I agree with them that it's about lifestyle, schedules, and desire. I'm a stay-at-home mom right now and I have the time, my kids are elementary age and not in after-school activities, DH's schedule is all over the place. Therefore, I cook at home and we try to have at least one meal together every day. I confess that desire is the chink in the armor for me. But, watching cooking shows, reading cookbooks, and an occasional kitchen purchase gets me revved up to play after phoning it in with tacos, spaghetti, etc. when my desire to cook has ebbed.

Trying to squeeze cooking into a jam packed schedule IS stressful, so I can see why people would let it fall by the wayside. I hate always having to be somewhere, so I make sure that my life doesn't get so out of control that cooking for my family is a rarity.

It IS a luxury to be able to do that, so I'll try to be more thankful.

i work 6 days a week, my job is 45 minutes from home. I rarely get home before 6:00pm. I have never been one of those people who can plan the night before what dinner is the next day or the next week. So that means I usually decide what's for dinner on the drive home, mentally reviewing what's in the freezer and cabinets, or stopping at the grocery on the way home.

We like to have a clean protein, carb and veg, something interesting, and I don't like many prepared side dishes. I rarely get dinner on the table before 8:00pm, and get the last of the dishes in the dishwasher just in time to watch the 10:00pm news.

Oh, and then there's lawn mowing, laundry, cleaning, veg garden and watering pots and plants that has to be done. On those days, if I 'm lucky, it's delivery subs or pizzas! I love to cook, and entertain, and would love to have more time to do both. Not complaining, just sayin' that's the reality of my life! To answer the question, yes. Home cooking is definitely worth it.

Steve

When I was working 9 hour days I mostly planned ahead and cooked over the weekend, used the crackpot, or made meals that could be eaten several nights. I also had several meals that I could get on the table in 20 minutes or so. DH doesn't much enjoy cooking, though he is competent, so he will happily eat the same meal a couple nights as long as he doesn't have to cook. We occasionally had takeout, but we live in a rural area so that getting the takeout takes longer than cooking unless I am already in town. Most nights cooking was a time to decompress from a relatively intense job. I prefer my cooking and knowing what has gone into what we are eating. We grow a lot of our own veggies and buy much of our other food from local sources, and I like not having added salt, fat, and unpronounceable ingredients in my food.

So for me, cooking is definitely worth it.

Yes, definitely worth it. I have never considered cooking a chore. Even when I worked full time in Toronto, many, many years ago, on the way home from work I would get off the subway at different stops, just to pick up fresh ingredients needed to make dinner.

As a stay at home mom/wife for 30 years, I still shopped and planned meals on a daily basis.

For the last seven years I have worked part time, three days a week, and on those days I stop either on my way to work or on the way home to pick up whatever ingredients I need to make dinner.

Making dinner after I get home from work is my way of unwinding. My favourite time of the day.

I often start a batch of bread early in the morning so that I can bake after dinner.

And I know that if you asked Moe, he would say that "home cooked meals" were well worth it.

We've come a long way baby.... I think home prepared, nutrient-rich whole foods is the healthy new example for meals, especially for those quick and easy meals at home. Whole foods are Nature's original "fast" food, after all.

I cook nothing like my mother/grandmothers did in the 1950's - especially the post-WWII fare that was still lingering in the menus - SPAM, all those trans-fats from shortening, fake food like margarine, everything made with white flour, white sugar - everything was peeled, boiled and cremated......

Today our meals are based more on Michael Pollan's - a grain, a green, and a bean recommendation, with small amounts of meat in the mix. We still follow the old Basic-4 (since the early 70's) to meet our nutritional needs with a wide variety of food choices, because the Food Pyramid and the new My Plate include too many calories and carbs for our needs.

We eat out so infrequently anymore because we just hate paying so much for such inferior food and a poor atmosphere to try and enjoy it in (mostly thanks to adults who don't know they brought children with them, and everyone loudly speaking on a cell phone).

It's amazing how much time people can spend on any number of things OTHER than meal preparation, when that one thing, done right, can have far more dividends in the long haul. It's also sad that it can't be a shared experience with everyone in the household. What an asset it is to know how to prepare food, and it's sad that so many only know how to microwave something in a bag or a box and call that "home cooked".

-Grainlady

For the last 10 yr before I retired, I was on the road every day. Often, I stayed in a remote location for a week, had the weekend at home, then out again for another week. Cooking had little priority, except that I was tired of eating out. As a retiree, I LOVE to cook. Making up for lost time, I think. Hubs loves it! Baking and cooking are almost my hobby, and gardening is too. At lunch we often eat out and support as many locally owned restaurants as we can. This is a fairly small town, so our choices are limited, but we do find some gems.

