What crap. Plenty of families have two adults working at least 40hrs/wk and yet can home cook a meal or turn on a crock pot most of the time.
Most of you are not addressing the problem which is the fiscal disacuity. If you’re in a food desert (I’m in one so they do exist) you do the best you can - I get that. The issue is not recognizing the true cost of your habits. My SIL is renowned for this. She will buy this because it is only 68¢ but at 2 oz. (for beef-flavored saline) that works out to $5.44 a pound. If you told me I could spend up to $5.44 a pound on meat we would have ground beef for burgers, boneless chicken breasts, pork chops and I’d buy a roast to cook/slice for sandwiches and still save money. The problem is that that is $10 for a package of chicken breasts as opposed to $4 for 6 or 7 packages of crappy meat.
So.. economies of scale? It’s clearly cheaper over the long haul to buy non-perishable/semi-perishable things in bulk rather than in smaller quantities. Something like laundry detergent is cheaper per load when you buy it in 128 load quantities than if you buy a 28 load bottle. Same goes for toilet paper, flour, sugar, rice, beans, pasta, etc…
I guess the catch is that someone may only have say… $3 for buying flour (as an example), and ends up with a 5 lb sack, when for $10, they’d have been able to buy a 25 lb sack. (actually even cheaper; $7.50 at Sam’s Club). Buying something at a higher unit cost isn’t ever a better deal, but it may be your only choice if you’re having cash flow issues. If not, then you’re just not paying attention and/or aren’t actually applying your brain power to it.
That’s just not true. Let’s walk through the logic of this.
Study after study shows, without question, dual income families eat fewer home cooked meals. Judgements and explanations aside, this is what actually happens.
So the question is- what explains the gap? There is some reason why working families eat fewer home cooked meals.
Let’s look at your theory. Are they lazier? Stupider? Less attuned to the value of money? All these seem unlikely, as lazy, stupid people who are bad with money aren’t the majority of our employment force. That doesn’t make sense, does it?
The other explanation is that it’s easier to shop, cook and clean up when you don’t have a full time job. This seems pretty likely, since it’s the commonest common sense in the whole damn world.
There are plenty of people who think cooking is Stouffer’s lasgna or Kraft Dinner. Or boiling some hot dogs and toasting some Wonder Bread. There may be some families who sit down to more sophisticated, “slow food” meals where both adults work full-time. But I’m guessing that more times than not, they able to lean on “meal starters”–like pre-made pasta sauces, pre-chopped vegetables (stir fry), and frozen “cooked” foods (like shrimp and dinner rolls). These things can be expensive. But you don’t hear middle-class folks being raked over the coals for throwing their money away on these frivolities. It’s only poor people who are expected to eat out of a crockpot night after night.
Read her statement. Her statement is definitely true. She says “plenty” - but certainly MANY families do. Mine went out to dinner for the first time in a few weeks last night - granted, every other Friday night its delivered pizza. We both work full time, we have two teenagers in activities, and yet, we manage to eat at hom more often than not. Tonight it was one kid coming home while the other was getting in the car - so it was tuna fish sandwiches, Monday was garlic butter shrimp pasta, Sunday tacos, and Saturday was homemade butternut squash soup. Tomorrow I’m not home and my husband has tater tot hotdish on the menu. That brings us to Friday and pizza night.
Is it hard? - no, not really. Even when we go on an eating out binge we still have to go to the grocery store to have coffee, sugar, half and half, bread, and soda in the house. Making sure we have hamburger, some sausages, frozen vegetables, eggs and bread isn’t really more work - and menu planning the week and developing a grocery list from that is a ten minute task that I can do in my head on my commute. Is it easier to pick up food at Noodles and Company on the way home? - sure. I’m not a big crockpot chef - but there are a ton of meals I can have on the table within 30 minutes of getting home - pasta dishes, stirfry or dehydrated hashbrowns as the base carb. Boxes of tofu, a few eggs or canned chicken for “um, nothing is defrosted” Chicken sausages which defrost fast in water, or frozen meatballs - the protein. Frozen broccoli, corn, peas, greenbeans. Jars of pasta sauce, cans of coconut for Thai and Indian. Rice noodles, peanut butter and spices make a nice pad thai. Some nights its far easier to get tacos or an omelet on the table than run out to grab Chinese - takes less time as long as the ingredients are in the house - and you get pretty good at making sure you have a pantry that can pull together dinner once you’ve done it for a few months.
