after 40 all meals are horror

This person’s problem can be solved by a sandwich. Takes like 3 minutes to make, or can be prepped earlier, no cooking necessary, has color, is fresh, not frozen, beats any fast food meal in price and quality. Also can even be healthy if you shop wisely. Can be different every day. Can be hot or cold. The possibilities are endless. Sandwiches are the best.

Sandwiches were literally invented to be home made, portable fast food, for hunters, workers, and the like. Not only are they ok with being wrapped up and carried, if made right they actually get better when wrapped up and squashed.
I agree sandwiches are the best. But my metabolism is just too efficient at turning carbs into fat and high blood sugar. There's just no substitute for good bread in a sandwich, all attempts at compromise/substitutions ruin the whole thing.
- wraps are just as convenient and use far less bread, i love a good turkey wrap for lunch
- What type of bread are you using, and how thick are your slices? These work fine for me, but theres also rye versions. https://frutimian.no/2016/08/12/matpakkebrod-i-langpanne/ - note link is in norwegian.
  I dont mind spending time preparing if it means i get great taste.
- I don't have this problem, but lettuce wraps are shockingly good too. A good sturdy lettuce, sliced turkey, smoked cheddar and some chipotle mayo (canned chipotle en adobo, pureed, just mix some of it into mayonnaise to make a spread.) Onion if you have it. I don't understand why it's good, it sounds like nonsense but I do this when I don't have time to make bread, but do have good lettuce or homegrown lettuce in the garden. It is delicious and feels good to eat.
- What do you consider ‘good bread’? Don’t buy supermarket bread, go to a good bakery and get some nice, freshly baked whole-grain bread, that should be much more difficult to turn into sugar.
- Don't forget lettuce sandwiches.
- Get some keto bread. It's basically pure fiber in bread shape. The aldi keto bread is fantastic
You can even eat it riding a horse!
Or cook a big batch of your own soup at the weekend. Then microwave it for lunch.

Good Lord I am happy I can handle my shit and not have to publicly post my executive dysfunction for the planet to see.

So much of these news aggregate sites are morons reposting the same tired posts from absolute crayon eaters who bloviate about how critically incapable they are at basic life functions.
- I'm soooo ADHD, sitting through that lecture yesterday was rough! 🙄
I am pretty sure I have ADHD and I still manage to meal prep.
Even if you cant, you can literally just have a backup plan like mine, for when I forget to cook I have some frozen chicken strips, potato wedges, and green beans, throw it all on a sheet pan and into the convection oven for 20-25 mins, boom you have a decent meal, bit more pricey than doing it from scratch, but it's quick and low effort
- I do have ADHD, and while I can manage meal prep, 99% of the time I just can’t be bothered. But I force myself to do it, because the alternative is eating a bag of crisps and a big bar of chocolate and feeling like crap all afternoon.
- I'm okay cooking for just myself but I have a toddler and celiac wife so I use cook smarts. Takes away so much of the planning.
- I make slow cooked chicken burritos and freeze them. Takes about 1 hour of prep, and about 6 hours to cook so it isn’t easy, but I only gotta do this occasionally. If I do this in conjunction with meal prep it takes a lot longer to prep, but then I can have a work week of food, and have like 8 burritos for when I’m too lazy to cook.

It's called a sandwich.

For anyone who is confused, this user is talking about a sandwich. That is what is called a sandwich.
Hope that cleared it up!

Here in the Netherlands a lot of people just eat sandwiches. I usually take them with me to work. Not a lot of effort

