3 Reasons You Should Learn to Cook
I was making this dish recently.
I could have sworn that it was going to come out amazing.
No clue why I thought this.
My gut was just giving me clues.
After 45 minutes of making this pasta dish, I finally tried it.
I put a fork full in my mouth.
Chewed on it.
Let it marinate.
After 10 seconds, I made my decision.
This dish was…
TRASH!!
It was so bad.
Now I had to order Uber Eats.
‘Geez Armani, were you pissed?’
Yes, I was.
But I wasn’t going to let this stop me.
My Story with Cooking
The first time I learned how to make a dish was in 11th grade when I got suspended from school for a week.
I was so bored at home that I decided to make fried eggs.
The first time I tried, I messed up.
Once I heated up the pan, I didn’t put any oil in the pan!!
The egg started to stick all over and there wasn’t a slick motion.
After I told others about how I failed at frying the eggs, they asked me:
‘Wait, how did you crack the eggs?’
I told them my process and they were surprised.
One egg is always a bit harder than the other egg.
When you hit those 2 eggs together, the harder egg will always break the softer egg while the harder egg remains intact.
The other 11th-grade friends didn’t know this.
They’d hit the eggs in their pantry or have their mom do it.
After my insight, they were like:
‘Wait, you crack an egg with an egg??’
I nodded my head.
That was my first lesson in cooking.
A lot of times you will fail, sure.
However, behind that failure comes a lesson.
The failure was:
- I forgot to use cooking oil to create a lubricant for the egg.
The success was learning how to crack an egg.
Reason #1: The Experimentation Mindset
In the real world, it’s not only about watching cooking videos and that’s it.
Mainly because we have a life.
Sometimes, I’ll watch a cooking video and the host is using 30 different ingredients.
He’s chopping up vegetables.
Making all these sauces.
Cutting up all these meats.
All I’m thinking is that I don’t have the time to do all that.
I want a quick dish.
I’ll get the essence of the video and dumb it down.
- Rather than dice onions, I’ll ditch it.
- Rather than cook the pasta and sauce in different pans, I’ll cook it in the same pot.
- And rather than hand chop something, I’ll use a chopper.
When I factor my lifestyle into the mix, a lot of times I’m successful.
I have many 5-ingredient one-pot meals.
I should make a cookbook for busy people.
Other times, the dishes fall flat.
That’s when I activate my “experimentation” mindset.
Why did this fail?
What changes can I make to make this dish succeed?
Cooking gets you into tweaking mode.
Reason #2: Saving Money
I used to hate the argument that cooking saved money.
Because it didn’t by a huge margin.
When a person cooks, they can get a dish for around 5-7 dollars.
If they eat twice in a day, that’s roughly 10-14 bucks.
You can reduce the price even more if you cook in bulk.
10-14 bucks is roughly how much I spend on fast food.
Some would argue that fast food is way more expensive than that.
But if you use the apps, get points, and look for the deals, you’ll be shocked by how much money you save.
Plus, with fast food, you don’t have to clean up after.
With that being said, you have more control when cooking.
Recently, I was using this chickpea pasta that would cost me $2.86 for 1 day’s worth of food.
One day, I saw a TikTok video where a creator was recommending another pasta that tasted better, gave more quantity, and had more protein.
I bought that new pasta.
It was $2.56 and gave me 2 days’ worth of food.
I saved 30 cents to double the volume!
So, even though food isn’t always cheaper when cooking at home…
You can cut down the costs tremendously if you keep looking for different products.
It becomes a fun scavenger hunt.
The scavenger hunt experience isn’t something that you get with fast food.
Reason#3: Healthy Cooking
The biggest case for cooking is the nutritional aspect.
Nowadays, I get 193 grams of protein meal for 11.70 cents.
That would be a MIRACLE in fast food.
It just wouldn’t work.
Fast food charges too much if protein is your priority.
Also, rather than using vegetable oil or canola oil, I use olive oil.
I can use clean meats.
One of the most destructive ideas is that healthy cooking has to taste bad.
I made some pasta recently which tasted so good.
No one would be able to tell that the pasta was packed with protein, fiber, and essential vitamins.
Prioritize getting your macros in for the day.
That’s your skeleton.
Once you have that, you can creatively use seasoning, broth, and toppings to make the meal taste amazing.
With cooking, you can get something delicious and nutritious.
While fast food can only guarantee something nutritious.
Not Killing Fast Food for Good
I have spurts where the idea of cooking bothers me.
Other times, I get excited to cook.
It really is fun.
A few things I learned is:
- Use less ingredients.
- Look for one-pot meals.
- Prioritize protein and build around that.
Stay updated with this blog.
I’ll drop another post on how to actually cook.
Today’s post was just about why you should learn to cook.
The 3 reasons were:
- It activates experimentation thinking.
- You have more control over the cost.
- You can create nutritional meals that taste amazing.
With the restaurant industry raising prices, creators posting simple recipes on YouTube, and more people wanting to experiment in the kitchen…
I see cooking making a comeback.
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