I am surprised no one has suggested hiring a meal-prep service that will either make food in your house and leave it pre-cooked for the week or will deliver it. [google a friend that cooks for one example]

You need to make your life work for you. But if you’re interested in home cooking, I agree that doing a crockpot meal once a week that will yield leftovers is a good start. And maybe add a pasta nite with whatever add-ins you like- veggies and Parmesan, or a simple jarred sauce with the addition of browned lean ground beef, feta and olives….there are endless options and it’s all fast. Add a salad for the pasta nite.

OP, we used to be like this until covid times and now have not gone back to how we were. Helps that restaurant service is not great now and prices are $$, so we don’t feel like spending on a mediocre experience.

Here’s what I suggest. Ease into it. Here are a few meal ideas that come together really quickly. They are not the healthiest, but it’s healthier and cheaper than eating out. Pick at least one and do that for a few weeks. Then slowly add in another night of cooking. My husband likes to eat well, so we do one of the below a week but other meals are more complicated/better. The biggest key is to meal plan. Otherwise it’s too overwhelming each day.

Easy ideas:
- pasta/sauce/frozen Turkey meatballs plus roasted broccoli. I also throw a bunch of spinach in with the sauce.
- rotisserie chicken, rolls, frozen steamed veggies. Lots of other recipes that can start with rotisserie chicken.
- easy tacos with canned beans, chicken (if desired), lettuce tomatoes etc.
- egg and cheese burritos. Roasted vegetable.
- chicken nuggets or fish sticks. Add a veggie.
- use your instant pot.
- Trader Joe’s has lots of great ideas, look online. You can cobble together a really great meal.

I’m sure people will balk at these recipes, they aren’t fancy. But doing something like this once a week gets you started on cooking at home with minimal effort. Start with precooked veggies etc if you need to make it easier. That’s ok.

Money wasn’t the primary factor for us but as our kids have gotten older, it is expensive to eat out. Even chipotle for our family now is $60+. That’s crazy even if you don’t need to save. For that price we can get a really good piece of fish at the grocery, sides, and still come out ahead.

Eating out all the time is a lot of extra fat and calories. When I make spaghetti, my sauce probably has half the oil and half the salt a restaurant does. Home cooking is healthier. And you can have twice the amount of pasta for half the cost. Even steaks are better at home. Eating out is nice but not everyday. It gets boring too and sooo expensive now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been eating takeout like this for years due to a busy schedule. I credit massive weight gain to it.

You are not alone, it’s happening to millions of Americans.

I gained a ton of weight working a high stress long hours job and eating takeaways the majority of the time - I could afford it and I tried to pick healthy options, but I just didn’t fully understand the calories and bad ingredients even in the healthy options. Restaurant food is not for a regular diet unless you want metabolic disorder which you will develop whether normal weight or overweight.

I’m working on losing that weight now that I have fundamentally changed my life in a number of ways, including prioritizing sleep and stress management. Learning to cook most of my own meals at home has been key to losing and feeling healthier. I don’t spend a huge amount of time cooking and I don’t cook most days, I make a quiche once a week that takes care of breakfast and I frequently make things like curry or stew or soup in large batches that will feed me for days or can be divided up and frozen for future meals. I do still occasionally get takeout but it’s at most once per week.

My food prep days are something I really enjoy now - a few hours making delicious food, usually listening to music or watching a movie or a couple of episodes of a show while I chop and dice and whatever - and then having a fridge packed full with wholesome options so anytime I am hungry I can reach in and find something tasty and healthy and no need to fall down the rabbit hole of takeout menus. Yes it takes time and planning but once you have a repertoire of things to make it becomes second nature and is not all that difficult.