Much of my dessert baking is done for friends so the product leaves my home immediately so I can't eat it. That works!

I overwhelmingly cook from scratch and it is very rewarding to have hubs and others tell me that I'm great at what I do. It encourages me to try different things, and that's not bad at all. Amazing what gives us pleasure when we have time in abundance!

We just got back from a trip to Sanibel, Fl. We were gone 5 days. YUCK--some of the meals were so bad I just couldn't eat and was yearning for my own home-made meals. What can I say??? Glad to be home. Hummm .... what will I make for dinner??

Obviously worth it.

Judging from the many cooking shows everywhere, cooking competitions, blogs, forums, cook books published, specialty food stores, --------.

It must be worthwhile to someone, otherwise no one would be interested.

dcarch

I recently met a family that is rarely home until very late because of work and their daughter's school and extra-curricular activities. Along with the grown-ups clubs/work, they've ensured that most of their time is scheduled away from home.

I don't know what their meals are. They look healthy and are active. The mom mentioned, several times, that they are never home because of her daughter's schedule. They've chosen something else to share regularly, instead of cooking at home regularly. She also said, several times, that she wants her child to be too busy to get into trouble, not that she's prone to it. Just makes sure there is no opportunity!

For me, the above would be awful, LOL! Not the not getting into trouble part, but every moment filled with obligations. I like my alone/down time too much. I like to make tasty food and share it. And, flexibility in our days. Different strokes!

I've lost interest in the daily meal. Wife's schedule is so unpredictable, kids barely eat anything I make but the most basic, boring stuff. Afternoon sports with the kids, get home too late to cook anyway. If I do cook, by the time dinner is finally done it time for showers and bed so I'm stuck with all the cleanup. McDonalds is easier. Not even any plates to clean, just throw out the paper. For he health of my family I need to get out of this rut but I tell you, most of my joy of cooking has pretty well been sucked right out of me.

I still read forums, blogs, and watch cooking shows, so I'd challenge the notion that enjoying these for entertainment necessarily translates to actual cooking.

Cooking for one can be... boring, especially the part of eating it alone. Before learning to "cook-for-one", like klseiverd, I also tried 'taste testing' the various meals one finds in the supermarket freezer section and at the local fast-food places.

1. What are they really made of?

2. Organic? GMO=-free? I doubt it.

3. Full of salt? The size of my ankles will attest to that!

4. Lots of sugars? My last blood tests proved that to be the case too.

I go thru' a lot of effort making organic, GMO-free, low salt, low sugar foods for DH. Am I not also worth this?

So, I now cook my solitary meals with foods that I know are good for me and not just something to fill my belly.

grainlady: I liked your idea, "Michael Pollan's - a grain, a green, and a bean recommendation, with small amounts of meat in the mix." Sounds good to me, and more like what I'm trying to accomplish for myself.

Well, in my household, economy is a big part of it although also knowing what is in the foods. Not necessarily healthier but usually they are.
Home cooked meals don't have to have some incredible variety that the media would have you think everyone is doing.

Several meals that I love repeat themselves all the time in my life but they are easy, satisfying and cheap.
I am very happy with baked chicken, a baked potato and a salad more nights than most people - as long as it is all fresh.

Years ago, I used to experiment a lot, buy lots of trendy ingredients because they were new and featured all over the place (quinoa, gourmet teas, specialty sauces, gourmet imported cheeses) and buy ingredients to create interesting recipes.

Now, I look at what I have and create/find a recipe for them. I know what I like, am indifferent to, and what I love (where to spend the money).

I was out late Friday night and didn't go to bed until 4. I had decided I would get Dad a McDonald's bacon egg and cheese biscuit for breakfast and not have the mess in the kitchen from a big breakfast.
But, I couldn't bring myself to do it as I had bacon, eggs, buttermilk, oj, etc. and I ended up making biscuits ( with butter only), frying bacon, scrambling eggs and we also had honey and about 3 fancy jam choices along with coffee, grapefruit and oj.
It took about 40 minutes and that included cleanup . Very worth it!

Yep, I can (if needed) cook for a week for what a family of four spends for one dinner out. So...definitely economy is involved.

Judging from the many cooking shows everywhere,

I suspect there is more watching than cooking!

Although I now have plenty of time to cook and enjoy it, I do remember the days when I worked long hours and also had everything else to do at home including raising a family. And since I think eating a big dinner late and going to bed soon afterwards is a very bad thing to do, there were times that I ran by the fast food place on the way home. But not more than once or twice a week. Now it's seldom that I eat fast food, although hubby feels he needs to treat me with dinner out at least once a week. And yes, I remember back in the day when the lady of the house was intent on modernizing the meals and served all those over-processed, unhealthy convenience foods but I didn't. I'm glad I don't have a family to raise nowadays where everyone has to pack every minute with some kind of activity, I revere every home-cooked meal that hubby and I have together and had when my son was home. My sister's partner has started a small catering business making home-cooked meals such as meat loaf, etc. and my sister was amazed at how many people scramble to buy them, and all of them exclaim over how good it is, and how did she learn how to cook like that, etc. It's like no-one cooks anymore for themselves.

