[TaylorAlexander]

Yes Americans are rich and are also very busy. Life seems to push so fast that I know a lot of people buy food away from home due to a sense that they don’t have time to cook. There must be rich individuals in other cultures who still eat at home because they have more freedom to take the time to do so. Americans on a global scale are rich but I expect that living expenses are so high too that many people who often eat out are still struggling to get by.

[SoftTalker]

Eating at home takes less time than eating out. Maybe about the same if you include washing up and putting everything away.

Getting prepared food via DoorDash, I guess might be quicker, but you're still sitting there for 30-60 minutes in most cases waiting for it to show up. You can roast a chicken and vegetables in the oven in that time.

[Broken_Hippo]

, but you're still sitting there for 30-60 minutes in most cases waiting for it to show up.

But you aren't sitting! You are doing other things. Spending time with a child, scrolling the internet, watching tv, playing a game, doing housework, and so on.

If you roast a chicken, you still need to prepare it. This takes time. You gotta wait for the oven to heat, and you might need a side. You might need to put them in the oven at different times - that chicken is going to take 1.5 to 2 hours, after all. When everything is said and done, you then need to clean up the mess.

All in all, it will definitely take longer to cook yourself and you could use that time to do other things.

As a sidenote: This seems like a fancy meal. Its been some times since I ate meat or lived in the US, but I remember rotisserie chickens being cheaper than whole chickens from the frozen section at the store. Is it not still that way?

[jeffbee]

This is entirely situational. Where I am sitting in a central urban neighborhood I can click to reorder my standing order at the Indian restaurant on the corner—this is shockingly straightforward on Google Maps, just search the name of the restaurant and click one button—and it's 1 minute away. I often cook of course, but I don't think of cooking at home as a time-saving device. I think of it as a hobby.

[yoyohello13]

What kind of food are you preparing? It takes 5mins to order DoorDash. It takes minimum 20-30mins to prepare and clean up after an average meal.

[TaylorAlexander]

We aren't sitting around waiting for food we are frantically trying to get everything else done in that time.