“I am tired and willing to pay extra because I don’t want to cook” is valid but arguing that you cannot cook food for less than the price of a DoorDash burrito because opportunity cost or something is advanced grindset nonsense
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Pizza is one of the easiest things to make.
It's historically a "poor family makes something with what they have left at home" meal
You make dough, you put the stuff on it you like, you put it in the oven. What is hard about that?
Only problem if you want good dough is to plan ahead. Make it the day before and let it rest. That makes a huge difference. (I even let it rest in the fridge for 5 days)
But an adult should be able to plan one day ahead.
And rotisserie chickens can be at least three meals in and of themselves - the initial meal, a sandwich later on, chicken quesadillas after that with the remaining shreds, and then into a pot to make several meals of chicken soup - that can be frozen or canned.
Seriously, even at my most tired, I can grab a rotisserie chicken, can of greens, and box of minute rice and have a balanced meal (with abundant leftovers) for less than ten dollars within fifteen minutes of walking in the door.
That’s exactly it! They just don’t wanna! And they’re using denial and rationalization to justify their decisions. So, who cares? It’s their life and their money.
Matt Forney is a very bad right wing filmmaker but I repeat myself. The name tickled something in my brain and Hbomberguy talked about him eight years ago.
I worked delivering pizzas for a year, and there were always a few customers who didn't tip. I don't know if it's worse now but somehow I'm not optimistic.
I got scrambled eggs, pancakes, hash browns, back and sausage for four delivered last night from IHOP for a price that was dangerously close to being cheaper than doing it myself
In all seriousness, how? Cause I can buy eggs, Bisquick, syrup, sausage, dried or frozen hash browns for the price of that same meal for TWO last time we went to IHOP this summer, and have 12 meals out of it.
In all seriousness, are food prices that high near you right now?
Also time I figure in driving to the store to buy everything, checking out, making pancakes and scrambling eggs and getting two different breakfast meats cooked and making hashbrowns, I'd be exhausted and tearing my hair out
I guess I just stock things as standard have in the house monthly - part of living so rural for a long time, and before that - winter in the midwest. If I won't go out in the weather, usually delivery drivers won't either.
This is genuinely the most insane thing I have seen today and I saw a right wing British magazine claim Adrian Dittmann wasn’t Elon Musk because they did a Google search
You have to be making a fairly high amount of money and have a flexible enough schedule to be able to choose to work during that time, and really enjoy your job enough to make that worth it. Not impossible, but not many people like that
I use what I call the McDonald's Mendoza Line. That's the cost of four medium quarter pounder meals, which these days is around $40. I can make a steak and potatoes dinner with vegetables for $30 or less, and have leftovers, which is never an option with fast food.
There are some things that are prohibitively difficult to do at home, especially at small scale (deep frying anything for instance) and some things just taste better when made by pros
But it’s not a lost opportunity… my time when I’m not working is worth the same if I’m lazy or active
No this has been a problem for a while. It can be much cheaper to buy processed food than make food from scratch. It’s not as big a difference as with clothes - it’s much MUCH cheaper to buy clothes than make your own - if you’re knitting or whatever.
If people are earning enough $ per hour, then taking 30 mins out from work to make food can be more expensive than getting it delivered, that seems simple. Whether that’s a good work-life balance is a whole different discussion…
Life is more complicated than some simple math
Every hour more than 6/day makes you less efficient.
Not taking breaks, makes you less efficient.
The simple act of cooking between working hours, spending some time on something not work related, has huge benefits.
Countless studies show that
Plenty of This Type Of Guy also view "preparing food to eat because it tastes good & otherwise you die, & doing dishes after" as a mystified arcane skillset, yet also meaningless toil/gendered drudgery suitable only for the wife they expect to be issued. Unlike their job doin data entry or whatev.
