most of the week, that were by far healthier than what I was ordering and cost me significantly less.

Learning to cook well does take time. But it's easier than ever to learn now. Anything you ever want to make has a recipe available online somewhere and I have to say, if you can program a computer, you can learn to follow a recipe.

Once you can follow recipes well and make them taste good, you start to learn what flavours different ingredients add to food and how things cook you can start to step away from the recipes.

Most cooking really just comes down to using the correct heat and putting things in in the correct order at the right time. Once you get that down, you can make anything.

>Then comes the education problem. It's hard enough figuring out what a "healthy" diet is even with internet access

Forget that shit, healthy diets blah blah. You need some protein, you need some fats, the vitamins and minerals and stuff in vegetables, some fiber.

Basically, you want to eat the stuff our bodies are made of and avoid things it's not made of. If it doesn't have some function in our cellular processes, it's garbage. Avoid processed stuff, stuff full of chemicals and additives.

Obviously, it's tough to avoid all stuff like that, but minimizing that stuff and eating things that come directly from plants or animals goes a long way to improving your health.

> Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?

Because it's incredibly inefficient for a chef to cook a meal for a family, because people want their food to arrive warm, thus preventing factory-food-production, because delivery is expensive, because everyone has a refrigerator, thus making cooked-to-order food have compete on price with long-shelf-life refrigerated staples, and because people vote with their wallets by buying food that tastes good, as opposed to food that's healthy.

Do you know what makes food taste good? Sugar, fat, salt, and alcohol. Do you know what's not healthy for you? Sugar, fat, salt and alcohol. [1]

The other problem is that a lot of Americans don't know how to eat well - because eating well is a skill that you inherit from your parents. If your parents were feeding you crap food as a kid, you'll turn into an adult that craves that same crap.

There's a huge class divide, here. My parents were immigrants with lower-middle-class means, but upper-class habits. As a kid, soda was a treat for me. Soda was a staple for my lower-class friends - which was not by their choice, but rather by choice of their parents. They grew up into adults with bad diets, bad teeth, and bad overall health, and they find it really, really hard to change what they eat.

This sort of thing repeats, generation after generation.

[1] Yes, I'm aware that fat and salt aren't unhealthy in themselves - but are probably unhealthy in the amounts we consume.

Is it? I thought one reason that obesity was higher among people with lower incomes is that it's cheaper for them to buy prepared food than to work an hour less and cook themselves?

If I spent the time I did on cooking on paid work instead, the money I would make could pay for a very good meal. (of course, I don't, I still cook because I can't spend every waking hour working or I'd go insane)

But eating out also causes negative externalities because the incentives between restaurant and food consumer aren't properly aligned.

Restaurants have every incentive to offer cheap, unhealthy, but more addictive foods because the resulting health issues are externalized towards the buyer and to the rest of society.

It's this incentive structure that gives rise to Supersized sodas, unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden, etc.

One way to look at it is that the industrialization of food production (including cooking) is better at moving atoms around and making whatever people choose to eat cheaper, but worse at managing the bits of information that help people make wise decisions on what they actually should be eating.

It's also harder to verify that you got what you paid for -- my family used to go to the market every weekend to stock up, and you become intimately familiar with what's in season, what is fresh, and what tastes good, but it's easy for a restaurant to buy cut-rate produce and then dress it up with seasoning and technique.

No. Full stop.

Cooking steak and eating it with fresh veggies is one of the fastest meals you can imagine to prep. It probably feels more expensive to people, but when you actually compare the nutrient and protein profile, the steak+veggies will be a lot closer in price compared to carbohydrate junk food.

> The idea that you can work a full time job, have time to cook, clean and eat and also have enough money to buy ingredients that aren't sugar by another name is laughable.

I do this and also have time to play videogames and spend hours hiking with my dog (also cooking for my dog sometimes). It's hard, but not impossible. But then so are most things worth doing in life.

I agree completely. I've never understood why people making $200-300k are so impressed by food, as if they're living on a remote island. I could understand if it was some kind of chef service where you can request any recipe, but as it is I'd rather work in an office that has no food or private offices so I can keep the noises, smells, and sights out.

Typically they do. Poor people aren't idiots. They know that prepared store food is grossly overpriced compared to a similar meal they assemble themselves and seek to avoid it as much as possible without spending too much time/effort on meal prep. They usually manage to drag themselves to Walmart or the local supermarket every 1-2 weeks. Even if you have to drag your ass to some far away supermarket because it's the only one open after you get home from work and get 3hr of sleep that night you'll still do it because of the huge cost reduction compared to prepared food or whatever your local convenience store has. You'll buy the same bunch of things every time because over time you figure out a bunch of relatively low effort and low cost meals and then stick to them. Lunch or breakfast will probably be the same thing every day and you'll skip the other. They buy gas station sandwiches and junk food more than the rich because when your menu is the same boring things on a 2wk cycle so it's a nice, low mental effort, way to shake things up from time to time.

The home cooked meals poor people eat are just far less balanced than ideal because they're more skewed toward ease of prep and cost than what rich people eat. Instead of a salad they'll bring a PB&J and a few Oreos to work. Something like (microwave) baked potatoes and chicken nuggets, maybe with a vegetable side (or something similarly imbalanced but cheap) will probably be on the menu at least one night a week.

"Food deserts" are a problem but less of a problem than they seem to be because what rich people think poor people should be eating and what poor people think they should be eating are vastly different.

This. That's the primary reason I keep eating unhealthy. Since I started working, I naturally gravitated toward few dishes that basically make themselves - e.g. french fries, boiled/fried sausage, etc. - basically anything I can drop on the stove and leave unattended for some time. Maybe if I started to seriously learn how to cook I'd start to like it, but for now it's something that I need to do to keep myself able to do other things.

