Posted on 09/21/2023 4:52:39 AM PDT by daniel1212
I’ve spent two decades consulting extensively for consumer packaged goods companies. Early in my career I gathered some data for a client on cooking. This research found that consumers fell into one of three groups: (1) people who love to cook, and cook often, (2) people who hate to cook, and avoid that activity by heating up convenience food or outsourcing their meals (by ordering out or dining in restaurants), and, finally, (3) people who like to cook sometimes, and do a mix of cooking and outsourcing, depending on the situation. At the time, the sizes of the three respective groups were about 15% who love to cook, 50% who hate to cook, and 35% who are so-so on the idea.
Nearly 15 years later I did a similar study for a different client. This time, the numbers had shifted: Only 10% of consumers now love to cook, while 45% hate it and 45% are lukewarm about it. That means that the percentage of Americans who really love to cook has dropped by about one-third in a fairly short period of time.
Beyond the numbers, it also suggests that our fondness for Food TV has inspired us to watch more Food TV, and to want to eat more, but hasn’t increased our desire to cook. In part, Food TV has raised our standards to discouragingly high levels: How many of us really feel confident in our cooking skills after watching Iron Chef? (My high school chemistry teacher quit the cello in college after playing a semester next to Yo-Yo Ma.) This may be one reason why consumers now spend more on food in restaurants than on groceries.
I’ve come to think of cooking as being similar to sewing. As recently as the early 20th century, many people sewed their own
“If you discount time shopping, storing, cooking and cleaning up the mess. The “savings” IMO is minimal.”
depends on how you do it ... if you cook YUGE amounts and package and freeze meal-sized portions, then you amortize the setup and cleanup time amongst a large number of home-cooked meals ...
and also, compare the time it takes to go out to eat 2-3 meals a day, whether so-called fast-food or fine dining ...
only way to save time eating out is to have food delivered, which is expensive and lord only knows what the drug-addict cooks are doing back in the restaurant kitchen as well as the drug-addict delivery driver ...
Apparently you missed my point:
The author whines about grocers and the corporations governing them but fails to accurately identify the solution...or the problem.
And said ignorance is reflected in health stats & dropping life expectancy.
But what else would we expect a leftist writer to do? Well, maybe seek more government intervention, perhaps.
The irony is that if you look up his pedigree - both current and past projects - HE is a large part of the problem and he’s served to help create multiple generations of dependency upon government.
The other irony: The solution is Conservatism.
“Prime beef is sold in places like Costco and Sam’s Club, and lately I’ve seen some, not much, at the local grocery store.”
prime beef is nearly gone from around here in stores like Costco, which used to be stocked to the hilt with many prime cuts of excellent quality ...
now, what very little prime beef is stocked at Costco is awful quality, full of giant fat inclusions ... in fact, i don’t see how what they’re selling as prime gets graded as prime ... their choice beef is often better quality than their prime, so i quit buying prime altogether now ...
bidenomics in action! GO BRANDON!
“Who else has noticed that a staple of grocery checkout - recipe books/magazines - have been slowly disappearing”
that’s because the internet has millions of free recipes, including commentary from other folks about ratings, improvements and variations ... and then there are the cooking shows like Alton Brown’s and dozens of others where one can learn basic techniques and tricks ...
i used to have shelves full of cookbooks, and now am down to just a very few, most of which i keep for sentimental reasons anyway ...
Yeah, THAT explains the decline of cooking.
/s
I am a far better cook than my wife, but I prefer eating to cooking.
I just sowed my wife the secret of spaying no-stick on the pan before frying the eggs......sigh....
My secret ingredient is whole cloves and whole peppercorns
I only recently joined Costco, but we’ve been able to get really nice prime NY strips at Sam’s Club. There’s usually only a few cuts that they offer. We like strips over ribeyes, but they often have ribeyes there.
When we were in the Panhandle recently, we wanted to treat our family to prime steaks, so we went to the local Sam’s and they had big, beautiful, super thick (2-1/2”) ribeyes, so we went with those. They were darn good!
Also, at my local Costco, I was able to get some really lovely prime cap steaks. Those have been my favorite to date. I always keep my eye out for those and strike when I see them.
“We like strips over ribeyes”
much better deal and just as good if cooked properly ...
My husband is a grilling pro. Ok, he doesn’t compete on grilling shows, but he’s very, very talented with the smoker. Guests swoon over our meals, some of them very audibly gush about them.
I leave the grilling to him, but if it’s on the stove or in the oven, I’m the top dog. We make a great team.
Actually it is partly one of the extended effects of contraception. While in 1800 US women on average had 7 children had her first child around the age of 23 and proceeded to bear children at two-year intervals until her early 40s (more of whom died before reaching adulthood than now), and in the baby boom era the average was 3.6 kids (where children made up 36 percent, vs. 22:% now), yet by 2021 it was 1.6.6, and with the median age for giving birth hitting an unprecedented age 30.
Usually meaning women working outside the home, and more money to spend on meals outside the home thus less cooking (besides more spoiled kids, who have no or maybe just one sibling to learn how to get along with and share, thus more being unduly fearful and intolerant of others).
If you are going to hook up, get married and have all the kids God gives.
Correct. Again, the OP topic classic deflection by the left.
If the solution as I assert is Conservatism, the cause of the problem - stating the obvious - is leftism, and your comment hits at yet another aspect of the left’s toxicity.
I believe one of the obstacles to cooking at home is not having the basics always on hand. You might see a cooking video or recipe that looks good, but if you do not have things like onions, garlic, canned tomatoes and basic herbs and spices as well as staples like cooking oil, sugar and flour in your pantry making even a simple recipe becomes too much work. Our daughter often asks me how to make some of my dishes, but then balks when she doesn’t even have an onion or any seasonings on hand. I have recently been making Indian dishes and found that having five or six of the basic spices allows me to make a wide variety of dishes without making a special trip to my favorite Indian grocery. Given the availability of how to cooking videos for nearly every cuisine and appliances like slow cookers, air fryers, automatic pressure cookers and microwaves cooking at home should be easy for anyone with the inclination and the basics in the pantry.
It is unfortunate that we have come to a point were a good portion of the public, literally speaking; even has difficulties boiling water correctly and in turn succumbs to crappy fast food and then wonders when their health goes south.
I quit golf after watching the pros do it properly....
;-)
Fascinating...
I’m a junk food junkie.
It’s irrelevant is someone LOVES cooking.
You do it because you need to. It’s the cheapest and safest way to feed your family.
My son is a phenomenal cook and loves it. His cooking is better by far than any restaurant. Going to his place is a treat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.