My Dad was an oddball; the youngest of 3 boys, he was raised during the Depression. Grandma wasn't having any of this gendered role crap. All three boys learned basic cooking, sewing and other household skills.
the fees alone on door dash can double the price. it is completely insane to claim that by paying a guy to drive from the restaurant to your house with a sandwich you're saving any money at all, just completely divorced from reality if you think that.
Willing helplessness combined with a secular Puritanism that holds that paying someone to provide you with a service you could do yourself is a sinful luxury.
It’s not that they don’t want to do this work it’s that capitalism is forcing them to eat out since it’s cheaper.
Get the cheap ones from any grocery. No specialty store needed. That's the thing, burritos and pizza are both incredibly cheap to make with ingredients from almost anywhere.
That’s the thing. They see garlic powder or whatever in a recipe, see that a thing of garlic powder costs $5, and think of that $5 as part of the cost of the one meal instead of a small fraction of it
yeah that is definitely something I’ve seen before. People getting mad at youtubers for putting the real cost of ingredients ie. 10 cents for flour per serving or something like that. Very dumb behaviour.
The thing is, people with unstocked kitchens do exist. I get why they would find it frustrating, especially if they're trying to get through until payday, to not be able to afford the ingredients for a cheap recipe.
Seriously. Like, a week ago I decided to have a burrito for dinner and proceeded to have quesadillas for the rest of the week with basically no additional purchasing.
That would be an invalid argument for anyone like me, given that I'd end up staring for half an hour into the abyss that is a dozen local restaurants' menus, trying to decide what I want, before finally ordering the same burrito as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and...
this is definitely an issue when you live alone. a lot of dinners turn into one scoop of leftover burrito filling, half of an onion, a handful of wrinkly cherry tomatoes, a can of chickpeas, and a firm ball of spaghetti.
okay, i happened to list ingredients that go pretty well together... what about this: two end slices of toast, a cup of tomato sauce, a slightly moldy orange, and a bit of chicken teriyaki
basic survival skills *under any economic system other than advanced industrial capitalism* plus the incredible luck to be living in that economic system
I know we’re just arguing with ourselves in the shower on this one but, I call bullshit somebody wanting just ONE burrito and never again for the foreseeable future.
I survived a long commute to college in part by making an entire semester's worth of breakfast breads (banana etc.) ahead and freezing them, to reduce the amount of breakfast meal prep needed (each loaf lasted 4-5 days and covered most of the class week)
I literally picked my mini fridge based primarily on the fact that it has a separate true freezer, instead of a mini freezer box near the back. Love to have spare meals for later.
Is the idea here that they don’t realize that multiple recipes can share ingredients? The most expensive parts are the protein and cheese and you can use those in a million things.
That's a big part of it. They don't menu plan. They want what they want when they want it. My SIL quit cooking because when she calls the niblets to the table, they inform her they have ordered Taco Bell doordash, where a $3 burrito costs $12.
i don't menu plan because that is cursed nonsense designed to aggravate my executive dysfunctions (and also just not how anyone i know cooks); using up ingredients doesn't require menu planning, it just requires adding them to your next meal
The pain is visceral. I’m not above getting Taco Bell from time to time but the whole appeal is cheap junk food. A crappy dinner that hits the spot for $12 and was like a burrito, a cheesy Gordita crunch, and some other bs. Door dashing it is like having Taco Bell on a silver platter.
Yes. Half the ingredients I buy, I'm planning out a few different meals to use them in. Also I make big batches and freeze when it's something that thaws/reheats well.
It's one of my favorite things to not have to cook because I can reheat something I cooked and froze 2 months ago.
And they don't recognize that being able to eat exactly what you want to for every meal a day with minimal effort is a mind-boggling luxury that if anything is shockingly cheap today
This is how I ended up spending my bachelor years eating basically the same simple meal every day for years at a time
It was easy and cheap enough that I still had the money and energy to go out with friends or order in on occasion for variety (or, frankly, buy way too many books and Steam games)
Now maybe my particular variety of weird brain was such that I actually didn't mind eating rice, mixed vegetables, and Pick A Meat every day, I can see how that would get boring
it saved me the trouble of coming up with ideas, simplified grocery shopping and frankly, variety is kind of a luxury?
seriously, I think it would be helpful.
