Skip the Soylent, Make a Meal Instead (opens in new tab)

> But I've found that both your life, and the life of your children is better when you integrate them into the work that needs done and the life you want to live, and do not treat spending time with them as a separate activity.

This!

We have so much fragmentation on roles already, it is increasingly harder to find time to do things with our children, for both teaching and spending time with them. Cooking is that one thing that can build this relationship, teaching (and entrusting) the child to deal with potentially dangerous tools yet yielding a result that is immediately appreciable.

Surely that depends on the age of the child, what you're cooking, and the size/accessibility of your kitchen?

Personally, I live with a kitchen that can't reasonably fit more than one person, and all the counters are inaccessible to children.

Innovation in food manufacturing != innovation in end-user food preparation. Those are two different things.

> Look at a loaf of bread sitting on the shelf. It will have 20+ ingredients! Many of them synthetic or unnatural. And it's not just these things added but the process of how it is made that it makes it "not bread".

How "synthetic" they are depends on a bread (toast bread vs. normal, etc.), but a reminder - "bread" is not an atomic ingredient; even the most "natural" one would have a bunch of them on the label. Also, note the ingredients of a perfectly natural banana:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--o2mC_ak...

--

The point being, many people - myself included - consider preparing many of our meals a chore, not a pleasure. Preparing a fancy dinner every now and then is cool, but having to do that every day cuts into free time we'd like to use for something more interesting. I don't see why so many people have a problem with that.

Of course a lot of food innovation has occurred. Clearly, the silent majority are demanding convenience over health. But there is a strongly vocal segment of the population who think it should not have been - and they are very critical, and often demeaning toward those who have made different choices than themselves.

At risk of constructing a straw man, it does appear to be a widely aired view that we ought to go back to "all-natural" meals cooked from raw fresh, organic, non-GM ingredients. In my experience, vanishingly few people actually do this, because it actually is a hassle and doesn't fit well within our modern busy two working parent lifestyles. Indeed, within your own reply you treat the innovation within the food industry with disdain.

I agree that, often, food innovation has optimised for the wrong goals: strictly prioritising convenience over health, for example. But whether you like Soylent-related products or other innovations in food, it's astounding the number of people who are willing to publicly attack engineered food products simply because it's not natural enough for their preferences and lifestyle. But those same people do not care about the naturalness of all the other technology they use.

With convenience food, I believe the proverbial cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. Short of a massive economic/technological disruption that gives adults in families as much free time as they used to have, it's quite unlikely we'll see a revolution in home cooking. Maybe Soylent and other engineered foods are actually healthier than living off takeouts and microwave meals - as many people do - and are worth investigating further, without overly harshly judging those who currently find themselves in situations where they can't find time to prepare home cooked meals every day.

> As for family time: Why not both?

Because cooking isn't everyone's idea of a good time.

newhere420 didn't mention Soylent one way or the other.

If I had to guess - and I do - I'd wager that his family just orders in or goes out for dinner more than others. And as a new parent myself, I can completely understand.

I will make this easy.

> do I buy "organic"?

Don't worry about it yet. Buy conventional - that's what you're eating when you eat out anyway.

> is that expensive? how cheap should I go?

Don't worry about it yet. Grab whatever is on sale to start. If you notice you don't like it, don't buy that brand again.

> finding the right recipes - how do I compare 20 different ones from the web?

Buy three cookbooks to start: Mark Bittman's "How To Cook Everything", an America's Test Kitchen cookbook that appeals to you, and a cookbook of a cuisine you enjoy that's popular on Amazon. Alternate between the three.

> Which are more healthy?

Don't worry about it yet. Whatever you cook from these cookbooks will be better for you than what you get from takeout.

> Dietary recommendations are all over the place

Don't worry about it until later. Get cooking first. Whatever you cook will be better than what you get later.

> finding out what I forgot to buy

This is a matter of making a list before shopping. I suggest buying for two meals max at first.

Nobody worried about most of this for thousands of years -- you don't have to worry about it either.

A lot of this fuzz would be tempered as you become more accustomed to cooking. In some ways what you're describing is similar to picking up a new computer language or learning a new system. Once you've been through the decision tree enough times, you've built yourself a well-worn path.

If cooking is something you're interested in picking up, I'd recommend starting simply. Pick a couple of meals (maybe a breakfast and a dinner). Get used to them, then start cooking variations, then move on to other dishes. I'll admit, I can be satisfied eating the same meal on a regular basis. And this doesn't prevent you from going out, either.

I've heard of people having good success with the Ti Ferriss' "The Four-Hour Chef". I'm sure there are other good references, either bound or online.

These are not questions that should stop you from doing something.

> do I buy "organic"?

I don't know. Try it and see if you find it's worth it. It's not like if you buy organic one time you're locked into doing that forever.

> how cheap should I go?

How is somebody else supposed to answer this question for you? Go as cheap as you feel comfortable. If you find the quality is too poor, buy something more expensive next time.

> how do I compare 20 different ones from the web?

You try them and see how they work out.

And so on.

Seriously, you don't need a detailed 50-point plan for every little aspect of doing something. Experiment, Evaluate, Adjust. It's not that hard and the stakes are pretty low. Worst case scenario: you end up making a meal you don't want to eat and you learn something.

