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American Eating Habits Are Changing Faster than Fast Food Can Keep Up (bloomberg.com)
Home cooking would be making a comeback if it ever really went away. From a report: Restaurants are getting dinged by the convenience of Netflix, the advent of pre-made meals, the spread of online grocery delivery, plus crushing student debt and a focus on healthy eating. Eighty-two percent of American meals are prepared at home -- more than were cooked 10 years ago, according to researcher NPD Group. The latest peak in restaurant-going was in 2000, when the average American dined out 216 times a year. That figure fell to 185 for the year ended in February, NPD said.
Don't be fooled by reports of rising U.S. restaurant sales at big chains like McDonald's. Increases have been driven by price hikes, not more customers. Traffic for the industry was down 1.1 percent in July, the 29th straight month of declines, according to MillerPulse data. "It's counterintuitive because you see a lot of things in the press about restaurant sales increasing," said David Portalatin, a food-industry adviser at NPD. "America does still cook at home." The shift is weighing on the fast-food industry. Eateries already are struggling with higher labor and rent costs that they're passing along to customers, which in turn makes home cooking more economical. McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Shake Shack and Wendy's have all raised prices in the past year.
Don't be fooled by reports of rising U.S. restaurant sales at big chains like McDonald's. Increases have been driven by price hikes, not more customers. Traffic for the industry was down 1.1 percent in July, the 29th straight month of declines, according to MillerPulse data. "It's counterintuitive because you see a lot of things in the press about restaurant sales increasing," said David Portalatin, a food-industry adviser at NPD. "America does still cook at home." The shift is weighing on the fast-food industry. Eateries already are struggling with higher labor and rent costs that they're passing along to customers, which in turn makes home cooking more economical. McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Shake Shack and Wendy's have all raised prices in the past year.
I think it's also coinciding with more public consciousness regarding health. I started eating out a lot less after learning that carbs weren't as good for you as the FDA had been suggesting. Most restaurants are still offering low fat dishes that are loaded with carbs because that's what everyone thought they needed. That it's probably cheaper to make high carbohydrate dishes likely factors into it as well. Since I started cooking more at home and adjusted my diet, I lost about 30 lbs. and that was without having to be a gym rat or super active.
The trend in New Zealand is weekly delivered food and recipes. No more meal planning, no more big grocery shops. People pay for convenience.
Maybe that's happening elsewhere too?
Tiny? About 1/3 of adult Americans have college degrees, but here's the kicker: about 60% of adult Americans have attended college, but a large fraction of them never finish. If you include technical schools that don't grant degrees but which students take out loans to attend, the number goes up further.
Americans owe over 1.3 trillion dollars in student loan debt -- more than they owe in credit card debt by a good margin. That's why cracking down on unscrupulous or misleading educational institutions is important. Education -- both college and trade -- is a huge industry with a big impact on the economy.
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How's that?
It takes exactly 6 minutes to grill the chicken to 170 degrees, and about 10 minutes to make the pasta.
Let's break it down then for you..
0:00 Turn on the grill ( https://www.amazon.ca/Breville... ) and pre-heat to 420 degrees. While grill is heating, open chicken and season.
0:04 Grill is ready, put chicken on grill. Cook to 170 degrees. While cooking pull out a pot, fill with water, pull out the pasta and portion it out.
0:10 Chicken is done, pull it off and put pot on the stove and bring it to boil.
0:16 Water is boiling, add pasta. Slice up the chicken breasts.
0:26 Pasta cooked, pull off stove and drain. Dump in bowl and add roast garlic olive oil.
0:28 Portion meals into containers.
0:32 Done.
Ok, so it takes 32 minutes.. big deal.
I could cut that time down more if I didn't put the grill on the stove top to use the hood vent to vent the grill. That water would almost be at a boil by the time the chicken was done.
Point being, it's still a hell of a lot quicker than spending 75 minutes a week driving to get food, only to have to scarf it down once I get back to the office.
In this case, it's Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed that she once said "S'ils n'ont pas de pain, qu'ils mangent de la brioche." -- If they don't have bread, they should eat cake. Brioche, a special type of white bread baked with much butter and eggs, is mostly translated as cake, without really being one.