Home cooking uses more resources than communal cooking, but it gives one control over nutrition, flavor, quantity, timing, etc. when I was in college, campus meals were at the time that was most convenient for the staff, rather than the students. I know a lot of universities now have proper food available later, though still not right when one wants.

Home cooking can also be a family activity where all come together to nourish each other with more than food.

Home cooking can be a burden, but an organized cook usually has some quickie meals available. I have a number of ways to just get the chicken cooked already, if I don't feel up to cooking, which take no great effort or clean up. I keep some low prep or pre-prepped veggies for similar reasons. Sometimes one cooks for fun. Sometimes one cooks to eat. Sometimes one's choices are based on easy prep and/or cleanup. Sometimes they're based on what seems the most interesting or exciting or tantalizing or just plain different. I've had so many not so great meals in fine dining restaurants, and so many places oversalt mercilessly, that I really don't want to go out unless I'm very bored. And then I'm just as happy at a casual place with consistently good food as at a place that might have something magnificent, but depends too much on the chef's mood that day.

Eating is a necessary bodily function. Our senses of taste and smell encourage us to constantly vary what we eat so that we'll get the widest variety of nutrients. Food--tasty food--is so plentiful that we forget how hard to get it's supposed to be in nature. We often choose the easiest way. For some it's bringing in or going out. For others, that's a hassel, and cooking at home is easier. If you could walk a block to a commons where you could get a great variety of well prepared, high quality foods, which suit your notions on diet, nutrition and politics, and, there, see your neighbors and catch up with the community, would you?

The kibbutz movement in Israel (mostly communal farms) conserved resources by having all the cooking done in a central kitchen and dining room. The kids were cared for in group situations too. As life got easier, they were well established, and the generations rolled over, the parents--who grew up with the communal system--wanted to keep their children at home, and wanted to have family meals with them. They built extra bedrooms and full kitchens onto their quarters so they could do that. Even when they didn't have kitchens, they'd bring in the food from the dining hall and have family meals. Even for those for whom it's not a pattern set in early life, cooking meals at home seems to be an instinctive want.

I think that the popularity of all the cooking shows is demonstrative of a feeling that cooking is important, and those who can't or don't still want to see it and maybe work themselves up to can and do.

I do understand where someone is coming from when they are too busy with too many demands and start opting for fast food, but at the same time, good nutrition is the basis of health for the rest of your life. If that doesn’t ring true to you, then I’d say you don’t know enough about health or nutrition. Or the connection between poor eating and illness.

You can’t get healthy nutrition from eating fast food and for the most part, can’t know what you are getting in a restaurant. And the bad habit and allowing your family to cultivate a taste for fast food will be something they will struggle with to correct once they figure that out.

We rarely eat out. I haven’t eaten in a McDonald’s in probably 20 years. We also cook on some weekends and freeze individual portions that suit our needs. But we also eat very healthy meals that don’t require a lot of time and attention. Green Smoothies couldn’t be much quicker than that. Non fat Yogurt with a frozen banana, berries and ground flaxseed, quick and very nutritious. Peaches right now are still in season and are luscious with a small amount of low fat cottage cheese. Soups and Chili in the freezer for a quick hot meal. Tons and tons of meals that are quick and easy and healthy. But obviously, if you've been eating wrong for a long time, now it is a serious effort to turn things around for yourself and your family. But it is an investment of your time and attention that will pay off big time.

You’d be amazed at how much better you feel and function when you clean up your diet and break the fast food bad habits.

Maybe, Prairie. But there are a lot of other factors too (including genetics) and a fast food meal once a week is ok to me. ( that being for my Dad; a regular, i.e. small, cheeseburger and a small, plain, milkshake)
The question is, What is better: the small McDonald's hamburger or the home cooked, farm raised, CHINESE tilapia?
He is 79 and what I think is quite important, HAPPY.

And, just because a meal is home cooked, doesn't mean it isn't filled with junk. To me, that being almost all processed foods. And the dirty dozen.

You are preaching to the choir, I think

I cooked dinner most every night for my family for 28 years, then for myself for 12, and now for my DD, SIL and grandchildren. My DD has become an accomplished cook, now that the kids are older and eat something besides chicken nuggets and mac and cheese - though she makes great chicken nuggets and mac and cheese.

I'll be retiring this fall so I'll have more time to cook, now, for all of us, since my DD has started grad school, and my SIL has been deployed to Kansas.

