[crispyporkbites]

It takes much longer to cook from scratch than use processed food. If you're on the bread line it's better to spend that time working overtime.

It also takes a long time to learn to cook effectively, and you need a decent kitchen, utensils, storage, spices, scales etc. which all cost money.

There's also the mindshare element, if you need to do a thousand things to survive, adding cooking from scratch to the list is really hard.

[tomcooks]

Soup takes 3 minutes to make and a hour of boiling while you clean at home.

You don't need utensils, scales, nor anything decent, just a container that can be put on the fire. I survived cooking in army surplus over a tin can stove.

Food is basic survival so I don't know what to say about the mindshare element, especially when cooking from scratch saves you money and keeps you healthy.

[FeepingCreature]

Soup that takes three minutes to make is a prepared food...

Anyway, for me, maybe 50/50 I'd forget the soup on the stove and it would char a bit.

[tomcooks]

Chop one onion, one carrot, add fat, nasty meat bits or fish heads, and whatever else is going to rot in the fridge. 3 minutes prep, then just let it boil 1+ hours.

If you forget stuff on the fire then yeah go get a burger

[FeepingCreature]

I keep my fridge empty of perishables, precisely because things in it have a tendency to rot. Putting the rotting stuff into a rot soup that makes me sick will not increase the amount of stuff in my fridge.