What was your relationship with food growing up?

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lavasca@reddit

Thar might be regional or cultural. I didn’t grow up on such foods.

My grandma was such a good cook that people talked about her cooking fifty years after they ate at her table. It's humbling. 😄

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impliedapathy@reddit

You joke but I keenly remember granny’s industrial sized shaker of Accent. I had no idea what Accent even was until I was an adult but both her and my mom used it frequently

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Accurate-Force3054@reddit

Same, my mom was Martha Stewart. Made me not want to even try to keep up. She did so much more home cooking than I do

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rialucia@reddit

Same. Both my grandmothers were legendary. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old and my parents still talk reverently about their former mother in laws’ cooking.

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Hour-Personality-734@reddit

This is my goals, seriously.

Where is this place you grew up in?? I grew up in northern NH. I would be shocked if where you grew up was more rural. If we were willing to drive 30 minutes we could have pizza, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Greek, and most other standard American fare.

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Daylight-Silence@reddit

Central Washington state. If we drove 30 minutes in any direction, we'd have still been a good 45 minutes from the next outpost of civilization, and I seriously doubt Yakima had a robust world cuisine scene in 1990, either.

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elphaba00@reddit

My mom was a decent cook, but there's nothing in particular that sticks out. Lots of casseroles. My dad was the much better cook since he grew up with a mom who ruined everything she made except liver and onions. He and his sisters had to learn to cook to eat well.

Since it was just the three of us, we regularly went to restaurants or picked up fast food. We'd have picnics with buckets of KFC. Or my dad would get me chicken nuggets and sweet and sour sauce from McDonald's. Or we'd go to this steakhouse a couple of blocks from our house.

Also credit to my parents for influencing my love for Chinese food. We'd always go to this one place for sit-down meals, and my dad learned how to stir fry meals and make egg rolls. His cousin also married a woman from Thailand, and she'd always bring around Thai food for family dinners and reunions.

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Psychological-Cry221@reddit

My mother was like Martha Stewart. This sounds awesome, but I had no snacks in the house. Just ingredients to make food.

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Scissorsguadalupe@reddit

Yeah, my mom always says she buys, not bakes. My dad wouls grill occasionally but most our meals were out of a box. I only really ate sweets growing because of this. It wasn't until I moved and started to work in restaurants and learn to cook for myself that I realized how much I like food

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AdLimp8975@reddit

I took my mother's Italian cooking for granted until I went to college and realized people didn't have it as good as me and my siblings and cousins. The worst meal she cooked was her baked pork chops (just overcooked, still delicious). My dad was good on the grill, too. He finally took over porkchop duty when I was in HS and I realized that meat is always still supposed to have juice in it!

Did you grow up on a commune?? I want to hear more about being raised by hippies!

Your last comment resonated with me during the charcuterie trend a few years ago. As an Italian American the foods people put on charcuterie boards are absolute staples at our family gatherings and have been for decades so I honestly never knew so many people weren't already eating those things.

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likesblackcoffeebest@reddit

Avocados: only the Florida kind with the smooth lighter skin that taste and feel like raw tofu.

"Ethnic food aisle": Soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, canned chow mein, canned enchilada sauce, tortillas, canned refried beans. And not much more.

It's hard to cook well with crap ingredients. When we started seeing things like Fuji apples and vibe-ripened tomatoes, it was revalatory.

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Spiritual-Promise402@reddit

I wouldn't call it a "relationship", we just see each other here and there

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physical0@reddit

I grew up poor, so we had a lot of American goulash.

My dad was a picky eater (likely undiagnosed autistic) and my mom stuck to his list.

I grew up knowing how to fry eggs and make pasta.

I watched a lot of cooking shows and learned how to cook and had great success with our first kid, but the second is a picky eater and is stubborn enough to refuse to eat if it isn't something on the list. I'm not hard enough to refuse to feed them, so their refusal works effectively as a veto.

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We were an immigrant family so our experience was quite different.

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RedSolez@reddit

You are obviously not from an Italian American family that originally hails from NYC 😂 My only problem was there was too much of it all the time and I was never taught portion control or that too many carbs will ruin my life especially when it turns out I have a hormonal disorder that causes insulin resistance.

Makes me really miss my brother.