Everyone? - certainly not everyone - as you point out statistics show that it isn’t everyone. But statistics are often misleading - if you are looking statistically at dual income families - you are also looking at many of those with household incomes above the 80th percentile - those people tend to have the disposable income to choose to eat out more often. And when you have two parent households and one stays home - its usually agreed that part of the job of the partner at home is to cook meals - and often the partner is staying home because they ENJOY homemaking and parenting.
I’d assume a third explanation - that a proportion of those who eat out rather than cooking at home are CHOOSING to do so - not because they are lazy or uneducated or too busy or too poor or don’t have kitchens or because its easier by some measure of time or effort - but because they prefer it. And I suspect that preference cuts across socio-economic class. Is it wise? Well, not if its causing financial distress or they continually make poor nutritional choices in their dining out. But neither of these is necessarily true (and McDonalds - in moderation - PROBABLY isn’t going to kill you.)
I get lost starting at the bolded portion. Do you mean “If you told me I could spend up to $5.44 on meat”? (i.e. without the words “a pound”?) If so, then I don’t know how you’d buy all the things you list for just $5.44. But if you did indeed mean to put “a pound” in there, I’m not sure what “up to” is doing in the sentence, and also don’t understand what you mean by the references to $10 and $4 later on.
I’m not Saint Cad, but the Buddig deli meat shown in his link was 68 cents for 2 oz. = $5.44 a pound.
The other meats he listed were meats that can often be had for $5.44 a lb. or less. They are being presented as superior options, compared to the Buddig which contains significant water.
The reference to $10 for chicken breasts means (I believe) that a large packet of breasts (6 or 7 servings) costs more than 6 or 7 2-oz packets of Budding deli slices. The $4 mentioned is the cost of 6 packets at 68 cents each.
That’s the explanation. I’m not defending or denying the truth or logic.
I still call bullshit
I think the problem is that as fastfood and frozen dinners become more predominant, people simply are not learning to cook. Look at my family. My mom (working mother no less) taught me to cook and I enjoy it. My wife hates cooking but can make a passable meal but if given the option will opt for something premade or very simple (Kraft Mac&Cheese). I have taught my son to cook (age 15) and he’s turning into a decent home cook. My step-son refuses (age 24) to cook because he hates it. Literally he asks other people to cook him breakfast and if the person doesn’t he will refuse to eat*. I’m talking steak and eggs or bacon and eggs. His mother’s attitude is why should he learn to cook if he doesn’t like it. On his own his diet would literally be fast-food, pizza, canned Boyardee and CupNoodles and frozen dinners but he has made progress. Now he will read the package before putting it in the oven because he got tired that every time he asked us “How do I cook <insert frozen food>?” We’d respond “Read the fucking box.”
So he meets a girl along similar lines
You’ll blame their lack of home-cooked meals on being a 2 income family?
You think their kids have a hope in hell of learning to cook?
*Yes same stepson (see thread) that has no respect for anyone cooking for him. If I’m making breakfast and ask if he wants some he says “I guess.” and then may eat it. If you read that thread (different from the make everything taste like ketchup thread) you’ll know he’ll say he wants dinner then won’t eat it because he’s not hungry but get pissed off if you didn’t make dinner for him because he’ll go out and not say when he gets back. I wonder if this is related to the fact that he has no clue what it takes to put a home-cooked meal together. God I hope he meets a girl that likes to cook. If not I’m buying stock in Taco Bell.
Another possible factor in two-income (or otherwise middle class income families) eating out more often is that the goal is not just to eat. Some people simply find many aspects of it enjoyable: trying new cuisine, being out and about with other people, being waited on, being in pleasant surroundings, and so forth.