I'll never understand how can people eat sandwiches every day, especially those with some kind of meat in them. I'm not vegetarian but eating sandwiches for more than two days in a row make me want to puke.
- I am one and it’s peanut butter every day. For 3 years basically every working day has had a peanut butter sandwich. And that’s how the next 30 some years are looking too. It’s fine. I can live that way.
- Do you eat the same thing for breakfast every day? I do. But for whatever reason, lunch and dinner is different. Can't eat the same thing twice.
  Dumb brain
- A sandwich can be a thousand different dishes if you get creative
- I eat sandwiches every day, and the same thing or small variety. I'm not eating for the experience, I'm eating to not be hungry. I can make and eat a sandwich is less than a minute, so I can get back to doing what I want to be doing.
  If I really don't feel like a sandwich, there's always toast.
- a lot of people eat the same food several days in a row, or several meals in a row.
  you only feel that way because you see food as pleasure to be enjoyed. not as a necessity for living. lots of people eat to live.
- Genuinely, why? Personally, I'm happy to eat basically same meals for a few days before they get boring, and you can vary your sandwiches a lot of you so desire.
- I also eat pretty much the same breakfast every day. For lunch I can vary what's on the bread and the type of bread. That's just how things are here. It's not the nicest, but it saves a lot of time and money and can also be quite nice
- Peanut butter? Upgrading to natural peanut butter made all the difference for me, so it’s no longer just for kids.
  I even get decent marmalade, which definitely doesn’t work for kids, or a dark amber maple syrup. I currently have apple butter, which goes nicely on a peanut butter sandwich, or with a scoop of cottage cheese on the side
- Not Mongolian I take it?? Lol
- You don't have to make the same sandwich every day.
Same in the UK, where the post was written.
- Also, there's literally a Greggs on every corner or a greasy spoon that'll make you a sandwich for 2.50
Lunch is my favourite. Nothing beats a fine sandwich with cheese.
- Peanut butter and provolone is one of my favorites
Same in Germany. We have bread with butter and cheese. It's a blessing with a good bread
I will ask my cousin about it lol
Yeah I just make a peanut butter sandwich and prep some fruit and bring it to work. Easy, healthy, and filling

You can just... not? Having two larger meals a day isn't that weird.

I have adopted the "Central European" diet:
One large meal a day and then leftovers + bread and toppings.
Occasionally might have more but that's my daily meal plan and works pretty great.
- Bread is a life saver. If you don't have time to cook just eat some bread. Healthy (depends on the kind of bread) and you don't have to worry about beeing hungry an hour later.
- What does the rest of the world do then? Cook twice or thrice a day? That's just silly.

Cooking takes SO MUCH TIME when you're single. But eating out is so expensive. It sucks.

Good news, they're making eating in expensive too, so you can get the full experience!
If you don't have a freezer that can hold two weeks worth of meals, buy one. I have three homemade frozen pizzas and a half dozen chicken pot pies waiting right now.
I can cook a whole roast chicken on Sunday and enjoy chicken tacos, chicken sandwiches, etc. all week.
I can cook a five liter pot of chili/soup/stew and freeze it into pint containers; I've got a nice hot meal any time.
Slow cookers are another option.
- My problem with that is defrosting. It requires timing and planning, which is tough due to impromptu work based meals. And some stuff once frozen tastes like crap defrosted.
  I do liberally use the slow cooker.
If you practice and prepare you can cut down on some of the time. I used to live right next to a street of fast food joints so it was never worth it to cook myself from a time standpoint unless I was just having some frozen garbage. Now it's a 15 minute trip to pick something up if there's no line so I cook a lot more and with experience I've been able to streamline things so it goes faster. Also make enough for 2-3 meals when you cook and then "leapfrog" through the week eating the leftovers. That way you don't have to cook every day but also don't have to eat the same thing every day.
- If you find a few recipies you really like and learn how to do them from memory, and then make them a lot, you learn lots of efficiencies and shortcuts that save a ton of time. Making stuff without a recipie at all is even faster.
Yeah same. I just try to cook a meal on Sunday but it doesn't get me through the entire week. Not to mention I usually need a second meal at night when I work out. It's too much.
Cooking takes the same amount of time whether you're single or not?
Like wtf.
Pasta boils at the same speed regardless of how many people are in the house.
- That's the problem. It's more efficient with bigger meals. If you're single, you have to cook and then clean. If there's two of you, you can divide tasks.
Hahaha learn to cook. Stir fry takes under 30 min. BLT in like 5 min. Pizza in under an hr including making the dough.
- I see you never have to wash dishes or chop vegetables.