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Hatecookie@reddit

I was raised by my grandparents and there was nothing my grandma couldn't make from scratch. They didn't eat any foreign food, though, and I loooove it. Typical members of their generation, they were pretty xenophobic for made up reasons. I can cook a ton of different foods. My kids eat all kinds of stuff. Sushi, Kimchi, lemongrass beef, it's fantastic. When I first became their stepmom, they were both "picky eaters" on the beige diet. I was like... this is unacceptable. It took years of coaxing and coaching but we finally got them to change their mindset about food. It was rough, they struggled, we struggled to keep our cool, it sucked to see them suffer. But the benefits outweighed the costs by far. We may have added 20 years to their life by forcing them to diversify their diet. I just did end of life care for 6 months for my autistic uncle who refused to eat vegetables his entire life. Died of diabetes and heart disease at age 60. This shit is no joke.

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tasukiko@reddit

Neither of my parents cooked all that well. Apparently my grandparents also didn't cook all that well either. I also thought we were health conscious because we never had chips or soda or ground beef or hot dogs or other things like that, but turns out it was actually a combination of poor (chips and soda and pre packaged foods) and my dad hated certain foods (ground beef, hot dogs, ketchup, American cheese etc). Combine that with the steamed veggie craze and yeah we had a lot of roasted chicken and steamed vegetables.

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Snowpant@reddit

My mom cooked everything and it was pretty 80s basic. Taco night. Sloppy joes. Casseroles of all kinds. Canned green beans and corn. One thing that is consistent is she always left hair in the food and tasted with the same spoons she was cooking with. Still does… I don’t eat anything she makes now. I loved the summer bc my dad would grill a lot and his food was a million times better… maybe because he liked spices and just ya know, the grill flavor.

Ok-Reflection-6207@reddit

My daughter has thanked me about four different times for not holding her back from trying different kinds of food and exposing her when she was young, the word “wasabi” is used for things like describing pain compared to say “regular hot sauce” she’s only 20 and she tells me that she is amazed at how some of her friends have never even tried things like Indian food or sushi… my mom didn’t take us to restaurants a lot, but she definitely took us to different kinds so I guess she does get credit!

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throwawayfromPA1701@reddit

Picky eaters weren't allowed in our house.

That said I loathed lima beans, peas, and string beans and learned to swallow them whole because if it was on the plate, it had to be eaten. And no my mom didn't make giant portions. All of us were skinny until adulthood.

I'm sure that probably was bad for my digestion.

We also were taught to cook pretty early on. I think I was 9.

We didn't have a microwave until I was almost out of high school. We did have a toaster oven though. We were allowed to make things in the toaster oven or on the stove top. Never the oven. Think I learned how to relight a pilot light when I was 10. It's one of the reasons I don't want a house with a gas stove now.

Friday night was take out night (pizza or Chinese)

My dad cooked too but only on weekends. His food was a bit more gourmet, but he left the kitchen a mess. Guess who got that clean up duty? The kids! 😁 We did not have a dishwasher either!

As a Deep-South Southerner, I’m always annoyed at the joke that “all* white people don’t season their food.” Sorry, can’t relate.

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mischievous_misfit13@reddit

I STILL struggle to not overeat just because the food is on my plate.

I worked really hard to teach my 5 children to listen to their bodies, listen to their tummies for when they are full or hungry.

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bev665@reddit

I grew up in Minnesota and the Seattle area. Thai was our birthday treat food. Teriyaki was our fast food alternative. Yes, there was a high degree of rice-a-roni, kraft mac'n'cheese, ramen, and canned soup, too. Bisquick pancakes were my favorite. But my mom liked cooking and would make amazing marinated flank steak and beef stir frys. OMG her peach chicken and her lime & honey salmon were out of this world.

My uncles would sometimes get a shellfish license and harvest oysters from Hood Canal, which they'd grill for us. We ate them with lime juice and hot sauce.

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WhatTheCluck802@reddit

My mother was not a good cook. At all. We lived on frozen meals (Kid Cuisine, Swanson, On Cor, Stouffers) and easy-to-cook things like Shake and Bake, Hamburger Helper, Idahoan boxed potato flakes, Bisquick. All vegetables were from a can with the sole exception of broccoli (frozen then nuked) which was drenched in Cheez Wiz. Just about every meal included a slice of white bread with Country Crock margarine on it.

