To give up on dinners entirely?

[Goodgravythisisfantastic]

So bloody sick of thinking about food. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, every day, every week, every month. Who cares?

Tonight we had beans on toast with sausages and fried egg. Son (nearly 3) ecstatically happy. I realised everyone is happier with the simpler meals and I'm happier for cooking them.

I'm ready to give up and cook only beans on toast, baked potatoes, tuna pasta, fish finger sandwiches, toasties with soup, and chicken burgers.

YABU- stop being lazy and cook a decent meal ffs
YANBU- embrace the lazy dinners. Everyone's happier. In fact here are some lazy dinner ideas of my own...

Thanks in advance! 😴🥱🥔🥪🍳🌭🫘

All right, Nancy Mitford

No my partner never cooks and asks me what's for dinner every day.

I enjoy cooking, so it doesn't bother me

Microwavable rice is the answer. Fry it with stuff and ta-da.

I eat the same evening meals every week (obviously different each day).

So easy as my shop is virtually the same each week so there is no waste. I only need to change if we are eating out one evening, which is very rare.

My point is not to judge people. It was to highlight the fact its cultural.
Chorizo in Spain is consumed in stews with for example brown lentils, vegetables and potatoes (that is an example of a traditional weekly dish), its not eaten on its own like sausages.

I gave this example to a Spanish friend of mine who asked me why in the UK and Ireland people are so relaxed about eating junk. I replied its the same for Spanish people with sleeping routine. They know they should be sleeping more specially their young children. But they justify it because its cultural. They have experienced these relaxed rules to go to bed (quite often late) since kids, the same their parents as grandparents did with their children, the same as neighbours and everyone they know. Everyone justify it saying they will catch up at the weekend or "its the way i grew up and nothing happend to me". However cooking good food and feeding the kids with good food is sacred. It's the other way around in your country. Its cultural. That was my point.

I was talking to my mum about this exact thing at the weekend. I've just shown her this thread and she had a little laugh at how relatable it is and how much people can argue over what others should have for dinner 😂

Her particular favourite comment is @Peekaboobo "it's fucking boring feeding everyone until you die" cos she said it's the absolute truth 😂

No, you said processed foods. We don't all eat processed foods here but some people do the occasional lazy food like OP does because it's easier with young children. It was like 'the British are so lazy when it comes to cooking, nothing like us Spaniards, who spend all our time cooking'. I'll have ask my Spanish NDN, Marta if she spends her life cooking but if she does, that's fine, it's cultural and she may not mind this.

A lot of English parents actually do cook from scratch (and not much processed foods), but like OP said 'her child ate a dinner that was 'lazy'' but he actually ate it rather than the mealtime dramas where he wouldn't eat other foods before.

@HungryBeagle

You’d have thought that was a fairly uncontroversial thing to say, but not on MN apparently!

Precisely!

My child eats NOTHING. I have given up trying. It's boring tomato pasta, chicken nuggets, or beans on toast nearly every day here!

How is minimizing time spent on a chore a bad thing? Most people have other things they would rather do. Ultimately yes there may be a health benefit in cooking from scratch but you have to weigh that up against the time it takes (which includes the planning & shopping time) which could be spent doing more enjoyable things.

Personally I hate meal planning - feels like a treadmill that I can't get off. How can I possibly know now what I & my family want to have for dinner tonight, let alone in a week's time?!

Honestly I used to live in Spain, my husband is Spanish, my in laws are obviously Spanish, we have many Spanish friends and all this ‘oh the Spanish so x,y and z’ is as much bollocks as ‘all the English do x, y and z’. Some Spanish people feed their children well, some don’t. Some enjoy cooking big family meals, some don’t. The rise of UPFs is as evident there as it is here; when we first moved to Spain the ‘junk’ aisles in the supermarket were small and contained. When we left 5 years later, they took up far more space. Another 10 years down the line, when we visit family (multiple times a year) the increase is even more evident.