I disagree. I like cooking and since I'm working from home I can make something nice and fast at home for lunch. But I probably would have agreed back then when I worked at the office.

I love the cooking but hate the cleaning up part.
- Pro tip: cook in and eat from one pot :D

Someone needs to raise their sandwich game.

Or, buy lunchables. Yes they're cheap. Yes they're fantastic

I just cook bigger portions for dinner and eat that as lunch

Right! I'm surprised this isn't a more popular approach.
Yes, it's so obvious. It doesn't take significantly longer to cook a double portion.

There is another option.

Just going to put this out there, cook too much the previous night, don't eat all the dinner you cooked. Place the remainder into some form of container; transport said container to work with you the next day.

Lunch is sorted when you make your dinner!

That's crazy talk.
The same meal again? Crazy talk
Didn't know psychopaths were just showing themselves like this on Lemmy, wtf

£4 sounds pretty cheap if it's a decent meal

It's a sandwich, pocket of crisps or a chocolate bar and a drink.
- I would murder my whole family for a $5 sandwich meal deal in the states. Even fast food by my work is double that, and you're still only getting America-quality food packed with sugars and preservatives.
Meal deals are rarely ever decent. They're enough to get you through the working day if you sit at a desk all day.
So more like £8 or 10
- California here. $15 minimum. Less if you give some shitty app all your data.

This thread just oozes of early adults that don't understand how to spend 30 minutes preparing meals

Or possibly people living in milquetoast office park suburbs where the restaurant options are dogshit.
No shortage of good lunch foods in downtown Houston.
- There's nothing at my workplace other than a shitty microwave oven and we're not allowed to leave the factory for lunch or dinner.
  I still manage to eat decent meals because I'm not a lazy bum.
- But even then my statement holds true
- Eating out isn't exactly cheap though. Hardly sustainable for most people doing that every lunch.
If you are in an office environment, where do you prep?
- If you can't make a sandwich and take it to work with a muslie bar I dunno what to say other than good luck kid.
  One guy at works makes a toasted ham and cheese in the toaster. I shit you not, he just flattens it and crams it in one side for a bit.
- You bring it from home. Or find a home office job.
- At home before or after work.

Yes, eventually it ends when you’re promoted to middle management and you have to forage for granola bars and cookies during the few seconds you get between meetings. Stay an IC for as long as you can.

That sounds like a toxic-work-culture thing that I'm faaaar too European to understand. I'm off for a two hour lunch, don't text me
- It's been years since I've eaten food away from my desk. And God forbid I should forget to bring food and need to run downstairs for sixteen seconds to purchase something. That's truly one of the seven deadly sins.
- TIL I'm European

I mostly eat leftovers from last night's dinner for lunch.

Leftovers gang checking in. Sometimes it tastes even better the next day.

If you want to minimize cleanup and effort, just use a rice cooker.

Costs 30€
Put in rice and lentils at a ratio of your chosing, cook with oil and salt
Optionally spices and tomato paste
Put in frozen veggies either in a steaming basket or directly in the rice
Chuck in an onion (quartered if you're lazy) and some garlic
Yoghurt on the side

Congratulations you now have a healthy, cheap meal you can make at home or at work. If you eat directly out of the cooker you only need to clean your spoon. No cutting board needed either.

you only need to clean your spoon
Don't you need to clean the rice cooker?
I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm just that desperate that I'm hoping to find out you don't need to.
- Mine has a non-stick pan. It all comes down to how quickly you empty it. Emptied immediately, it rinses clean. If it sits around while I eat, I’ll need to scrub a little
I'm a pretty good cook, but I don't think there's enough here to get it done. Do rice and lentils take about the same amount of water to cook? How much oil?
- It's one of those "by feel" recepies. I would say 1-2 tablespoon per person. Red lentils fall apart and give a grainy texture, which you may or may not like. Black (or Beluga) lentils come out fine, or maybe a bit al dente, same for brown lentils.
Old rice/pasta with olive oil, garlic and cheese is great too.
Rice with oil? Doesn't it make it unsticky?
- It depends on how long you cook it, I prefer it not very sticky. Longer cooking times will make it a bit softer and more sticky.
Rice cooker was a surprising win for me - usually single use appliances are not worth it, but a rice cooker is, plus you can do more with it than you expect. I have rice much more frequently now that it’s just a matter of clicking a button
I have a basic 6c model that feeds my family with two hungry teens, and currently costs $20 online. Has worked great for years of 3+ meals/week. Non-stick pan makes cleanup simple, although I am trying to get away from non-stick coatings so may replace it soon: stainless steel pan version costs $40