Efficient_Shame_8539@reddit

I feel so sorry for those who suffer from a lack of melanin because apparently y'all really don't season your food. 😅

Both my parents can cook, did cook, and still do cook their asses off. But I learned most of my cooking skills from my Grandmothers. I was helping one Grandma roll dough for her slicks at four or five, and my other Grandma had loved Julia Child so she had all her cookbooks.

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dattaldo@reddit (OP)

When I saw my mom on Mother's Day, she talked to me about how she wants to get a grill. She said, "if the meat gets a smokey flavor from the grill, does that mean I don't have to season it?" I don't think there's much I can do to help her at this point lol. My grandma grew up in Texas and knew how to cook. She just never passed it down to her children.

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RedSolez@reddit

Those of us who lack melanin but come from the Mediterranean line of white people don't get it either 😂 Your comment has me really missing my grandmas!!!

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gutbutt-or-guthole@reddit

My parent probably loved cooking before having kids. I know I USED to love to cook. I have 5 kids and there is maybe 2 things I cook that everyone likes. My kids are awesome in a lot of ways, but they sucked the joy out of cooking for me. Nothing worse than spending hours planning and prepping something extraordinary only to hear them make a literal gagging sound before they even try a bite. Thankfully my older kids are teens now and are getting to the point where they are becoming food vacuums... puberty is a light at the end of the picky tunnel.

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idonthavernoughcats@reddit

definitely weird! i chose to be vegetarian at the age of five and im very passionate about it, so as an adult now it’s easy, but my parents made everything with meat and didn’t give me options, so i fed the family dogs quite a lot and effectively starved 😭😹 it’s funny because now as a mom myself, my son eats meat and ill buy it for him if he plans on doing something with it (he’s 15) and he understands how to respect people’s choices.

Your experience was similar to mine when it came to eating at friends' houses, but my mom was an exceptionally skilled cook. By the time we had Food Network when I was a preteen, and bigger grocery stores began to open, all bets were off. I was really lucky, though.

Incidentally, I began working in restaurants at 15, became a chef throughout 25 years in kitchens, and then left kitchens to become a butcher.

panda_9779@reddit

I had a mixed bag of experiences. My dad was a foodie and also had a particular interest in authentic Chinese cuisine. I still dream of things he used to make, even simple stuff like chicken thighs on the grill. One of my life's biggest regrets is not having all his recipes.

My stepmother is a passable cook most of the time. She can follow a recipe and could feed us if dad was busy doing something else.

My mom had several meals I will still prepare for myself now...her Shepherd's pie, her spaghetti sauce, her chili. But she was also the type to shake and bake some pork jerky, I mean chops, in the oven and boil frozen veggies to death. No seasoning on those boiled veggies either.

My step dad learned to cook when my mom was dying of cancer and bedridden and had to feed them both. He never cooked when I was a kid other than rarely on the grill. He hasn't died of starvation and rarely goes out so I guess his crash course was successful.

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Thenadamgoes@reddit

Yes. My god yes. Up until I moved out at 19 I thought I was a picky eater. Turns out my mom just isn’t a good cook at all. But she thinks she’s a good cook. And it’s cooked normally just absolutely no seasoning and no fat in anything. It’s just incredibly bland.

But I do appreciate that she did cook a lot cause me and my brothers all cook quite a bit now.

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Rx_Diva@reddit

Can confirm. Dad's a Brit, mom was a teenager. Boiled and salted from canned meats and veggies.

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After_Match_5165@reddit

My grandparents worked their small family farm with the exception of the week they ran the family deer hunting camp where my grandma ran the camp kitchen and my grandpa was the hunting guide. They didn't get a day off until they retired in their 60's. Working their backs off every day of their lives, there was no time or energy to come up with creative meals, and cheap shortcuts were a way of life. Dinner at their house was as much of a chore as milking cows or gathering eggs.

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Sergio55@reddit

Can’t really agree. My parents were foodies and they developed my palate pretty early. There were some rough financial times when we ate a lot of hamburger helper, but when things weren’t tight we would sometimes drive for hours to try new and exciting cuisines.

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dewihafta@reddit

Dad was from a large family, and my grandmother on that side was irish. Thus, he’s very “meat and potatoes.” To this day, he refuses to eat anything green. Anytime i mention that my family ate sushi, my dad makes a comment about “bait.”

Now, i always thought that my mom just did not like to cook, since we always had the same old things with canned veggies. Turns out, she only did so because otherwise, my dad would not eat it. After she died, we found whole binders full of interesting recipes that shed printed from online—hundreds of recipes that she never got to try.

