Stew? Soup? Too hard, too much time. Wouldn’t make it.

Which is exactly why this book exists.

Premade soups from stores, including simple canned soup is really fast (open can, microwave) ... I dont know how long you could live off them though.

>too hard

roughly chopping random vegetables and throwing them in a pot is hard?

>too much time

using a pressure cooker for 45 minutes while you watch youtube videos is too much time?

Yes to both points. You would know, if you had been there.

Also, who is buying the veggies, who is cleaning up after your 5 minutes of eating?

Ding ding ding. Exactly!

Don't forget you also have to wash, peel, top and tail, clean, sharpen knives, etc..

A full dinner from when you get up to make it to when you sit down with everything washed/put away is more like 60 minutes in a best-case scenario. 7 hours a week. 364 hours a year. Feels like a crime to use so much time on basic survival needs that have been solved.

The trick is to cook in bulk.

Soups, stews, pasta, chili, all freeze very well. All doable in about an hour start to finish including cleanup, if you're efficient. You cook the largest batch possible and freeze it in meal sized portions. I can get 4-6 portions out of a single stock pot - that's 10-15 minutes of work per meal. Well worth the time invested to have meals which are prepared exactly the way I like them sitting in my freezer, ready to nuke and eat. It's also a cheap way to eat healthy.

For me it's not about survival, that part's easy - I like variety and I like having control over my macros (or at least knowing what they are). I also order delivery and eat out regularly but I can't imagine not having this extra tool in my toolbox.

Yes - far too hard, and far too much time.

I'd immediately buy pre-diced items and would have to find a recipe that could be made in less than 15 minutes, and even then that's pushing it.

My solution was soylent/equivalent. 8 years on I'm still drinking it.

Do you have a diagnosed cognitive condition? This absolute rejection of even the most basic and easy form of food preparation is concerning. Drinking that slop without a decent complementary diet is not healthy for your gut.

"The most basic and easy form of food preparation" is still food preparation; declaring that something is the simplest thing in its category does not actually make anything in that category bearable. Look through the thread, there are many people like this who are perhaps capable of cooking but who loathe it or otherwise can't make themselves do it. I for one am perfectly capable of cooking complex meals for twelve people, but good god the only reason I ever arrange to put food into my face just so that my meat continues to function is because I would die if I didn't. The time pressure on it is especially loathsome (if I don't eat in a certain window, I no longer have the energy it would take to force myself to eat); you can lie there and just feel the window of opportunity for this annoying task slipping away.

By the way, asking someone whether they're mentally unwell because they think differently from you is generally considered impolite.

Precisely. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I can cook, I just loathe it.