[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.