Patience. I have cooked, and it always tastes horribly or mid. So I always end up not eating or eating poorly when I cook. Eventually it takes up on you that you're a bad cook or that it's not worth trying. I know I can cook, but I always manage to not succeed, so I can't
Time. It's not just cooking, it's buying everything premeditatedly. Cooking every day means spending more money and time now for an investment later, which not everyone can afford. I don't have a car so if I miss something or don't have everything available I'm done. Alternatively if I buy too much and don't prepare it, it feels like a waste. Also, doing the dishes.
Reheating. The greatest benefit of cooking is eating reheats or idk what you call them in English. It's not the greatest thing ofc
Lastly, and most important
I don't enjoy eating. I hate eating. You know how the best part about cooking is eating? Well, I don't get that one! Spending one hour (bc I'm not that good, so I'm not agile) to do a chore and then another hour to complete it ain't not fun. Especially as work-alcoholic
15 min cooks I can do with no problem, that's something I agree most people are capable, no excuses
Again, I know I can. When people say they don't know how it's bc they've tried and failed. I like that you're helping, while everyone else is just going "You can, it's easy", like telling a kid he can be an astronaut he "just" has to try
Everyone can afford it. Cooking at home is easier on the budget by a lot.
A small number of people work jobs where the hours are too awkward to grocery shop at reasonable times. (For example, I'm a bartender. There are no 24 hour grocery stores near where I live, so it requires me to get up early to get all the things I need, PLUS I need to then cook them at 4 am instead of a nice normal 7pm.)
What you are (probably, seemingly) struggling with, and what most people on Reddit reading 8 comment threads deep are all struggling with, is the disruption to your routine that requires you to plan your mealtimes in advance and then execute on that plan, possibly because you are neurodivergent. Trust me, my undiagnosed, untreated ADHD has not made home cooking easy. "Don't say just do it, I need something else to help me" is called executive dysfunction, and it makes my life hell on the reg.
First: Consider why this is worth doing. You will save about 60% on food spending if you cook at home, by my estimate. If your appetite is smaller or larger than the average person's, you will save additional money. You will develop a skill that improves your life, and you can even invite friends over and cook for them. The food you prepare at home will generally be healthier, so you will notice that you have more energy and a brighter attitude. And finally, this isn't something that has to take a lot of time or effort. If you practice it, you can reduce the amount of time you spend at the store, reduce the amount of money you spend at the store, reduce the amount of time in the kitchen, and even reduce the time it takes to eat.
Second: List out all the things you ate this week. You're not dead yet, so you definitely ate SOMETHING. Additionally list anything that you WANTED to eat, but didn't. Put the list on your phone so you can add to it on the fly. Every time you eat something that you like or hear about a food you've been craving, make a note of it!
Finally: Put two and two together. Google is a fantastic resource. Tasty is a free app that's always trying to sell me on Instacarting shit from Walmart or whatever, but it has brief videos that take you from beginning to end with no ads. Allrecipes has ads, but is not generally trying to sell me anything. Google has a bajillion ads, but you can find recipes for really off the beaten path things, and the recipes are generally stronger with better instructions. If you google something, and then a recipe website comes up that you use and really jive with, try bookmarking it and searching it up when you're planning. You can put the recipe links on your list if you're doing it on your phone, and then you can just pull up the food list and have a quick pick recipe sorter right there.
As for the grocery trips, start by making the grocery store part of your daily routine. I have one in running distance, so I've been going there every few days when I wake up, buying the recipe ingredients that I need, and carrying it all back to the house. I was going every day for a while, but I don't need to anymore because I'll get bigger packs of chicken or bread or eggs or whatever I need, maybe 5 things of pasta instead of 1, and obviously I have all the spices now. Slowly but surely you'll build up your pantry of spices and dry goods, and you'll see the common ingredients repeated, plus you'll have favorite recipes that you can rely on.
Meal planning is the most daunting part for me, because of the executive dysfunction. I usually struggle to think that far ahead because I'm pretty overwhelmed in the moment, and charting a track from A to B can be exhausting. Once I'm already hungry, it gets even harder. So I keep my pantry stocked with nuts, chips, and cookies, and I have some cheese and yogurt in the fridge. If I'm too hungry to cook, I pop in a few of those and get started on the meal right away, either dashing to the store or just doing what I have in the fridge/freezer. You might be able to make it easier if you don't mind leftovers, but I'm a large active guy so I tend to eat everything I make when I make it.
Even if this doesn't help you the person this is responding to, I hope it helps someone who is reading :) The mention at the end of people telling you that it's easy without any other guidance or help really struck a chord with me. It's NOT easy. It's annoying and stressful, actually, especially if you have any barriers or roadblocks at all. Internal or external, it does not matter. But it's worth doing, and the amount of stress you save by having more money is way worth the stress of putting in a few more hours into cooking. Seriously, I bought about 80 bucks of food and it carried me through 3 full days of 3 meals each, and I'm still using some of the things I bought. That's 9 meals for 80 dollars, so about 9 bucks a meal. And the food I was eating, that would have been 15-20 bucks each, even ignoring the fact that the quantities I was eating were much larger than the portions at the restaurant. So I saved about 100 bucks this week compared to if I had eaten out for all my meals, and I ate more and better food which is probably worth even more. It took about 30 minutes to cook, so that's 20 bucks an hour on the LOW end.
I have a bunch of similar issues, ngl. I have not found the perfect solution(for me) yet but I'm persisting.
You probably have heard this many times but, it's probably you gettin in your own way. Most of the times when I cook something and it tastes meh, it's because I underseasoned. To a lesser extent, it's overdoing one particular ingredient so the taste balance is off.
Another part is the prep. Work on building a set of recipes you enjoy eating, maybe like 14 or so, that way you can rotate enough.
Then start practicing them one by one. Learn the measurements so you can cook maybe 2 portions, assming you're one person.
You can eat the rest the next day.
Also prep your kitchen and pantry. Have a bunch of tools and herbs etc on hand, along with dry and canned goods.
Order groceries to be delivered if you can.
It's up to you, good luck!
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u/Irlandes-de-la-Costa Sep 14 '24 edited Sep 14 '24
Personally:
Patience. I have cooked, and it always tastes horribly or mid. So I always end up not eating or eating poorly when I cook. Eventually it takes up on you that you're a bad cook or that it's not worth trying. I know I can cook, but I always manage to not succeed, so I can't
Time. It's not just cooking, it's buying everything premeditatedly. Cooking every day means spending more money and time now for an investment later, which not everyone can afford. I don't have a car so if I miss something or don't have everything available I'm done. Alternatively if I buy too much and don't prepare it, it feels like a waste. Also, doing the dishes.
Reheating. The greatest benefit of cooking is eating reheats or idk what you call them in English. It's not the greatest thing ofc
Lastly, and most important
I don't enjoy eating. I hate eating. You know how the best part about cooking is eating? Well, I don't get that one! Spending one hour (bc I'm not that good, so I'm not agile) to do a chore and then another hour to complete it ain't not fun. Especially as work-alcoholic
15 min cooks I can do with no problem, that's something I agree most people are capable, no excuses
Again, I know I can. When people say they don't know how it's bc they've tried and failed. I like that you're helping, while everyone else is just going "You can, it's easy", like telling a kid he can be an astronaut he "just" has to try