Why do people not cook meals at home?

Question

By 'cook', I mean prepare and cook a meal from fresh/frozen ingredients, not opening a box and bunging it in the oven or microwave.

All answers will be appreciated, and will be used in a Thesis I am writing on food and eating habits. Please state in your answers which country you live in, and county/state/department/landkreis etc would also be useful.

Thanks, peeps.

Answer 1

Hi foghorn

Right - UK & Nottinghamshire

Call it living the British dream.
The original concept of convenience food was an easily prepared meal for single people to save time when arriving home from work & who just couldn't be bothered preparing a full meal from scratch.

In an age where it is accepted normality that both partners work the same crede has now been applied to many family units in the UK. Hence the rise of convenience food sales especially amongst younger families.

We downgraded to a smaller house last year & purchased from a young couple with 2 children. The cooker in the house is like something from star trek - 2 ovens, knobs & dials everywhere, built in microwave, really looks the business. But the trays etc that came with it were still in the original wrappings and had obviously never been used and the inside was in showroom condition despite being over 2 years old.

My wife does not do convenience food despite working full time. But then we come from the age before equality of the sexes and boys were taught woodwork & girls cookery. Do I cook - yes. More from a self taught hit & miss system but I can get by.

Now the Government want to "introduce" cookery lessons into the education curriculum as though it is a new concept. It is a well known fact that the majority of convenience foods are neither healthy nor satisfying and with the ever increasing "health awareness" campaign they have little choice but attempt to wean the population off them. Will it succeed - I doubt it. Convenience food is just too "convenient" and having to actually cook would encroach on many people's lifestyles.

Answer 2

Hey Foghorn. I'm in USA...Portland, Oregon. First, I think you're starting with an assumption that may or may not be true. While it is likely true that we cook at home much less than in the past, I would guess that the home cook still has a staple of fresh recipes that they pull out at least once or twice a week...that said, I could be wrong.

I think the problem is not the 'busy' lifestyle or that we have become faster paced, etc. I think the blame (if this is indeed a 'problem'...which I think it is) can be laid squarely on the government, at least here in the US. The subsidization of corn and soy have created 'food' and businesses that never would have come into existence otherwise. The beef industry and corn fed cattle (cows are ruminants...that is they chew their cud, their stomachs are not designed to eat corn, and therefore they get sick when they eat corn instead of grass. They are then are fed antibiotics to counter the illness they get when eating corn...WHAT????). Corn syrup and everything it ends up in, strange fats created by soy. The fact that a Twinkie costs more than a carrot is a clear indicator that something is askew. A carrot, a ROOT, costs more than something created in a factory off the side of the highway. These are the issues I feel effects our food choices. When the poor have become fat because the most caloric food, the 'food' that is the worst for you, is the cheapest, something is wrong. It used to be that the wealthy got fat and the poor were thin. No longer. Poor people cannot afford to cook at home anymore. McDonald's or some other garbage is so cheap, due to the crazy subsidies, that it's almost like poorer people don't have a choice anymore.
We have our food priorities all wrong and what I've written above only begins to touch on the issue. Corporate farming gives us ecoli because ALL our greens get washed in the same water due to mega farms. I believe the answer to your question lies more in culture and government based decisions that favor corporations over people more than it has to do with individuals becoming less interested. Make it affordable and local and part of their community and make food an essential part of how we live...of our culture, then we will all be eating well and treating animals and the planet with the care and respect it deserves. My 2 cents.

Answer 3

In short, because they don't have to! For your thesis I was born in east London in the forties.

At that time, tinned food was not usual, frozen food unknown and ready made meals ( by the way they aren't all rubbish, quite!) four decades over the horizon.

No one even had a refrigerator and I grew up seeing my mother shopping every day, for that day, for very simple (but rationed) stuff and still putting great meals on the table two or three times a day - wives & kids & dads ate at different times on weekdays then.

That's something I've never forgotten. I had designs on being a chef but winning the "scholarship", subsequently renamed the 11+ put paid to that.

But I do still cook! I only use fresh ingredients ,other than the very occasional frozen pea. That's not a matter of virtue, just the way I know how to do it. And I can put a filling main course on the table for 50p a head; I learned thrift of necessity!

I hope you consider this a serious answer to your question. You are not going to get too many who recall the forties online.

To sum up we really can't blame the younger generation for eating readymades. No doubt we'd have done if they'd been on offer.

Just one more thing Foggy, not so much of the "peeps"!

Answer 4

It's a factor of time, ignorance, supposed affordability, and laziness.

People think they don't have enough time to make a meal, when really it only takes 20 minutes for a chicken breast to sit in the oven while you do NOTHING to it.

Lots of people have been raised by parents who don't cook, so therefore the kids don't learn. They don't really teaching cooking in schools anymore, so some never learn and therefore don't have the knowlege or confidence to give baking a cake or making a roast a shot.