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We were dirt poor. $40 a month to feed a family of 7. My mom made everything (pasta, cake, you name it). We would eat out maybe 3x a year. There was a saying in our family of “you don’t have to like it, you have to eat it”. Thankfully my mom has skills so most of the time she made the crap stuff taste better. I didn’t eat at fast food places until I had my own job and I went apeshit for it. Most of my paychecks paid for good for me. I was trying to make things at home better and well got addicted to all the salt and Suger. Took a good number of years to get over that one. Like 25 or so.

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LatherRinseRage@reddit

Grew up in the Midwest one grandmother was Polish and the other was German. I miss their cooking so much. My mom was a decent cook and there were certain things she cooked well but she didn’t have a very diverse pallet. I loved being in the kitchen with my grandmothers and learned a lot from watching them cook. We moved to the South when I was a teenager and I would come home from a school and watch cooking shows first on PBS and Discovery and later on Food Network. I love flavor and seasoning and a lot of different vegetables (no thanks to my mom). Like others have mentioned I do have a complicated relationship with food because of diet culture and my mom and her sisters telling us we were going to get fat if we ate too much because it “ran on our dad’s side”. I try but I do restrict a lot and I also have a horrible body image.

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Overall-Ask-8305@reddit

Restaurants and pizza delivery were luxuries in my household. My parents cooked and we had leftovers a lot of the time, until they ran out and they cooked again.

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PhysicsAndFinance85@reddit

For me, a lot of it was poverty. We ate what was available, sometimes we didn't eat at all. A lot of it was boxed or canned foods. To this day there's certain things I will never touch again (baked beans are one). Once I started working I probably overdid it on fast food and junk because it was a novelty. I put on the weight to show it in my early 20s too.

I was raised by Southern women so there was plenty of seasoning. Bacon drippings are also considered seasoning. So is Crisco. But there was plenty of salt, pepper, paprika, garlic, chili, green stuff of all kinds.

As for different kinds of food, we moved to a small mountain town in NV when I was small. I was introduced to Basque cuisine, Indigenous peoples from different areas, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese food. The town had about 1500 people back then, but we had 2 Chinese restaurants. The railroad and gold mines brought many people and some stayed.

When I was a bit older my mom married and we moved to Salt Lake City. Even more diversity in food was experienced there. Greek was my favorite intro.

Having said all of that, my relationship with food was not healthy. I was dieting very regularly before age 10.

My daughter is 25 and has never been on a diet. If things need adjusted, we make adjustments. I swore I would foster a healthier food outlook with her and I did.

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Exact_Friendship_502@reddit

Same.

I didn’t really like eating until I started going places by myself/with friends in my 20s. My parents ate crap.

Once I got cable and started watching food network it literally blew my mind. Then YouTube took it a step further.

As a solo adult who works 6 days a week, I LOVE a casserole. One pan, bake, done…plus there’s leftovers.

I was absolutely the stereotype of our gen that was raised on microwave food. Even something like Hamburger Helper was rare because it required cooking. My mom was rarely home and when she was, she was too tired to cook. And I’ve now stepped into that exact scenario.

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UbiquitousBot@reddit

My dad passed when I was young so my mom was a single working mom in the early 90s at a stressful job and she just didn't have the time or energy to cook good meals. Boxed potato flakes, can veg and pan seared barely seasoned chicken or porkchops was most of my childhood. Then she married my step dad and hes the kind of white guy who thinks black pepper is spicy.

She's an adventurous eater she just didnt have the energy or motivation.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

I mean, your original thought is good. But that's what I like and continue to enjoy today, when I can. I dont like spicy or exotic things. Its too bad the styles I enjoy are harder to find now.

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my drunk cruel stepdad's only redeeming feature was that he cooked really well, not that he showed me how to do anything
Mom cooked as well

They both worked full time, and so for us the real life skill/food benefit we got from them were the daily demonstrations proving that your lazy ass can in fact work a full day and then come home and cook dinner every night, it's not hard at all, you just have to want to

We went out to Sizzler once when some of my stepdad's old vietnam buddies were visiting, we promptly got kicked out before the meal came because ol' Russ got indignant and uppity with the wait staff because they had a policy that the alcoholic beverages would not be served until the meal was lmao

Anyway, I make bomb ass food and it's not hard

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whiskeytangosix@reddit

My job for years was to turn the crockpot to low when I got home from school. Every day.