I make massive pots of bone broth/veggie stock for basically nothing (food scraps) and it's a massive part of getting extra nutrients into basic rice & beans.
There’s actually a cookbook called Good and Cheap that focuses on recipes like this, as well as how to use leftovers/scraps for varied meals. Every recipe comes with a cost/portion and a lot of them are really good.
It’s fantastic, and her 2nd book is also good but different. The USDA also would put together sample menus for different budgets. Heck, there’s even an IKEA ebook about using kitchen scraps for meals that’s hardcore.
Yeah iirc the author was on the UK equivalent of food stamps for awhile, and wrote it with the intention of helping folks in similar situations learn how to stretch their budget while still eating full, enjoyable meals. It definitely helped me when I was struggling to make ends meet.
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It's historically a "poor family makes something with what they have left at home" meal
You make dough, you put the stuff on it you like, you put it in the oven. What is hard about that?
But an adult should be able to plan one day ahead.
Yeah, that's expensive with a lot of waste.
But that onion is good for three meals. Those beans? Two. Extra tortillas? Quesadillas for a week!
In all seriousness, are food prices that high near you right now?
Also time I figure in driving to the store to buy everything, checking out, making pancakes and scrambling eggs and getting two different breakfast meats cooked and making hashbrowns, I'd be exhausted and tearing my hair out
I guess I just stock things as standard have in the house monthly - part of living so rural for a long time, and before that - winter in the midwest. If I won't go out in the weather, usually delivery drivers won't either.
But it’s not a lost opportunity… my time when I’m not working is worth the same if I’m lazy or active
Because that is a pretty stupid argument
Every hour more than 6/day makes you less efficient.
Not taking breaks, makes you less efficient.
The simple act of cooking between working hours, spending some time on something not work related, has huge benefits.
Countless studies show that
this works for us + isn't tricky
And I'm not knocking delivery I do it more than I should but it is possible to teach yourself basic cooking skills
and Jen is an amazing cook. she is simply fantastic.
not everyone has this etc
https://bsky.app/profile/iansociologo.bsky.social/post/3lexgwsx5oc2y
Ordered DoorDash from bed; put favorite hot sauces on night stand.
‘Your delivery is 2 minutes away!’
Fell asleep right after.
Me, 6am, taking Ella out: WTF IS TACO BELL ON MY DOORSTEP
Cooking can be hard and boring but be honest.
It’s not that they don’t want to do this work it’s that capitalism is forcing them to eat out since it’s cheaper.
You can also do burritos at every price point. I can do delicious burritos for less that a $1 each but you have to put in some work.
this is kinda fun
you can definitely alleviate the issue with better planning, though.
Burrito no because the ingredients could be used for a lot of other things that take a few minutes to prepare.
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_freezer_burritos/
my partner and i like to do a production line type thing where we make a ton at once
Or else make something else out of the same ingredients, like a casserole or bean dip or ???
It's one of my favorite things to not have to cook because I can reheat something I cooked and froze 2 months ago.
I’m kidding but lmao humanity is so cooked
That said, it would be a way to not drop $40 on delivery on *every single* meal.
It was easy and cheap enough that I still had the money and energy to go out with friends or order in on occasion for variety (or, frankly, buy way too many books and Steam games)
it saved me the trouble of coming up with ideas, simplified grocery shopping and frankly, variety is kind of a luxury?
food deserts effect this, and you have to shop carefully, but... maybe schools just aren't teaching it anymore?
maybe we need a TT series.
I make massive pots of bone broth/veggie stock for basically nothing (food scraps) and it's a massive part of getting extra nutrients into basic rice & beans.
For soup.
For the family. 😏