You have zero idea how lucky you are. My child is a terror and hates the adult food that I cook. She purportedly vomited onto her plate when made to eat a certain green vegetable at her father's house.

That is a good day fruit and veg wise but wouldn’t be 10 portions I assume? I believe a portion is 80g. Or are you more looking at getting a variety of different fruits and veg in, rather than looking at portions?

YA so NBU!

Show us your list please!!!!

Oh, I love this!
Also, she had a point…soft boiled eggs on crusty white bread toast, loads of salty butter…food of the gods.

Totally agree. My trick is to make dinner at lunchtime when I’m making myself an omelette or something so kitchen only messed up once and then later on it feels as though someone else has already done it. Am self employed wfh though

I always remember the teacher saying in home economics in school that beans on toast and a glass of milk is the most perfectly balanced meal there is nutrition wise! I’m only 43 but even I think a lot of modern food is literally just to check the preparation box and isn’t always necessary (but I’m not a good cook so I may just be giving myself an out😅)

That's similar in France where my DP's have a holiday home and we have French friends there.

The rise in UPF has increased mostly due to time factors. Yes, they still cook from scratch (the lovely only eating meat, then another of the meal and then another separate part!) and then certain things they don't like together because it's a French cultural thing and some older people are more traditional, but in e.g. Intermarche and Carrefour there are more processed/junk foods for sale than before.

But what did people do before 5 a day? We ate less fruit and vegetables but we did eat fruit and vegetables, just not in the quantities as we did now. I mean we had salads for lunch, tinned peaches for dessert, strawberries in summer but other fruit (apples etc) as snacks. And at least we ate them when they were in season rather than out of season.

Personally I see cooking and eating decent food as self care and adult behaviour.
Ditto getting enough sleep and exercise.
I'm not British though
We are cooped up on an island and prefer to passive aggressively self harm but then spend our money on scented candles cos " self care" 😂

That is a good day fruit and veg wise but wouldn’t be 10 portions I assume? I believe a portion is 80g. Or are you more looking at getting a variety of different fruits and veg in, rather than looking at portions?

Honestly? I just don't care that much. As long as my family are eating some varied fruit and veg every day, that's just fine by me.

I've recently discovered I have little to no appetite at dinner time so would rather skip it. It's a hard habit to get out of, there's such a strong cultural thing in me to sit and have dinner and if DH were not so keen I just wouldn't bother anymore. I might have a few works with him, chuck out half the stuff in the freezer and simplify. I have a chest freezer that is full up and honestly, I look in there and can't figure out what I'd assemble from it. Another stupid waste of brain space for me.

Exactly. This is part of what’s doing my head in. If it were just me I’d eat what and when I wanted and it wouldn’t be three big, impeccably timed plated meals a day. ** DH (& so the rest of the family) expect three traditional meals a day, including a ‘proper dinner’ cooked by me, the traditional wife.

This all takes planning and preparing, which is exhausting, and then I sit down and partake with them, even though the dinner is something I would not normally have any interest in. Aaaargh.

** Apart from Saturdays - that’s in another pp!

Not sure why you need help with this

If I lived alone I would definitely have beans on toast, sometimes with an egg, several nights of the week for dinner. Sometimes I'd be happy with a bowl of cereal to be honest. But my DH absolutely lives to eat, it's one of his greatest joys. We do share the cooking and the shopping but still, every time he asks what we'll have for dinner a bit of my soul just withers up and cries! I love eating, but I cannot be arsed with having to think about it 3 x a day every frigging day forever.

However, just recently I changed my working hours slightly which bought me a bit more time on one day of the week. I've started tearing recipes out of the free Tesco magazine and trying one out every couple of weeks. It takes all the hard work out of it because I don't have to search through endless impossible recipes online, and I know all the ingredients will be sold in my local supermarket. Having new dinners without having to put much effort into researching and planning it has actually been quite fun(ish).