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moronomer@reddit

Our food wasn't overcooked but a lot of our meals were meat + starch + salad (lettuce with salad dressing), with something a little more complex once in awhile.

For restaurants, I grew up in a fairly small city that didn't have many chains outside of fast food though that started to change in my teens. Definitely a lot of Chinese food and one Vietnamese restaurant for something a little more exotic. I don't think I had Indian food until I went to University.

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Willing_Actuary_4198@reddit

That was my mom. Dad could actually cook but he worked like 60 hours a week so that was only on holidays

Typical menu items at my house were Tuna Helper, Manwich sloppy Joe's (ewww), one of several recipes on the back of the Bisquick box, spaghetti and package sauce mix, white people tacos, and lots of chef boyardee. My grandparents were foodies before that was a term, so I was exposed to a lot of really good Italian food from time to time. No REAL Asian food of any sorts until years later.

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tuberlord@reddit

My mom is a terrible cook. Occasionally she can make something good, but it seems to be pure luck. She'll mess the same dish up another time.

My father was actually a pretty good cook, but nothing he knew how to make was healthy. He essentially made home-made diner food.

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HicJacetMelilla@reddit

We were poor so food was food was food. Our version of fancy was when my mom would splurge on the Chef Boyardee pizza dinner kit at the store.

She was terrified of foodborne illness, so all of our meats were pretty overcooked. Especially beef and pork. Her meals were very simple. If we had vegetables, they were dumped in a pot straight from the can and heated up. I can still taste that metallic flavor on the green beans and peas. It’s probably why corn was my favorite, because it didn’t seem to have as much of that canned taste.

I ate like a bird growing up, but luckily nobody ever tried to force me to clean a plate, even if they were wanting me to eat more. I was just told I shouldn’t take as big of servings and to remember when my eyes were bigger than my stomach. True to my adult self, I would be stuffed from dinner and suddenly grow a second stomach for as much dessert as they would let me have lol.

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My mom cooked dinner every Monday - Thursday. Rotation of casseroles, meat loaf, Mac and cheese, spaghetti, breaded fish, rice, potatoes, and other suburban meals.

On Fridays we went out to eat. Usually to a Tex-Mex restaurant near the video rental store where we’d rent movies for the weekend.

If my parents were too busy on a weeknight, my mom or dad would pick up Chinese food, or occasionally fast food.

My Dad made pancakes on Saturday mornings, and would grill burgers, hot dogs, or chicken on Saturday night.

If we were out doing something on a Saturday or Sunday, we might get fast food, but mostly ate whatever was leftover at home.

Sunday nights were pizza night.

Me and my brothers made our own school lunches and breakfasts. Lunch was usually a turkey and cheese sandwich, bag of chips, juice box, and a prepackaged desert like a hostess cupcake or something.

Breakfast was usually cereal until the milk ran out, then you made toast and had a banana until the next grocery run for more milk.

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S4FFYR@reddit

My dad was retired military & had travelled around the world. He was also a total foodie who couldn’t cook for shit- so he allocated a huge amount of his budget to trying new restaurants. My mother hated him and quit cooking to be passive aggressive. Most commonly, we’d go for dim sum, sushi, Thai or Indian- lots of fusion restaurants or new concept places. When he came to visit while my mum and I were living in England, he insisted on taking us out to a couple of higher end local restaurants that served things like venison, quail, rabbit or pheasant. He managed to find one place that even offered kangaroo. I definitely get my adventurous palate from him even though I’m allergic to wheat, dairy & eggs- those allergies forced me to learn how to cook.

Mum had enjoyed hosting dinner parties and was well known to her friends as being one of the best cooks, but she gave up cooking regularly by the time I was in middle school. She’d still pull it out on occasion in HS but I can’t remember her cooking anything in my adult years and I always end up doing all the cooking these days.

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Koebelsj316@reddit

This is spot on. Midwestern USA.

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cashews_clay15@reddit

My mom cooked so rarely that when she did, we’d say “is it Thanksgiving?”

Hoodiebug22@reddit

My mom made home cooked meals almost every night. She also made our lunches. But she was a sahm for years.

