Comment by sdoering

We once, out of pure interest calculated based on nutritional value, the cost of eating on different diets. We took the average discount market shopping cart, a conscious version, the same for a regular (so more pricy) supermarket and did a comparison with ecological as well as regional food sourcing.

Based on nutritional value (taking into account to fulfill the base needs as well as potentially overshooting on salt, fat, sugar and other things like Vitamin A just to name an example) we found that industrial food is always the more expensive solution.

Yes you can feed people on a very cheap industrial diet but they will miss essential nutrients as well as overshoot on salt, sugar, and others to detrimental health effects.

If you want a balanced diet mostly locally and seasonally produce (with added stuff like olive oil and such) cooked by yourself was way more cost efficient per nutritional value.

The problem is, that it takes time to learn this, especially to learn this from experience. Also time to relearn how food really tastes without added aroma and stuff. Time to learn how to cook efficiently and with variation. And so on. We don't learn this anymore. Not from our parents, nor otherwise. But the advertising tells us how easy it is to just open a fully ready meal, pop it in the microwave and be done in 3 minutes.

Instead of enjoying the quality of preparing food together as a family/couple. Spending time, experiencing the smell of fresh cut food, herbs and so on. We nowadays equivalent cooking to a chore.