Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/dining/food-delivery-apps-doordash-uber.html
This is horrifying in every possible direction.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/dining/food-delivery-apps-doordash-uber.html
This is horrifying in every possible direction.
This sounds penny-wise and pound foolish.
Food can be classified into different categories, from unprocessed food (UF) to ultraprocessed food (UPF).
Basically, this is unprocessed vs ultra-processed:
You are basically saying eating ultra-processed food is a good idea to save money.
It’s not:
https://keck.usc.edu/news/usc-study-links-ultra-processed-food-intake-to-prediabetes-in-young-adults/
https://now.tufts.edu/2022/08/31/new-study-links-ultra-processed-foods-and-colorectal-cancer-men
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/ultra-processed-foods-may-increase-risk-of-depression/
You don’t have to spend 1 hour cooking. You can cook pasta in 20 minutes and add some olive oil.
If you are lazy, you can just eat fruits, veggies and nuts.
There’s a bit more nuance to it than home cooked meals being healthy and eating out being unhealthy.
There is a reason why restaurant chains are cheap. Their food comes from industrial factories.
McDonalds isn’t going to have professional cooks make bread, fries, sauce… in each restaurant. That would be too expensive. They bring the frozen food in trucks. The employees do the last part. That’s how all corporate chains operate. Anything that comes from a factory is ultra-processed.
Really rich people employ real cooks and butlers. Or they go to expensive restaurants.
Just because it’s frozen and made in a factory doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s unhealthy.
Vitamin C is pretty much the only nutrient that gets degraded by freezing and storage. Usually the problem is that the nutrients weren’t in there to begin with.
Having a look at the ingredients is really worth it. Of course that is a lot more difficult in a restaurant compared to a grocery store. Thanks to regulations.
Sure, but going to a proper restaurant tends to cost a bit more than doing it yourself.
Like, making some roasted pork with steamed veggies, sauce, and potatoes takes some 10+40 minutes of preparation and about 10 minutes of cleanup, and it costs me about 25$ (and is, of course, not including any deals). That’s for 4 grownups, plus some leftovers for lunch next day.
Obviously food and restaurant prices differ wildly depending on where you live, but I’m not sure I could get a decent and healthy takeout/restaurant meal for less than 60$ for 4 people in my area (assuming that 4 kebabs can be considered “decent and healthy”).
That’d leave me with a hourly “food-wage” of roughly 35$ (or 75$ if we’d assume 100$ for takeout), which I think is acceptable. I’d not make more than that after taxes either way.
I’d rather not cook at all. And what ever money I’m saving I could get more by just working the same time.
So don’t eat ultra processed food then. Order proper food from a proper restaurant.
Do you if that it what you feel. But personally your mindset seems extremely exhausting to me, especially your work addiction.
But again, you are free to do whatever suits you best.
I have no work addiction. It’s just that I don’t hate my professional work. So I’d rather work my job than work in the kitchen. I don’t think that’s that strange.
I mean it’s fairly strange in that I’m not young and I’ve never met a person IRL who does that.
Not putting you down at all. You do you. I’m just pointing out that it is very unusual.
Sound expensive.
Well, yeah.