And again - if you don’t teach your kids what eating whole food at home looks like, when will they learn it? Does anybody even teach or take home economics in school anymore (I took it in junior high, in the 80s - and honestly it wasn’t that useful)? In recent years I’ve been learning to cook entirely differently from how I grew up, which was a lot of processed food and boring not terribly healthy typical American food of the 70s/80s - my working mother really embraced convenience foods not realizing she could make healthier stuff without much more effort. She hated cooking and resented the obligation but I think when you have kids, you should feel obligated to do more than just put calories into growing bodies - you should be setting the example for a lifetime of healthy eating habits which a great many parents are not doing today.

PP here. Same. Neither parent ever taught me to cook, so I never learned how. I didn't even know how to scramble an egg until I was in my 40s. I makes foregoing takeout for cooking at home a lot harder. I'm finally learning though.

Take out tastes good because you don't understand how much the preparers are putting in it. Excessive salt makes everything taste so much better! You don't see it. The sodium levels of take out are extreme.

I speak as someone over 50. I eat take out now, and my heart races. It is the salt making my heart race (google does salt make your heart race). I avoid certain establishments now because of the salt levels in their food.

I cook for my family six days a week, and I am happy to do so because take out is not good for you, or for young kids.

When you cook your own food, at least you can see what goes into it.

When you order out, you get what is delivered. The salt, the butter, the fat, it's all there.

Learn to cook at home.

I guess if you can afford it and you are careful to eat and feed your children a nutritious and balanced diet it's not so bad. However I think lots of people now make the bad choice to waste their money on this when they really can't afford it and they also are not careful about nutrition with all the take out and delivery food they consume.

We never eat out. It’s quicker at home.

We can afford it but it's such a waste, both monetarily and calorically.

When I get tired of cooking, I do really simple stuff like tacos or pasta. I try to plan ahead and have things in the freezer, use the crock pot, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I've been eating takeout like this for years due to a busy schedule. I credit massive weight gain to it.

You are not alone, it’s happening to millions of Americans.

I gained a ton of weight working a high stress long hours job and eating takeaways the majority of the time - I could afford it and I tried to pick healthy options, but I just didn’t fully understand the calories and bad ingredients even in the healthy options. Restaurant food is not for a regular diet unless you want metabolic disorder which you will develop whether normal weight or overweight.

I’m working on losing that weight now that I have fundamentally changed my life in a number of ways, including prioritizing sleep and stress management. Learning to cook most of my own meals at home has been key to losing and feeling healthier. I don’t spend a huge amount of time cooking and I don’t cook most days, I make a quiche once a week that takes care of breakfast and I frequently make things like curry or stew or soup in large batches that will feed me for days or can be divided up and frozen for future meals. I do still occasionally get takeout but it’s at most once per week.

My food prep days are something I really enjoy now - a few hours making delicious food, usually listening to music or watching a movie or a couple of episodes of a show while I chop and dice and whatever - and then having a fridge packed full with wholesome options so anytime I am hungry I can reach in and find something tasty and healthy and no need to fall down the rabbit hole of takeout menus. Yes it takes time and planning but once you have a repertoire of things to make it becomes second nature and is not all that difficult.

And again - if you don’t teach your kids what eating whole food at home looks like, when will they learn it? Does anybody even teach or take home economics in school anymore (I took it in junior high, in the 80s - and honestly it wasn’t that useful)? In recent years I’ve been learning to cook entirely differently from how I grew up, which was a lot of processed food and boring not terribly healthy typical American food of the 70s/80s - my working mother really embraced convenience foods not realizing she could make healthier stuff without much more effort. She hated cooking and resented the obligation but I think when you have kids, you should feel obligated to do more than just put calories into growing bodies - you should be setting the example for a lifetime of healthy eating habits which a great many parents are not doing today.

I've been eating takeout like this for years due to a busy schedule. I credit massive weight gain to it.

We can afford to eat take out all the time but like other threads the quality is so dang disappointing for the money and the prices make (frugal rooted) me cringe.

I've started permitting myself to get fancier things at the grocery store as a compromise. More partially prepped or chopped foods, etc.