Imagine your biggest realization as an adult being a wrong opinion.

Look I'm not saying that cooking your own lunch is a prerequisite for being an adult. However complaining about the quality of prepared food while not acknowledging you could just cook is sure as hell immature.

But seriously: for the week. I have multiple family members who do this and used to do it myself: most meals last up to a week in the fridge, so just put a little extra in Sunday night so you have leftovers for lunches.
My previous version of this was to start each week with giant: salad, pasta salad, fruit salad. Then I have a complete meal, including variety by just throwing a protein in the toaster oven.
I’m trying to restart something like this now that its back to just me all week: I have a 10 lb pork shoulder for the smoker!
Or for the entire month. It saves money... :'(

Most of my lunches are leftovers, but many of them are things like a burger or a bratwurst that I can cook with little effort. Or I can buy something.

Imagine complaining about £4 for lunch, I'm lucky if I get out for under $20.

british people are poor
I interpreted it as a 4 pound tv dinner. But maybe I'm reading it wrong.
[Edit] Now I am doubting what even a meal deal is

I look forward to lunch every day. I make myself a wrap with some sort of oven cooked filling and a bunch of fresh veggies and some apple slices and a small bag of wasabi peas for dessert.

The heck kinda dessert is wasabi peas??

Some of us are given free meals to eat in our paid meal breaks.

Nothing fancy though. Most times, the chef only makes a starter or a dessert. Rarely both.

(laughs in European)
Jokes on you …. I’m in the US and my company is trying to bribe us back to the office with good free lunches. Still can’t compete with work from home but half and half is working so far
- there is no free lunch

Honestly they should just make nutrition bricks. Just combining nutrients into a brick. It could even be modular so you can add/remove various nutrients based on your nutritional needs. The perfect life would be working for the nutrition brick manufacturer and then going home to eat some nice nutrition bricks.

They do. They taste like shit.
they also make shakes that do this. also taste like shit.
- Foamed up shit, but yeah.. still shit.
That’s what cliff bars/energy bars/protein shakes are.
Why do you believe a "nutrition brick" would be at all more appetizing than the things described in OP?
- Just go to prison and have a nutriloaf ffs.
- Doesn't need to be appetizing, just not downright nasty. Of course, a pill would be the desired form factor, but you couldn't fit that much in a pill
The nutrition brick manufacturer would absolutely not allow you to take nutrition bricks home. You'd have to buy them like everyone else

Learn how to cook. It’s not that hard to throw something together that’s good after being microwaved. The other day I made some bitter-orange chicken with rice. It was 30 minutes waiting and 4 minutes coating the chicken in the pan with the sauce.

Sandwiches are never a bad option.

There's probably some situation where it's a bad option.
- Funeral procession?

In Brazil, if you work more that 6hs a day, the company have to give you lunch. The majority of them, give you a pre paid debit card that can be used in restaurants. This mean that they are a lot of money there that can be used in restaurants, so any office building have lots of restaurants around.

From my union contract, I get 40R daily to lunch, and the restaurant I go they serve "prato feito" (beans, rice, salad, meat) for 25, and use the rest for some icecream or to eat something with my wife at weekends.