In terms of money, I have a good case in point. My roommate insists that he cannot afford to buy healthy ingredients to make his own meals because frozen pizzas are cheaper. Not only is this unhealthy, but it's completely false, because he eats more food than anyone I know, so no vegetables or fresh food would go to waste with him, which is usually where people lose out on their food budget. It doesn't cost much for a bag of potatoes, chicken breasts, the right cut of beef, porkchops, etc.

All in all, it can be summed up by people being lazy. They don't want to have to "work" to get their food; it's much easier to put a tray in the microwave.

I'm in the U.S. in the midwest (sorry, I don't give away details).

Answer 5

I live in England and love to cook with nice fresh ingredients and always feel good after eating such food. However, I often have to use pre-prepared food due to the fact that I go to work and come home to a very hungry child! Hungry child and tired, hungry mother are not conducive to a happy home life so the pre-prepared box gets bunged in the microwave!! So my reason for not cooking as often as I would like is the shortage of hours in the day - time.

Answer 6

I am a single American guy, and ever since I've been out of college (over a decade now), it has been very difficult for me to cook for myself. I'll rattle off the reasons I've given others over the years:

- Time, which even if I have it to spare and I consider meals that are supposedly "quick and easy to prepare," I have no motivation to spend the time on a meal that is only for myself
- Cleaning up is something I absolutely hate. I'm not a neat and tidy person. On the rare occasion that I do cook, I am unlikely to clean up everything and put ingredients and equipment and utensils away.
- Childhood. Growing up, my mother wasn't a good cook, or, even if she was, she had many dietary restrictions which precluded her from preparing food that I enjoyed. So I didn't learn how to cook growing up so I'd be accustomed to doing it for myself as an adult.
- Cost. Yes, cost. Conventional wisdom is that it is much cheaper to cook at home than to eat out or eat prepared meals. But if one is not handy in the kitchen and needs at least a few ingredients prepared already (sauces, condiments, etc)., and if freshness and organic foods are important, grocery costs can come very close to the costs of eating meals out.
- Lack of self-discipline with regard to eating habits. If I buy a lot of groceries, I will tend to eat a lot of groceries, in between meals. If I don't have much food at home but eat out often, I'm restricted to only the food I am eating outside of home.

I hope those are of some use.

Answer 7

USA
it is different at different times, places


-sometimes it is just to hot to cook anything
- sometimes, we are already hungry, so we go out-it's faster
-sometimes, we are away from home
-some people don't enjoy cooking
-if i am tired, i don't enjoy cooking

Have you personally done menus,shopping, preparing, and cooking for an entire meal with no boxed stuff ? ( I mean no insult)

I mean cooking from the ground up - using flour to make bread ( whether loaf bread, biscuits, cornbread,etc)
using all fresh fruit and veg, etc?

you have to shop every 2 or 3 days.
And each meal takes almost 2 hours to prepare, cook, and serve.

Even breakfast takes 20 minutes to prepare and cook, even if all you do is bacon, eggs, and coffee - which is not that healthy for many people.

that is a lot of time and a lot of work.

Again, i mean no insult, but i think you would add a lot to your analysis of the question if you did the experiment-
planning the menu ( remember nutrition)
shop
cook
serve the meal


How much time does it take you?
Was it worth it to you?

It would make your paper/thesis unique.

Answer 8

Today people think that fresh cooked food is time consuming and costly. The truth is that in the time that it takes to go to the takeaway you could prepare a nutritious meal and have it in the oven whilst you spend valuable time with your children. Alright it still has to cook , bake etc but this time can be filled doing meaningful things. Costwise a pan of stew and dumplings, maybe not PC, but healthy and nourishing for a family of 4 would cost in the region of £3 or 75p per portion, you couln`t get a portion of chips for 75p, and think of all the wrapping on a bag of chips.People today are brainwashed by advertisements for quick , convenience food and laziness is the main contributory factor.
60 year old British male who likes home made, tasty, nutritious food.

Answer 9

I try to as much as possible, but on days that I don't my excuses are the following:

1 - it takes too much time
2 - I don't know how to make anything so I'd have to find a recipe and then there are all those ingredients and I'd have to buy them ALL because I don't have 15 different spices in my kitchen
3 - some days you just feel like frozen pizza
4 - it seems like a waste of time to go to all that effort to cook for two people

One thing I have started doing lately is Dinner By Design. It is a great way to have homecooked, pretty healthy meals without some of the hassles. If you aren't familiar with them: http://dinnerbydesignkitchen.com/

Milwaukee, WI, USA

Answer 10

I get up at six thirty and go to work. I work til five, get home about half past. My husband is disabled so cant do any house work etc. at night as well as having some 'me' time I need to do the cleaning, visiting family, washing etc. I dont have time to make things from scratch, so I use frozen, canned and fresh stuff to make meals. I rarely have microwaved meals, ready meals and that sort of stuff. We occasionally get a take away. However when Im off work, i occasionally bake cakes, pies etc. I am a lousy cook anyway., but I can bake. My husband sometimes makes chilli, soup or cauliflower cheese from scratch. We live in UK , north west. But I dont like pies lol