Most of the women I work with are single parents or are making so little money they work two and three jobs. They don't have time, and I don't know how they do it - keeping their family on track, keeping their sanity, just getting through each day. And many of them still cook a good meal every day for their family. They are my heroes.

Bumblebeez, I’m sorry if it came across that I was judging you for eating at McDonald’s. I didn’t intend it that way. I just think it’s good to share the successes we have with the issues we struggle with, so someone else can see it is possible.

And you are right, He’s 79, he’s happy and he eats there once a week. What we eat most of the time is the more important. And right again, that many home cooked meals are filled with junk. So I was not advocating simply cooking at home, but in getting good nutrition and that it can be done quickly and simply if you know what you’re doing.

Mom, I agree with you, single parents working two jobs with little money who would actually make cooking a good meal a priority, are amazing!

Inspired by this thread, I was determined that tonight not be a McDonalds night.

Hahaha That is so funny! ( We get Little Caesars here most often, which my brother says is the worst crap pizza ever)

Funny thing about Little Caesar's - while we're bombarded with advertising I've never so much as seen one let alone tasted one. As for Pizza Hut, my son ate it although he said, "It's not the best." But that at least puts it one step above school cafeteria pizza and Olive Garden pizza, both of which he refuses to eat.

(We went to Olive Garden on a whim a couple weeks ago, first and last time. I actually liked their salad dressing enough to look up copycat recipes, but all of our horrible meals made me wonder how this place is in business.)

I can't believe you went to TWO places!!! Wait. Is this one of those unholy hybrid stops? ;)

I'm really lucky that my kids are pretty adventurous eaters compared to any others I know. It wasn't always so. When they moved in the oldest (then 4) would only eat cereal and chicken nuggets. The 3 yr old would at least try something else, and the youngest was only 15 months. I didn't rock the boat for a few days, but eventually I couldn't take it anymore and started serving "real" food that I wanted as a kid. It took a while to convince her that there were other foods she'd like. Now (age 10) she's in the kitchen with me every night asking questions, looking through cookbooks for a new dinner idea, watching Cooking Channel and Food Network for ideas. I need to be better about teaching - it's not my strongpoint.

It would be a huge bummer if my kids rejected my meals on a regular basis.

LOL one of those unholy hybrid places. In a bad part of town no less and I made my wife pick it up. Am I the worst father and husband or what.

Alex, you've started the ball rolling and stirred an interest in food and cooking in your child, great start!

I agree, when the kids won't eat what you've cooked, it is discouraging. We were advised to never make food an issue, so we served vegetables every night and the one rule was they had to taste it. They didn't have to finish it, but each time it was served, one bite at least.

All of my adult kids love to cook and my husband cooks too. My daughter actually will eat things I turn my nose up at, like Asparagus and Quinoa. [g] Unfortunately, one son who used to eat very well, now eats take out a lot, which I keep hoping he is going to turn that around.

This post was edited by prairiemoon2 on Sun, Sep 7, 14 at 20:31

FOAS - bwaahahahaha!

One of my "attempts" at being a better teacher was letting the kids pick a meal where they could do most of the prep/cooking, over the summer. My grand plans of one a week didn't quite turn out, but they did get a few in before school started. The whole "read the recipe and make sure you can do most of it" was an issue. They were over-confident, LOL!

This goes back to cooking being a burden. It's very difficult to foster an interest in food, where it comes from, nutrition, costs, etc when people are so busy elsewhere. These are vital lessons for adulthood, though.

Ten years old is a great age. I think you did great to make it fun. That's what they will remember and when they are ready, they'll pick up what they need because they remember it as being fun.

A friend's kid went to kindergarten at a school where the whole grade plants vegetables and learns to tend them, then harvests them and makes vegetable soup. Since it's their vegetables, no one refuses to eat it (and the moms make sure it tastes good). Since it's their vegetables, they like it. And they don't refuse similar vegetables at home because they know all about them. :)

It's not as cool as the kindergarten in Germany where the parents drop off the kids in the woods for the day (there are teachers, and a small building, but they only go inside if the weather is unbearably bad because the trees give a lot of shelter), but it's still pretty cool. :)

pllog, that's funny. Makayla helps me in the garden, helps me can the produce, helps me make the jam. She's still not eating jam or jelly for any reason, she hates the stuff, and isn't going to touch a single one of those Purple Dragon carrots, in spite of the fact that she planted them, weeded them, watered them, dug them and helped cut them up for canning. She would NEVER eat that vegetable soup in a million years, they'd have to suspend her from school. Then she MIGHT eat it but she would cry the whole time and throw up afterward. She hates all sauces too, won't even touch catsup with French fries or BBQ sauce on chicken, detests ranch dressing in all of its forms. Her brother is an eating machine, he eats anything and everything and they have the same parents, the same environment, the same meals. Go figure.

