This is never more apparent than when you start making your own stuff from scratch. The comparison is stark.

I have found it is roughly an order of magnitude cheaper to cook at home, even once you factor in the "lost" time.

The amount of time required to prepare incrementally larger batches increases at a sub-linear rate. The bigger your batch, the more food you get per unit of wall clock time. I try to prepare no less than 3 lbs of dry beans or 2 lbs of beef at a time. Anything less does actually feel like I'm wasting my energy.

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foxyv a minute ago | parent | next [-]

I can make about 2000 calories for about $2-5 using staples like rice, beans, flour, salt, yeast, pepper, etc... Generally, spices are pretty cheap. Especially if you go to the bulk section instead of buying the little jars.

The thing I see stopping most people in poverty is lack of access to a kitchen. No oven, no stove, no pantry, etc... A hot plate and a microwave if they are lucky. Also the usual health issues that come from deep poverty like executive dysfunction, depression, and other chronic illnesses.

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krackers 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>roughly an order of magnitude cheaper to cook at home

Why should this be the case in principle though? Do economies of scale not apply to food preparation?

	▲	pessimizer 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In a lot of cases it's simple price fixing. If you want to be shocked, compare the prices of frozen potato products (like bagged hash browns and french fries) to the price of potatoes. There's like a 200% premium for simply cutting and flash freezing them. The machines have got to pay for themselves in an hour. Does it make economic sense? Yes, when you know that there is a frozen potato cartel: https://www.potatopro.com/news/2024/alleged-potato-cartel-ac...
	▲	AlexandrB 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They do and companies already take advantage of them. But even a fast food restaurant has a ton of additional overhead that you won't have by cooking at home (or some you won't include in your price of your homecooked meal): rent, salaries, utilities, taxes, shrinkage, maintenance, etc. So even if they can get the ingredients cheaper they can't compete with you on some of these factors and must also include others like utilities in the cost of the finished product where you will generally ignore them when thinking about how much it costs to cook dinner.

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customguy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Less and less people have time and money for that, for the same reason this stuff happens in the first place (i.e. greed and wealth consolidation). Put differently, if more people had time and money to do what you do, you wouldn't bother to do it, either.

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jandrewrogers 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Making food from scratch is cheap. It also doesn't take much time unless you want it to. Choosing not to cook has become performative learned helplessness.

I was far more likely to cook from scratch when I was poor than when I was not. And honestly, the food was healthier too. Basic life skills.

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Petersipoi 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I really want the "cooking is too expensive" crowd to show me where they're getting their cheap food. I would struggle to make a homemade burger cost as much as a McDonalds quarter pounder. Even if I used twice as much beef.

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customguy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Of course there's also eating of bad, expensive food. But being pressed for time is a real thing for some people. And IMO more importantly, if we enjoy the fruits of economics of scale for sooo many production processes, why can't we with mass produced food?

Nobody says "if you want a really good office chair you have to build it yourself". Same for shoes, cars, bikes, a million things. You can do that, make your own bike for example, but to get up to par you need to spend vastly more time and money, it's basically using more resources to be quirky or make an experiment etc.

IMO the default expectation, demand, the thing we should organise to achieve, should be that what's available, what the market competes over, is good and gets better, regardless of the market. Not that it gets worse because the buyers get fleeced. Doubly so not food.

	▲	fragmede 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Because there are multiple competing axis for "good" as relates to food. There's tasty, and theres healthy, and there's inexpensive (time or money); pick two.

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TylerE 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At the current retail price, a half pound of beef is just shy of $5.

	▲	HeyLaughingBoy an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And on Saturday, I bought a package of four 1/3 lb burger patties (ground chuck) for $7.99 and a package of burger buns for under $2 at a gas station. Kwik-Trip FTW. That price depends a lot on where you live and shop.
	▲	Petersipoi an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I consistently buy ground beef on sale for $5/pound. Looking at walmart.com right now, they are selling it for $6.44/pound. Maybe people think cooking is expensive because they, for some odd reason, are paying $5 for a half pound of ground beef.

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HeyLaughingBoy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And here I was stupidly thinking that making meals at home was the default and eating out/getting takeout was the exception.

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foxyv 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What? I make things from scratch because I'm broke AF.

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somenameforme 3 hours ago | parent [-]

lol amen. I don't understand where this myth of it being expensive to do things yourself came from. It's not only cheaper but way way way cheaper. And that's comparing it to crap quality stuff. If you compare to what something of the same quality as you make would cost, then the difference is just ridiculous.

	▲	AlexandrB an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think the myth comes from the upfront costs of cooking equipment and spices as well as expensive proteins like ground beef. If you cook with mostly starches like rice or potatoes and just some meat, there's no contest. The other thing that can make cooking expensive is buying too many different ingredients to make a fancy dish and having a bunch of leftover stuff that gets thrown out. But that's where soups come in.

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Amezarak 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Less and less people have time and money for that, for the same reason this stuff happens in the first place (i.e. greed and wealth consolidation).

It takes very little time to prepare and cook most simple meals - if you want to dress it and garnish it and execute a 1000 step recipe, that is of course on you. For example, you can have a steak and potato (loaded with cheese and sour cream) as good as anything you get in a restaurant in under ten minutes. It is rarely faster to go out to eat. That is of course taking as a given that people really are working more hours, which I am very skeptical of and which BLS data does not support.

I am sympathetic to people's arguments about cost and free time generally, but I think "cooking your own food" is mostly a victim of the increasingly sky-high value people place on convenience vs doing almost anything for themselves that constitutes "work" in their minds. It is definitely not true that money is the issue, as other commenters already mentioned.

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linker3000 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I find it apparent when I very occasionally take a break from making my own stuff from scratch and get a takeout.

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8by3 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Totally, a huge swathe of things are better and cheaper when your make them yourself, you just need the time. Shame we've given up all our free time to work so we can buy worse alternatives.

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phil21 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Shame we've given up all our free time to work so we can buy worse alternatives.

Not true on average. The average American spends 4-5 hours a day on personal screen time.

And those who complain about not having time to cook I'd bet dollars to donuts are pulling that average up, if my personal lived experience is anything to go by.

There is a case here in terms of two income households being the norm these days, but that's really about it. The average person today lives a life of far more comfort and convenience than even in the 90's.

	▲	10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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GlacierFox 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For a lot of my friends it's not about time. They'll proclaim their lack of time to make a simple meal, doom scroll for hours then order take-away then doom scroll half and hour while waiting for it to come.

	▲	customguy 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What about the rationalisations of those who cut corners and wine to make even more profit when they're already so rich it's become a health issue for them? How is it the sole responsibility of your friends to work around that? The idea is basically that it's "just the way it is" that the food we can buy in supermarkets, that is made in factories, that GIGANTIC amounts of real estate and logistics and energy are devoted to, that is made cheaper than it would be otherwise (and that is true even if it was awesome quality and mega healthy -- it would be more expensive, but less expensive than doing it yourself, economics of scale etc.) sucks, is unhealthy, you "shouldn't eat that". Just buy some veggies and do it yourself. It's not so hard to plant some tomatoes, either! Nevermind people in private jets doing airshows... I just can't with how lazy my friends are. It would take them 30 minutes max. It's not that you're wrong, of course. Both "sides" matter, and you always should mostly focus on what you control. But at the same time, it's better to punch up than kick down or sideways.

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insane_dreamer 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

sorry, got no time to eat healthy -- too busy scrolling!!