The key to not wasting food is to determine today's meal based on what's in your fridge, rather than a new recipe.

Also, I'm aware that my plans change frequently, so I avoid buying much meat and fish -- enough for two meals, at most.

So to extend your analogy - if you're a normal, non-technical person, you don't care about the free/propertiary/SaaS distinction. You're not interested in reading or modifying the internals, nor you're interested in learning how to do it. You have your goals and want software that will best help you accomplish it.

Just like some people aren't into coding, some people aren't that into cooking. One has to eat to survive, but this doesn't automatically make cooking interesting, especially on a daily basis. Many of us (myself included) simply want to get on to the eating part and save the time for something more interesting (be it reading books, playing games, building stuff, spending time with children...).

Thanks for the context. Half of me still wants to shake my head and go "kids these days" but I get the time-and-energy thing. My son just turned 8 and as part of his "annual review" (privilege/responsibility conversation we have around his birthday every year where he gets a slightly later bedtime and bigger chores)we added a chore to do the shopping, prepare and cook a meal once a week (with help, of course). I sincerely hope this isn't a problem he has when he gets older.

Freezer meals? I've been making weeks worth for the past several months. Relaxing to have a day of just cooking and then never feel like the only food option that suits my current motivation is ordering Dominos! Here's a decent resource for getting started: http://www.30daygourmet.com/products/big-book-of-freezer-coo...

Yeah, I definitely realize there's a big tradeoff here. I try to cook extra for each dinner, so that my lunch the following day is leftovers. (3 sameish-meals in a row is rough but 2 is fine by me).

Another thing that's been helpful is big roasts. turkey breast, pork shoulder, etc are very easy to toss a quick seasoning on throw in the oven for 2-6 hours, plus are pretty cheap ($2-$3 a lb, though a bit of that is bone). Gives you some meat to work into all sorts of things for the week with pretty low effort cooking.

With that, a carb staple and random sauteed veg you can get pretty far.

I don't understand the budget angle, at least if it's referring to the financial budget. One of the first tenants of financial counseling for people who are struggling to pay their bills is that they have to quit eating out immediately. Dave Ramsey has a quip on the radio about that the person who is getting out of debt should not see the inside of a restaurant unless it is his or her second job.

Kitchen room doesn't need to be big. In fact, a small kitchen can be a plus as long as it's organized: it's like the bus is faster between the processing and storage units.

If you look at some of the traditional kitchens in the South of France (just as an example), you'll see tiny spaces with very small counter spaces and limited cooking/sink areas and yet awesome food come out of those kitchens.

> [0] And I know this is a juvenile sentiment. I have learned to deal with it but it's just too damn annoying.

I wouldn't say it's juvenile. Progress is about getting rid of the bullshit you don't like doing in order to have more time for things you like doing.

I'm not a biochemistry expert either, so I have to defer to the arguments of others. I find Ray Peat more convincing than Lustig. It also makes sense to me that fructose, especially from fruit, is incredibly healthy to humans, since pretty much every ape gets a good chunk of their calories from fruit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqoAhZtVmg

You might come up short on a few of the nutrients, but an egg or two, and some liver and oysters once a week cover the rest. It surprised me, too, how nutrient dense milk and orange juice are.

It's entirely possible, but I've shared my story with hundreds of people and talked with them about cooking. This is less impressive than it sounds -- I've done a fair number of pot lucks and been in a fair number of conversations where I shared the story of how, why, and when I learned how to cook. It happened in multiple stages, but all of them happened when I was out on my own and got tired of eating out. First, with roommates, I learned how to cook the absolute basics. Then, I had another roommate that helped me expand my horizons. He was vegetarian, so I had to learn another set of cooking techniques I hadn't before. Then, I moved into my own apartment where I realized that I couldn't make the food I really wanted to eat. I started watching the food network obsessively, learning everything I could, and trying new things.

However, it happened at the phase of life when I was ready for it. And when I've mentioned this in conversation, I don't remember anyone saying, "I don't need to know how to cook" or "I don't need to learn to cook more than the basics." It's "I don't have time," or "I don't enjoy cooking/cleaning," or "I'm too afraid to mess up."

As I've grown older, it's changed. I'm around mostly people in their thirties and most people had the same experience as I did where they realized they had reached a point in life where they needed to learn to cook.

Now, I realize that I'm a mediocre cook and anyone with a mere week in a decent restaurant is likely a better cook than me. However, I acquired a reputation of a good amateur cook in some circles. I couldn't imagine being in a place where I didn't cook well - it brings so much to my life. I just think the shaming over it all doesn't work because the motivations don't line up.

Do you do laundry every 5 days? Maybe buy 5 more and stretch that to every 10 days.

Your statement about self-sufficiency is universally correct, but does not make sense in the context in its current form, because noone is 100% self-sufficient, but everyone is self-sufficient to a degree. The statement you actually meant (assuming you had thought settled), which is: "it is always better to be a little more self-sufficient" is definitely technically incorrect or at least extremely dubious.

Also, irrespective of any assumption I might had (or not) about the author from a long post, you go much further assuming you know I had one, and that you know it from my single small comment half of which is original author's quotes.