I don't think cooking is a bother, I like to cook. I like to try to figure out how to make a balanced meal out of what is on hand and I enjoy cooking for people I love, or even those I just like.

Even when I was a single mother, working two jobs and going to college, I still cooked. I had to, I live here in the boonies and there is no fast food, no pizza delivery, no Chinese take out. Local restaurants (both of them, LOL) close at 8 pm. We do have a Subway now, and it's open until 10, it's almost like we live in town. (grin) It wasn't here when the girls lived at home, though.

So, it didn't matter how tired, or how picky the kids, or how broke I was, I cooked. Sometimes I didn't feel like it and we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sometimes we had pancakes for supper. I knew, though, that it was my responsibility to feed my children and so I did, and didn't really think it was that much bother or all that difficult.

Annie

That is the perfect start. Yeah Germany!

I read about a playground in England that uses found objects as a base for discovery. It's muddy, lots of "trash" made into forts. FIRES. Adults watch to make sure nothing gets too dangerous but, for the most part, the kids are left alone to explore, build, and learn.

I've loosened my apron strings (really, it's about cleaning up afterwards) in response. They play in the rain and get absolutely filthy playing in the dirt. I'll send them outside when it's decent. They complain about HAVING to play outside unless I say that they can't, then it's all they want to do!

Still, I wonder if my lack of enthusiasm for organized activities, when they're so young in my eyes, will be a detriment or an advantage. What is a high school or college going to expect? Will my kids resent me for not scheduling their free time for a better resume´? Will cooking and eating meals together be a fond memory or a "my mom was lazy" story? Oh well, I can live with either! ;) I certainly can defend against the "lazy" part!

Annie, I have a relative with a palate just like Makayla's! No sauce of any kind, ever, and only a very selected few vegetables. And he's pushing 60!

I just keep simple food for busy days - grill some lamb chops and make a couscous salad and dinner's on the able in 15 to 20 minutes and keep the luxury of complicated food for when I have more time.
Pasta with chopped raw veggies is ready in no time. Chopped tomatoes, olives, capers, spring onion....... I don't see why it has to be expensive or stressful.
As to after school activities - I think some children thrive on them and some don't. Mine never wanted to do much but my grandsons are much more active with surfing, gym and swimming.

Totally agree with Grainlady.

One of my best purchases in recent years was a large chest freezer. There ARE days when there is not enough time or inclination for cooking (even though I like to cook) but I almost always have a variety of frozen home cooked meals.

Our son and daughter were each responsible for one meal each week when they were still at home. Hubby cooked one meal on the weekend. We were all busy, but eating together was a priority.

They all had their own recipe boxes and made good use of the cookbook collection. They got favorite recipes from the grandmothers and friends mothers. A lot of meals from the Boy and Girl Scout years were incorporated.

Guideline for the meal: they needed to include a meat or meat substitute, fruit, vegetable, grain and dairy in the meal, and the table needed to be properly set. They put any ingredients they required on the grocery list. If they forgot their meal duties, they had to use their own money to take the family out to eat, which only happened once.

For anyone needing ideas for your children to get involved in cooking, Kansas State University has a great web site for simple recipe ideas - link below. I've used a number of these recipes for classes with children at our public library, 4-H clubs, and the local Food Bank.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Kids a Cookin'

FOAS--Is that what they mean by "fusion" food?

We're gone from 6AM until 8PM three nights a week, 6AM to 10/11PM one night, and the rest, we're around at reasonable hours. I like to cook. It's an emotional outlet and I don't spend more than 30 minutes, so I consider it threapy. And that son can now cook, makes for fun! I think that's the main part. What will "we" do for dinner? Does take the stress out of it though. So they may be onto something?

When we were all working when I was still living at home and we all were working, Mom would cook on the weekends...put 2 or 3 things in the oven at once and then stick a note on the fridge of what to find and we'd zap it all week long.

When I was younger and she was working and I was in high school, I'd come home from school and it would be my job to cook dinner. She loved coming home to a hot meal, and I loved the other part of the deal...that she would do dishes. I hate doing dishes.

After I got married, I'd do pretty much the same thing...cook on the weekends and eat out of the fridge with the MW all week. Not only was the food better than prepared foods and healthier for you, but it was a lot more convenient than going to get the to go stuff. Even now that we're retired, I'll make 4 or 6 servings and we'll eat the meal for a couple of days before I cook again.

I was talking to someone the other day and they nearly fell out of their chair when I mentioned that we eat pizza maybe twice a year. McD's is where we go to the bathroom when we are on the road, and we will get their $1 coffee, but that's it...