The supermarket. You’ll have 10-15,000 much better calories, but you’ll have to cook them in water before you consume them.

If you can’t find time to cook and you’re poor, you’ll be poor forever. If you can’t find time to cook and you’re middle class, you’ll be poor soon enough. If you can’t organize your time to run your home economy, you’re going to be poor. Your home economy is the basis of all your wealth. It’s fundamental. If you “don’t have time” for that you’re a slave to The Man, parroting that nonesense for the privilege of eating inferior food other people prepared for you at a huge markup.

> Call it a tragedy of the modern times.

I am! :) It's the tragedy, really.

Yeah, that's what you do when it's expensive to eat. Stretch a pot of beans, rice and hamhocks over a week. Buy canned vegetables and Hamburger Helper. Shake and Bake chicken and au gratin potatoes out of a box. Stock up on bollilos, ramen and vermicelli. Stop expecting every meal to be an experience, you're not living to eat anymore, you're eating to live.

I worked for a while in a "normie" office (not a tech company) and I was blown away by the amount of junk food people ate. In some areas each row of desks had piles of junk food at the ends and there would constantly be cake for people's birthdays etc.

Other places I've seen offer a "fully stocked" kitchen (read, junk food) as a perk. Why the hell would I want a constant supply of crap I can easily afford to buy but don't because it's unhealthy? I consider myself to have pretty decent self control, but some people don't and it's like offering crack to an addict. I don't even agree with vending machines at work.

My food philosophy is simple: I use the most basic ingredients as is practical, buy the freshest stuff I can, and cook nearly everything at home.

I can be pretty confident about what's in my food, because odds are I put it there. We save a ton of money on eating out, and I think it builds better friendships when you can invite people over for a meal you cooked.

This comes at a time cost, but with practice, you get to the point where you can cook amazing food pretty quickly. Not as fast as an instant meal, but it'll taste ten times better, and cost a quarter as much.

Also, I've found I don't really like most processed food anymore after eating like this. Some stuff is okay -- potato chips are way easier to buy off-the-shelf -- but I honestly start to feel sick if I eat McDonalds, or drink a Coke, and I pretty much grew up on both of those.

I know this isn't accessible to everybody -- if you're working two jobs and on the weekends, there's no way you've got time to cook -- but if you have the time, I'd say it's worth it.

You don't sound very sorry. You sound incredibly judgmental of anyone who has different priorities than you.

Personally, I love food, I just hate preparing it. Spend 30 minutes to cook a meal that I will eat in 5? No thanks. So I eat out all the time, which is really fucking expensive.

You've heard of the PM triangle right? Same basic idea here. Food can be cheap, tasty, quick, and healthy, but not all at once. McDonalds is cheap, tasty, and quick but not healthy. That steak dinner you just cooked yourself is cheap, tasty, and healthy but not quick. I personally always pick the quick option, but the other items can vary. Thus I'm usually eating quick, tasty, and healthy items. I have trouble finding things that are quick, healthy, and cheap. This seems to fill that niche nicely.

It doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly stop eating out, but it will mean I spend less money in the long run, without having to spend extra time. For all of the comments on Hacker News about how time=money, even when you're not on the clock, you'd think this concept would make sense more immediately.

I think the root is that everyone's rents and other costs are way higher. Many folks are barely getting by. I don't think it's Instagram or vanity - I think that might reveal your personal privilege and position in society. That isn't meant in a demeaning or derogatory way, it's just that it surprises me how today people from different classes do not often 'meet' each other anymore, in their day to day lives. Propably due to rising inequity. I think a lot of working class people buy quick meals because they have so little time.

> Everyone should learn how to cook some boring, staple meals using basic ingredients from the store.

100% agree. Shame we're still letting corporations brainwash the general population, not to mention kids.

It is only about sustenance for some people. Many (probably most) people enjoy a lot of the food preparation and eating process. Others, myself included, do not. Maybe it's because my sense of taste or smell is stunted. Maybe it's because I'm socially underdeveloped. So be it. It's certainly not because I'm a workaholic tech employee, even if I currently am, because it has been the case as long as I can remember. Whatever the reason, I really don't enjoy the experience of preparing or eating food.

> if you're poor, it's difficult to eat this way, though.

And it is difficult for some poor people to eat this way because their cultural poverty exacerbates or even causes their financial poverty. Their parents (if they were lucky enough to have two) didn't teach them to prepare basic meals, sharpen a knife, or care for a frying pan. Each of these skills is a barrier to entry, and they add up quickly for basic meals.

It's not the only major barrier, but I think that we have really pulled the rug out from the poorest by exchanging cultural norms for convenience and a net rise in costs.

This is categorically bad advice. Anyone that has an obese friend that’s into baking knows why. It’s very easy to make incredibly unhealthy and calorie-dense food at home.

I understand the sentiment but there is nothing about the process of making your own food that makes you a more healthy person. It all depends on the ingredients and the amount.

It’s obviously better to eat healthy takeout every day than it is to cook home made french fries for dinner.

For me cooking (generally, making stuff to eat) is a hobby. I don't have kids but that just makes it a little less enjoyable because I don't have a large family to share my cooking with. Otherwise I'm happy for the chance to get away from a screen and have some me-time doing something that satisfies my senses (I especially like adding each spice separately to the pan and taking a biig sniff as it cooks - I'm a food hedonist). In any case I really don't experience it as wasted time. If I'm tired from work or I'm late at home, I just cook something simple or make sure I have left overs.

And it doesn't need to be a hobby. Any way you see it, cooking a good meal is just a great way to care about yourself and your loved ones and make them happy. Uber Eats can't do that.