There’s often a financial benefit to preparing your own food in bulk, but preparing everything is a chore and doesn’t always offer the benefits you might think.
I am a lazy cook, and any food that takes me more than 30 minutes to prepare has my immediate suspicion. The only exceptions to this rule are things that I eat slowly over time or which otherwise don’t require much effort, so a batch of a dozen hamburger buns doesn’t bother me since they will last me several weeks, nor does a loaf of bread, which takes about 10 minutes of prep time and lasts me a week to a week and a half. However, there are other foods like lentil soup that I have resisted making from scratch, preferring to buy from cans, despite the often negative associations around canned foods. Should I be making more effort to prepare things from scratch?
My roommate is part of a farmer’s market co-op and gets fresh produce every week. Whenever I see the produce in the fridge, I think, “Ah, I should be making more fresh foods like this!”, until I remember how much effort it takes to prepare that quantity of produce (and general differences in our food preferences). It’s been my habit to boil vegetables from frozen and use them as a side dish to something else, and while this is still a perfectly acceptable way to eat vegetables, psychologically there’s a stronger mental association between fresh produce and “healthy”. Even if that association were true, though, I’d have to ask the question, “By how much? 10%? 20%? More? Less?” Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter, as long as you’re making the effort to eat produce.
I’ll eat grains, meat, cheese, dairy, sweets, fruits, legumes, anything before vegetables, so the fact that I eat any vegetables at all is a huge testimony to how far I’ve come over the past year. It’s not terrible to realize that there are many great healthy foods to eat that aren’t vegetables, too, so it’s maybe not fair to think that only veggie-heavy meals are healthy. That being said, though, I found a store-bought mix of organic veggies that I’ll occasionally make into a stir fry using a heavy garlic sauce, and I like it, so it’s my goal to have that at least once a week. Because it’s pre-mixed, part of me suspects I could save money by buying the ingredients separately and preparing them, but the bags otherwise work really well. I’ve had to accept that the more effort it takes me to prepare vegetables, the less likely I am to eat them (ever), so buying them pre-mixed is a worthwhile compromise. Additional effort simply isn’t going to happen at this point, but hey, I now eat a decent meal of vegetables every so often, so that’s a win.
I finally found some oatmeal packages that aren’t full of garbage, which I can alternate with eggs for breakfast, but it drives me nuts that they are about $7 for a small bag that makes 6 servings, when I can spend $8 on a giant cylinder of organic oats. I like oats a lot more than I like vegetables, so creating my own oatmeal is feasible. Blueberry powder (organic or otherwise) from China is kinda sketchy, though, but I’m sure I could find the right sources of ingredients to create a bag of my own mix, since raw oats can be pretty bland (although I’ve always appreciated their chewiness). Nonetheless, it’s not the devil to pay the money for a pre-mix. Again, if one breakfast energy drink costs between $3 and $4.80, how terrible is it to pay $7 for 6 healthy breakfasts? It’s not wrong to pay for added value, and much of that value is in the form of convenience. If it gets you to eat healthier, it’s probably worth it. [Although, for goodness’ sake, why do they have to bovine collagen in there? Stupid fads. But that’s a rant for another day]
For example, I’ve been tempted for several months to buy my own consumer-grade flour mill. There are many good reasons for buying one of these, but I’m skeptical that freshly ground flour is somehow magnitudes better than pre-ground flour, from either a taste or a nutritional perspective. I like the idea of getting a small workout from grinding my own, but how much does fresh really matter if you’re still making whole grain bread, and baking it yourself with quality, all-organic ingredients? Does pre-ground cause a 5% drop in nutrition? 10%? 0%? Who the hell cares? Moreover, flour companies give you a consistent grind with consistent baking properties. Self-grinding is a whole world of variables you probably never imagined applied to flour. Do I really want to go down that rabbit-hole? [Maybe?]
Given time, I suspect you could perfect many different recipes and get the full advantage of buying in bulk. These advantages are maybe a little less significant for single people with no kids, since you don’t get to apply your skills at a scale that would otherwise more-greatly benefit a family, but if you were dedicated, it might be pretty cool what you could accomplish. Personally, though, I think it’s important to gauge my battles wisely. The greatest ROI is still to be found in cutting back on ice cream and breakfast energy drinks – the two most highly processed elements of my weekly diet. Beyond that, I’m presently curious how to get the right oatmeal combination figured out, but maybe after I’ve sampled more to see what flavor profile(s) I prefer the most. Also, I realized that grinding my own cheese from a giant block can potentially save 50%, I just need to find a grater large enough to produce those “farm style” shreds I used to buy. The question is how fast I eat through it before it starts to mold, and that still remains to be answered.
It’s slow progress, but I’m still proud of how much I’ve changed over time. You really do have to decide how far down the various rabbit holes you want to go. I suspect the 80/20 principle applies to much of this.
[Probably the most complicated foods I prepare are my versions of a blueberry smoothie and a strawberry/mango smoothie. I used to make carob smoothies, but they’ve kind of fallen to the wayside since January. I honestly don’t prefer tremendous variety in my meals, though I’m open to trying new things.]