Home cooking for me, when the kids were little, was a matter of budget! Way cheaper to make your own meals than buy prepared or eat out.

Like others I would cook on the weekends for the week or plan on leftovers.

I just plain love to cook meals for my family, so I do..if it ever seemed a chore to me I would make a different choice.

My daughter has found the perfect balance between home cooked, eat out or prepared.. She raids my freezer weekly for spaghetti sauce, meatballs, stews, chili and the like and that's her homemade nights. Her BF is in charge of two meals a week .....and he is on his own! They go out once a week and order in once a week! LOL

We each need to do what works in our lives......it's all good!

Friday is pizza night. When my SIL was home, they got it from a local carryout, not a favorite of mine, but they had good sandwiches.

Now we get frozen pizza dough from Wegmans, as well as their sauce and cheese, throw some veggies on and make pizza on Friday night. It's all very, very good. Much better than anything I could make, and better than the pizza places. And since we make it at home, it's hot when we eat it.

Dinner is rarely later than 6PM. Much later than that and it sits on my stomach all night. I don't know how people eat later. Bad dreams.

For me, it all boils down to two very primal activities we do to survive.

Eating is the second one*. If you don’t eat, you soon die. If you don’t eat well? You die a slower painful death.

All animals know that. They spend most of their energy and time finding food.

We humans are animals, no different. We still spend most of our time finding food. But our over-sized brain has given us a lot of perversions in the ways we enable ourselves to have food to eat. Instead of hunting and gathering, a very few of us farm and mostly we go to the office and sit in front of a computer.

To get food to eat, we have created “work”.

Fundamentally and theoretically, we work so we can eat well. But I see many people are doing the opposite. They eat just so they can go to work. Work for them has become more important. Eating becomes a boring hectic chore.

I totally can appreciate how difficult it is to spend time and energy for cooking and for eating well. It takes time, thinking, planning, money and appliances.

I have decided long ago, every meal for me is a celebration and enjoyment. Not that I am successful at it, but I am trying.

Do the best you can. It’s all worth it.

dcarch

*No. Sex is not the first one. Breathing is. I said to survive, not to perpetuate. :-)

So, right this very moment there's someone from McDonald's in a news interview, who says she's a nutritionist, recommending their breakfasts as better for kids. Compared to the one she mentioned, the high carb classic breakfast, she's not really wrong. She offered an eggwhite and cheese sandwich and apple, with milk, or something like that. Didn't mention the sodium or grease.

Wouldn't it be better to make eggwhite sandwiches at home and give your kids the apples and milk you choose? I agree that it doesn't sound like a poor breakfast, but better when mother makes it, and it should take about as long to make and clean up as it does to go through the drive-thru. Plus, tomorrow it could be a grilled sliced turkey sandwich and pear. Mom can make variety!

I think I missed the point of this as news. It seemed more like a plug for McDonald's.

Just for fun, a couple of years ago, DH spent a couple of months keeping track of what we spent on food...not laundry products or paper products, but just food...for the 2 of us, bkfst, lunch, dinner and it came out to $5 per person per day. I don't think you can do that with prepared meals and certainly not with eating out or to go.

I have a food budget of $125 per month for two adults, and if you do the rough math for a year, and if I spent and ate every last penny of the budget, that equals $2.05 per day per person for 3-meals a day and snacks.

Plus, I maintain enough food in storage for a year (a program similar to the LDS Church), and 3 years worth of the Seven Survival Foods (grains, seeds for sprouting, legumes, sweetener/s, salt, fat, powdered milk). Having a garden and keeping my eye out for free food always helps the bottom line. ;-)

-Grainlady

Do you count the money spent restocking your stored foods as part of your food budget?

You've invested a lot of money in those food stuffs.

I assume you use foods from storage, and continually restock, before the food goes bad so you don't have to throw it out.

momj47-

The food budget is the only way I replenish food....other than from the garden or anything I get free. A friend recently gave me 4-dozen eggs and I prepared them for the freezer to use this winter when eggs are expensive. :-) Another friend had me take care of their garden while they were on vacation and I got to keep anything I harvested for my "pay". I never paid for any peaches this year -- they were all free, and I'll also pick free apples, pears, black walnuts, etc. I'll get free sorghum from the mill just outside of town because I develop recipes for them.

--In 2007 I had a $200/month food budget and it took 18-months to complete my home food storage plan. Reduced my food budget to $150/month for 2009 and $125/month since 2010.

--I rarely purchase anything at full price and wait for stock-up prices to replenish things. Nuts are 50-75% off after the holidays and that's when I purchase the bulk of what I store, so I always set aside enough money from the food budget to purchase nuts in January. The same goes for cranberries - I'll purchase enough for freezing and dehydrating when they are reduced. I get coupons for free peanut butter and eggs by using my loyalty card.

