[the8472]

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour.

It's not hard to optimize for speed. White rice, beans and frozen veggies boil in 10-15 minutes and don't even require attention for the full timespan. Cleanup consists of putting things in the dishwasher. And I don't know why you would factor in eating, going to McD won't teleport it into your stomach. Time can be further amortized by making several servings, putting them in the fridge and warming them up in the microwave later.

We're comparing to fastfood here, not a high end restaurant course.

[lapetitejort]

Get an instant pot (a relatively new "smart" pressure cooker). I've been introducing my in-laws to their instant pot and it's hard for them to comprehend how fast it cooks. Mashed potatoes, steel cuts oats, lentils, all in about 10 minutes. The pot cooks everything.

My go-to lazy meal is 1 1/2 cups of rice and beans, a few cups of stock, a cup of salsa, extra flavoring as desired, whatever veggies and protein I have around, all thrown in the pot for 25 minutes. Then I take out the pot and put it in the fridge. That will last two people a few days. Very little prep for a massive amount of food.

You can also make yogurt overnight for maybe a 75% savings over store-bought.

[BostonEnginerd]

The other tip with the instant pot I’ve found is to put your food in a glass bowl on the steamer tray in the instant pot. This way you can add exactly the amount of water, and you don’t make a mess of the pot.

[rosseloh]

Cleanup for me definitely doesn't consist only of the dishwasher; my knives, wok, cast iron stuff to start definitely don't get put in there.

I have optimized what I do quite well, or at least I'm much faster than I used to be. But for example this last weekend, I made some stir fry in a large batch for this week's meals. By the time I left my parents' house (long story but I basically can't cook at the house I live in), I had used up three hours. That was prepping four bell peppers, an onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and chicken, cooking them, and cleaning up afterward.

I'm sure I can speed my prep up even more, mostly with knife skills. But at this point, that's how it is.

I factor in eating because I clean up after I eat. Most of the stuff I make is best fresh out of the frying pan with very minimal resting time.

But anyway, I'm not here to argue. If cooking at home works for you in 15 minutes, fantastic! I can't do that, it never works that quickly. I was mostly wondering how the parent poster's drive-thrus were so slow that they could cook faster because where I live, I never spend more than five minutes in one.

[manmal]

Cooking time heavily depends on the dish. There are recipes optimized for time consumption - if time is a priority, you could use those. Sometimes we just put potatoes in the pressure cooker, peel afterwards, and season with some oil and spice - takes 10m max. That’s the healthier alternative to fries from McD. A keto meal will take longer, but at least in my area there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

[phonypc]

>there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

Big Mac, no bun, extra mac sauce. /s

[Spivak]

I feel like this doesn’t optimize for enjoyment. Like shit this is what I ate when I was a broke in college. Are y’all not miserable eating this? At that point in my life getting taken by my parents out to somewhere mediocre like Olive Garden was heaven.

[bcrosby95]

Boiled veggies are disgustingly bland.

We season and bake our veggies. It adds to cost, but doesn't make me want to toss my food in the trash.

[8note]

If you don't boil them too much, they're plenty flavourful.

It's just that it's the flavour of the vegetable, which isn't full of sugar, salt, or msg unlike the very optimized processed foods

[ConceptJunkie]

I blanch broccoli for two minutes and it turns out just fine. The days of boiling all vegetables until they turn grey are long gone.

And I don't find any need to put butter or other stuff on the broccoli. Usually just a smidge of Tony Chachere and garlic powder.

[windowsrookie]

No we're not miserable. In fact having home cooked healthy meals daily makes me feel better than ever. When I go eat fast food now I feel noticeably worse than I normally do.

You are what you eat. Eat garbage fast food, and you will feel like garbage. And your body slowly accumulates all that garbage.

Traditional dine in restaurants are usually just as unhealthy as eating fast food as well.

It's actually shocking to me that garbage food has been normalized to the point where eating healthy is "what I ate when I was a broke in college." and that we must be miserable eating healthy.

Wow that's crazy.

[jjeaff]

I don't think they are necessarily saying that fast food is healthier, just that you aren't going to get too many people excited by claiming that cooking for yourself from scratch is easy and doesn't take much time. Then you go on to describe a meal that consists of white rice and boiled vegetables.

[ConceptJunkie]

You're right. Cooking takes a lot of time, and cooking good healthy food that isn't boring can be expensive. I'm sorry, I can't live on vegetables and be happy. I cook plenty of chicken, fish and red meat as well. Although my appreciation for vegetables have gone up considerably in the past couple decades. The first lesson I learned is that canned vegetables are awful. Frozen is much better. Now I feel that frozen is awful (well, for things like spinach, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower anyway, corn and beans are fine). Now I only like fresh veggies (except for corn, frozen corn is fine). But fresh veggies don't keep long. There's a Lotte about 20 minutes away that has about twice as many different kinds of produce as most markets, and at about half the price, but that's a long way to go for every day shopping. I'll get fresh veggies at Giant or Target, but I don't like paying so much more.

I happen to love cooking, so to me it's relaxing. My wife doesn't like to cook, so I do most of it. But even still, as much as I like doing it, there are definitely days when I don't feel like all the work. And if I'm going to put the effort into making stuff, I want to make something good, and often something new, and that takes a lot of time.

And while brown rice is much better than white rice. If you want white rice, go with basmati. It tastes much better, cooks faster, and is hard to screw up. I don't understand why people use any other white rice. There are tons of other kinds of rice that are worth exploring too. They all have much more interesting flavors and textures than plain old generic long-grain white rice.

[eurasiantiger]

No, we’re not miserable. That’s just the media environment playing mind tricks on you to get you to buy things you don’t need so you don’t miss out on the montage of joyous people and half-naked bodies playing and frolicking on the sunny ocean beach with refreshing, ice-cold, bubbly, intensely colored sugar water.

[Spivak]

Yo that’s super depressing if you’re buying your time back just to watch TV. Do you just assume that people don’t have friends, hobbies, side projects?

[eurasiantiger]

Sure, people have those. Friends to go out with to spend money, because that’s the way to socialize. Hobbies that require buying more non-essential things, and places to keep them in. Larger apartments to accommodate everything. Side projects to keep you busy while the world goes to shit.

[jjeaff]

So are you saying you don't have friends, you don't go out to socialize, you don't have hobbies, you don't do any work besides what your regular job pays you for, and you stay home in a small apartment and eat mostly white rice and boiled vegetables?

[jhanschoo]

I don't believe your assessment of most peoples' priorities in life is helping you very much in convincing them to adopt your worldview and way of life.

[eurasiantiger]

That’s their problem, not mine.

[netizen-936824]

Didn't optimizing for enjoyment get the US into this obesity thing in the first place? Maybe let's not do that so much? Like just season stuff well, even boiled veggies

[8note]

I think you're conflating enjoyment with status?

It's low status to eat well on home cooked foods, and high status to eat poorly at well advertised garbage restaurants

[jjeaff]

Unless we are talking about the kind of restaurants that are difficult to get a reservation for, then I think you are confused about what creates status in American culture.

Going through the drive through at McDonalds certainly will not raise your status in America.

[bradknowles]

Rice = carbs Beans = carbs Veggies = carbs?

All these carbs can and probably will be bad for your health, regardless of where you get them.

The easy things to fix tend to also be less healthy for you. And the less time and money you have, you tend to lean into this trap even more.

[netizen-936824]

Brans are extremely high in protein, and when combined with rice you get all of the essential amino acids. Plants are more than just "carbs"

Life isn't quite that simple

[netizen-936824]

Beans*