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MrBayaud@reddit

I was raised by a single mom who loved to cook. She taught me out of necessity. I could start dinner before she got home. Maybe not the most adventurous cooking but I learned the basics and how to properly season my food. Now I love to cook and I think I’m pretty damn good at it. I’m still not as adventurous as I’d like but that is down to kitchen space more than anything.

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Auferstehen78@reddit

Yep, Mom over cooked everything. Nearly caused me to be vegetarian.

Rice and Asian noodles were forbidden in our house.

I didn't enjoy steak until my 30s. Discovered all types of food in my mid 20s and ate everything.

Now I kinda eat like a 12 year old. But that's mostly because I live alone and take out is expensive. Dino nuggets and tater tots!

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sorrymizzjackson@reddit

Oof. Same. I was convinced I hated pork chops well into my 20’s and questioned why anyone would eat steak over hamburgers.

I’m happy to report that my palate has expanded exponentially since then. I still love me some Dino nuggets and tater tots though.

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Fast_Job_5949@reddit

My mother was too busy counting calories to eat or prepare \~real\~ food, passing down, thus far, a lifetime of disordered eating, oh boy!

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Don’t be fat.

Have a figure like Kate Moss

Eat quality food for efficiency but if you don’t like alcohol or drugs and want to “rebel” that’s your only “substance.”

It did not help that my mom was an ex model and knew some of the OG supermodels.

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drainbamage1011@reddit

Kind of a mix:

Mom did all the cooking. Dad was useless in the kitchen except for making himself coffee.
Meats got overcooked, because Mom was worried we'd get food poisoning.
Mom has zero tolerance for spicy food. Dad likes spice. I definitely got the spice gene...by the time I was a teenager I was adding hot sauce to whatever she cooked.
We ate some boxed meals/sides, but not all the time.
We rarely ate vegetarian meals. There was almost always a meat component.
We mostly ate at chain restaurants. We did go to ethnic restaurants, but the options were limited until I was into high school...basically Mexican, Chinese, Italian, or Thai. There were some Japanese restaurants around, but we never went because again, sushi = raw fish = probable food poisoning. Indian food was around, but assumed to be too spicy, so we never went.
We would drink soft drinks with dinner every night. First time I ate dinner at a friend's house and they drank milk, it was like, "wait, it's not breakfast...?"

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Grammarhead-Shark@reddit

Dad took his share of cooking - but it really was a lot of well done meats and boiled-to-death veggies.

The traditionally Aussie meat and three veggies dish.

It was well within adulthood before I realized that steaks and veggies could actually be tasty.

Saying that dad was good for his 'Friday night specials' - which basically was whatever frozen potato and pastry type foods you could bang into the oven and warm up.

My mom was a good cook, but she also worked a lot so we often had quick Hamburger Helper or Rice-a-Roni meals during the week. She would usually make a big roast or ham for Sunday dinner. By the time I was in high school my extracurricular and work schedules meant I was on my own for dinner and I ate a lot of frozen meals. I now live alone and still eat a lot of frozen meals because while I know how to cook decently well I really don’t enjoy cooking for myself.

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LooLu999@reddit

My mom had a few meal tricks up her sleeve but we ate mostly things my dad liked 🙃 The only ethnic type food we ate on a regular basis was Mexican. My dad hates Asian food or anything that isn’t a meat and potatoes type of meal. We had 8-10 meals on a rotation type situation. My mom hated messes so she never let me help her nor did she really teach me how to cook anything. I love to cook tho!

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emozolik@reddit

Yep. Women were in the workforce en masse by the 80s. We ate much the same as a kid, but my mom had a good half dozen meals she could cook well and quick. We did eat out quite a bit too

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atari2600forever@reddit

I think it depends where you grew up. My experience in the Midwest was the same as yours, just bland, boring ass white people food. I'm back in the Midwest after living in other places/countries and traveling for 25 years and the food absolutely fucking sucks.

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canisdirusarctos@reddit

My mom made some good stuff from part of my ancestry on her side, but most of it was terrible. Dad overcooked everything to death (shoe-leather steaks, as a prime example).

Whatever. I just don’t want to cook. I cooked professionally for so long that now I’m burnt out on being in the kitchen. So my meals are all either sandwiches, or whatever I can heat up in a microwave.

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Combatical@reddit

Food was held over my head. Was forced to eat a bunch of stuff that I hated and turns out I was allergic to. Now I cook like a professional chef because I know what I like. Even camping nothing is half assed.