--PRICE BOOK - I've been keeping a Price Book since I read about the concept in "The Tightwad Gazette" in 1993 so I can track prices of foods I typically purchase; and I also keep a running inventory in the same book so I don't waste money buying something I really don't need. It all becomes second nature so it doesn't take much time at all. When a food item is too expensive, I'll find an alternative or do without. There was a day when I regularly purchased bison.....now it's too expensive.

--I never spend the full monthly amount, but as the unspent money accumulates ($154.71 to date) I'll purchase a year's worth of powdered milk (Grandma's Country Cream and/or powdered whey-based milk substitute - Morning Moo's) when I find a great bargain (glad I purchased earlier this year before milk prices went up), or replenish some freeze-dried food or a large order from Honeyville Grain 2-3 times a year when they have a 20% discount (only $4.95 shipping on your entire order). While the garden is producing, I spend even less at the store.

--In the winter we leave the high-priced produce in the store and use homegrown sprouts, micro-greens, wheatgrass (juiced), and herbs brought in from the garden and grown in a sunny south window for our fresh vegetables. I also plant a Window Farm and an AeroGarden - using hydroponics. My sister will bring free-for-the-picking fresh citrus from Texas when she visits.

--I make our hot and cold "cereal" products for pennies compared to the price of commercial cereal products. Cereal is one of the biggest rip-offs in the store (approximately 17-cents worth of grain per box). Twelve amaranth plants will yield enough seeds to last us 2-years. Fall crop beans are dried. Fall crop potatoes are made into freezer potatoes and sweet potatoes are stored in the basement.

--I try to keep meat purchases $2/pound or less, but will spend no more than $10 per week no matter what the price per pound is. If I don't find a bargain I'll save it for when I do find a great bargain. I rarely purchase meat every week.

--I literally "shop" at home first for meal preparation, and rotate food in storage on a regular basis. I make my own "convenience" foods, and even going gluten-free (2013) I didn't find I needed to alter the budget. I also try to make at least 3 new recipes each week, so don't think we're eating rice and beans all the time in order to stick to the budget (LOL).

I teach classes on budget recipes at the local Food Bank, as well as classes using USDA commodity foods distributed to low-income individuals/families, so it's easier to actually practice what I teach. Anyone can spend more!

-Grainlady

I'll be the odd (wo)man out here. I love to cook, but I've been doing since I was 11 yrs old, and frankly cooking 7 days a week is drudgery. Add in breakfast and/or lunch and it's a pain. I loved my career and it wasn't unusual to be gone 12-13 hrs, 5 days/wk. Weekends were crammed with errands and family/friends.

We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest restaurant areas in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area. There is great food at all price points. You can eat for $5 or $500, but either way you could eat well -- check out NYTimes' Seth Kugel's visit last month to Portland, where he gave himself an $8/meal budget and was wowed by the amazing meals he got from the local food trucks.

When I worked it wasn't unusual for us to go out 4-5x/wk. The question was, "What country do you want to eat today?" We could do Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cal-Mex, American, Moroccan, Korean, French, Italian, Burmese, Greek, and more - all within 1 mile walk, and usually several iterations of each one (you couldn't even count how many Chinese restaurants of various regionalities there were).

Now we're retired. We have both money and time. When I feel like cooking, I make the dishes that took too much time when I was working - long slow braises or slow-roasting, or dishes that just require an enormous amount of prep.

But we still go out 3-5x/wk, When we travel around the area as we like to do (we just got back from Napa last week and will be in Sonoma next month), we travel specifically to eat. In Napa, we had amazing, elegant, fabulous Cal-French food that I would never bother cooking in a million years. There were brilliant combinations, such as the black cod served with a seafood sabayon, roasted matsutake mushrooms, and the tiniest perfect baby turnips that had no bitterness at all. Or an amazing carpaccio, dressed with nothing but a touch of Meyer lemon EVOO.

I cook when I want to, but dining out is simply more fun. No shopping, no prep, no dirty dishes, no leftovers, no fuss. Yes, I could grow my own piquillo peppers and buy Ceylon cinnamon -- but why? I'd rather go to the great Spanish tapas restaurant a few minutes away and have them roast, skin and stuff the peppers with fresh chevre; roast, skin and sprinkle the cinnamon on fresh beets; and make that perfect paella 'tradicionale" for my spouse and the dreamy Fideua Negre, noodle paella with squid ink, for me.