Maybe in those situations the full cost of the meal shouldn’t go to the ‘food’ budget but be split as part ‘food’ part ‘entertainment.’
As for poor people being judged for their decisions more harshly, surely that just comes down to the fact that other people are being asked to pay for it. I have a relative who spends an insane (to me) amount of money on antique knick-knacks. But since she’s paying her own bills and taking care of her family’s needs, so what business is it of mine? OTOH, if she were to come crying to me that she needed money to buy food because she’d spent $5000 on this darling little china box… Yeah. I’d start judging her.
So, by your logic, single-earned families (who eat more home cooked meals), must be uniquely immune to the siren call of fast food and frozen food or else more educated in very basic food prep. Or, by my logic, they have less time and resources for food prep. Which is more likely?
I am a good cook and enjoy cooking, but I get home from work around 7 PM and have about 2 hours of baby-related tasks after that (feed, bathe, change, read to, get to sleep, prep bottles, make lunch, wash lots of baby dishes). I cook about 3 days a week, and I’m lucky to get started by 9PM, and my bedtime is 10:30, meaning a cooking day is basically solid chores.
I was thinking about this the other day when I was walking home.
Sure, poor people are always complaining about how poor they are. And they are always sticking out their hand, asking for assistance.
But middle class folks do too. ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
“Wah! I can’t afford a 20% downpayment on a house! Where’s my government to provide me with first-time homebuyer assistance!”
“Wah! The bank is threatening to foreclose on me because I bought too much house and I lost my job! Where’s my government to rescue me from this horrible decision I made!”
“Wah! I’ve got two kids heading for college and no way to pay for it! Where’s all the government grants and student loans to rescue us!”
“Wah! They’re talking about taking away the mortgage interest tax deduction away! I’m entitled to that!”
I have a coworker. A 68-year-old who spends most of his time working jigsaw puzzles and looking at pictures of antique furniture on the internet. Makes almost $70K a year. Today he was fuming because someone reminded him we aren’t getting the raise everyone thought we were getting. He was cussing such a blue streak you woulda thought someone had killed his mama or something. It doesn’t matter that he is already grossly overpaid or that he makes more than the new hires can ever dream of making. He’s entitled to more money in his mind, and by golly he’s going to complain about it with all the self-righteous indignation that he can muster.
Maybe if he didn’t waste all his money on his smoking habit, he wouldn’t need a raise so much?
I don’t think middle class whining is any different from the whining that poor people do. Everyone’s got their hands out. It’s just that some people are much more honest about it.
Maybe you mean single-parent? Id’ say that 2 parent, single-earner household DO have more overall time available for cooking and prep. I mean, my wife stays at home with the boys, and I work, and she does most of the cooking, because she can work on it all day in between having to deal with a 3 yr old and an 8 month old. So for example, she might chop up onions at 10 am, trim the meat and chop it up at noon, chop potatoes and carrots at 1, and then put it all in the crock-pot at 3 for dinner at 6:30. If we both got home around 5-5:30, then it would pretty much have to be one person takes the children, and the other frantically cooks something relatively simple, in order to get stuff on the table at a reasonable time.
There’s a reason there are so many “30 minutes or less” or semi-homemade type cooking shows and cookbooks; many people don’t have a lot of time to cook.
Now in 3-4 years, it’ll be easier, as the boys will be more self-sufficient, and won’t need the level of supervision, so she’ll be able to start later or do more involved stuff.
One thing we do is try and find recipes that are relatively large, so we can eat leftovers and/or freeze a meal’s worth, so that if our time is cramped for some reason, we can just pull it out of the freezer and heat it back up.
It’s not just that someone else is paying for it - plenty of working poor don’t receive benefits (there were a few years I was in that category before falling off a fiscal cliff again). They still get criticized. Not to the same degree, but the hostility is partly because they are poor.
It think in some cases it’s fear - there’s a certain type of person who really really wants it to be true that people are poor only through their own fault. If that’s not true then anyone might wind up poor - including them. And that scares the crap out of them.
Note that that is not to say anyone in this thread falls into that category, just that there are some folks who just hate poor people as a class, whether said poor are receiving benefits or not.