I mean, do I seriously want to buy a pressure cooker just for my octopus? Why should I bother cleaning and skinning a cephalopod when there's at least a dozen restaurants that make fabulous smoke-grilled octopus within 5 miles of our house? Should I want to soak the bacalhau in 8 changes of water over two days? It would just be so much easier to go to the Cuban or Portuguese or Italian restaurants, and have a couple of orders of really amazing salt cod fritters or roasted salt cod with polenta, instead!

The take-out food these days is so much better quality than before. One place offers a marvelous frozen (bake it at home) chicken pot pie - perfect butter pastry, organic chicken breast and organic vegetables - all they offer is either a fried chicken sandwich on artisanal roll with housemade slaw, or the pot pie. That's it; they open 4 days/wk for 3 hrs a day and then go home to raise their baby daughter. Lines out the door every day.

One specialty market with various food sellers (we lust after their pork tomahawk chop - wowie! What a hunk of meat!) has lovely little frittatas with artichoke, red pepper and Gruyere. My DH hates frittatas, so I buy one for myself while he gets the penne with San Marco marinara and Kurobuta pork meatballs; that way we both win.

I loathe Food Network. When I write up reviews on the restaurants we've eaten at (I do it for my own archives, not to publish them), I often refer negatively to "Food Network chefs" - cooks who slop the food out as fast as possible, in ridiculous combinations of too many ingredients. They don't know the difference between a sauce Amoricaine and a Bordelaise. Bleh.

It's taken me decades to get my DH off the crappy food he grew up with. But he's finally come around, so that when we drop $$$$ on the perfect dinner at Etoile or Spoonbar or La Folie, he says, "That was absolutely worth every penny." And you know, it is.

Here is a link that might be useful: NYTimes Frugal Traveler does Portland on the cheap

This post was edited by jkom51 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 0:17

jkom51, I agree the way you eat fits your life style perfectly. There is nothing wrong with the way you enjoy food and cooking.

It does not work for me. I eat out with clients for business lunches in expensive restaurants. Good food, but boring food.

There are many good reasonable restaurants within 20 miles from home. They too get boring with their unchanging menus.

To go out, the getting dressed up, the driving, the making reservations, the waiting to be served, waiting for your order to be cooked ------ all takes the whole evening.

I enjoy trying out strange ingredients. I enjoy playing with the idea of food's medicinal benifits. I enjoy cooking for friends.

When I don't have time to cook, I just order take-out and have it delivered.

dcarch

I cook mostly because it is fun.

Home cooking is also much less expensive than eating out. Even a food cart meal is $8+, so dinner for four is $32, and a month of that is $1,000 . . . add the other meals and beverages and you are soon spending $2,000/mo just for food.

Home cooking from scratch is healthier. Even if you're not consciously making "healthy" recipes. Commercially prepared food has a ton of sodium and fat, those being the cheapest routes to flavor.

I eat much less when I cook myself. There is something psychological, after an hour working with food, some of my hunger is already satisfied.

I like to think that seeing mom and dad cook will teach my kids to cook, or at least give them the pre-disposition to try it, when they are one their own. So far this has worked with my daughter, who has become a good cook; my son is more inclined to heat up prepared foods, but he does make pancakes, cook eggs, and whip cream, so at 15 y/o he is at least starting off.

As people have pointed out, with practice you can get a quick dinner banged out in 30 minutes. Something sauteed or grilled, a salad and a veg. I clean as I go so when we're done eating, there are only plates and utensils to clean. There are plenty of "30 minute meal" cookbooks.

However, some days I just don't want to cook, not even for 30 minutes, and neither does SWMBO. Then we either raid the freezer for a meat pie or soup or similar that we previously froze, get a Costco roast chicken, or direct the kids to rummage around the refrigerator and find leftovers - or we go out/order in. That is maybe 2 days/week.

I know I am in the minority here, but I hate to cook. But I do it so I can eat well (both for taste and health) and inexpensively. Also, I think eating out exposes you to lots of germs that might increase the amount you get sick. I have a weak immune system so I have to be always thinking about that. If I could afford to hire a (healthy, hygienic) cook to prepare, (and clean up afterwards) the meals I wanted to eat, I would do that forevermore! About the only thing I enjoy doing is canning, because it gives me a sense of satisfaction of seeing completed results. I guess the only reason cooking isn't like that for me is I end up eating the results shortly after and then the whole dang thing starts all over again so I feel like I am a hamster on a wheel. With canning you use it up more slowly so I actually feel like I am getting ahead.

So for me it is "worth it" in terms of being something I am willing to invest time and energy to do, but if I didn't have to, I would gladly turn it over to someone else, the process itself is not intrinsically rewarding to me. I know most of you enjoy it, so more power to you! I just enjoy the EATING part! :) I do enjoy cooking with BF, I feel less burdened by all the work involved then. I guess that is part of it, I am such an extrovert that I like food prep. if I'm doing it with friends who also enjoy it.