That's actually a very cool concept.
- It's works close with transit costs too, the employee can opt in to pay up to 6% of its salary, then what is miss to cover all the transit costs is paid 50/50 by the employer and the government. For example, if I need to take a bus (5R) and a metro (5R), that sum to 20R daily in transit costs, 20R × 22 working days = 440 at month. Suppose a salary of 2000 * 6% = 120. The employee pay 120, the employer 160 and the government other 160. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I don't need that benefit anymore because I live in bike distance to the office, but it saved my ass when I had to take a bus to the metro station, a metro and then another bus every day.

It's not even an age thing, but more an economic issue, I never ran into this as an issue when the cost of eating out was affordable. Don't feel like prepping lunch the night before? Screw it, I'll pickup something during my lunch break for $3-4. But now that $3-4 is $10+

I find you can't even get a sandwich anymore for less than $15.
(Fast food may be slightly cheaper. I wouldn't know because I don't frequent fast food chains.)
- For some reason fast food is even more expensive. You’re not missing out on anything.
my weekly work lunch is a soda and a sandwich with a bag of chips. It's $20. 5 years ago it was $12.

Is this some sort of British joke that I am too Indian to understand?

Edit: There was a bit of miscommunication it seems. My comment was on the food themselves and not the price.

Start going to Starbucks for lunch, instead of the roadside stall and you'll understand.
I'm happy with cooking at 13:00. Better than having an extra-humid, stale-feeling lunch box
- Why would you assume I am eating at roadside stalls? Cause I am Indian?? Ignoring that hopefully accidental racism, I do in fact cook lunch when I have the time with mostly rice with one of the premade mixes and quick vegetable stir frys. Shouldn't take more than 20 mins to make something simple. When I am busy I usually get something either in office or nearby restaurant. A good lunch at normal restaurants usually costs about 100-300₹ per person and could get some light food within 100₹ as well. I don't count the shit at Starbucks as a meal, maybe a snack but why a sandwich when I can get good Indian food.

There's a variety of lunches that are cheap and insanely easy though:

Stir fry with leftover rice, an egg, and some frozen veggies
Sandwich with a piece of fruit or some veggies
Leftover soup heated up on the stove (or in the microwave if ya nasty)
Cold pasta dishes like pasta salad with leftover protein thrown on top
Charcuterie plate with cold cuts, crackers, cheeses, and jams
Salad with cold leftover proteins
Leftover fried chicken straight out the fridge, as God intended

Like sure, some of these things rely on having leftovers laying around to dress up a bit, but I think that's a reasonable thing to expect of most people.

If you're not eating a croque monsieur for lunch, that's your fault, and you deserve to be miserable

Mmm calories
- Just eat a small one

Me, living in France, where a cafeteria room is mandatory, 1-2h long lunchs are the norm and your employer has to give you at least 4-5€/day to buy lunch:

Sad American noises
Do I want to get 6 hours of sleep and then pay $25 for a shitty meal, or get 4.5 hours of sleep and cook something that I hope tastes okayish reheated in the microwave tomorrow?

I've seriously considered buying MREs because I can't be bothered to meal prep.

It's still basically canned food, it's just that the can is a pouch. It's more expensive too.
- Most MREs that I've looked at are a bit more elaborate than your average canned product.
  But the idea is the same, yes. It's more interesting than your typical canned meal, and it's more expensive, but the quality of the food, if you can call it that, is not dissimilar.
  MREs usually are a more "complete" meal with a variety of components, while canned meals are just a volume of a single component.
  For me it's mainly that it adds variety.
  And sure, there's MREs that are like, stew, or soup, that you would probably be better off just grabbing a can of ready to eat Campbell's or something.... But there's way interesting options than that too.
  I once saw a "taco" MRE. It was little more than some "beef" (that you had to heat up) and "cheese" and some other fairly sad toppings on a small tortilla... But I would still take that over a can of chunky beef soup any day.
  The nice thing is that MREs are shelf stable for a really long time, so you can get a box of them and shove them in your trunk, or into a desk drawer and then you don't have to worry about lunch for a month. Longer if you occasionally go out for lunch with coworkers to local food places near your workplace.
  Presently, I don't work in an office (my job is 100% work from home), so I don't really need it. I can get the same variety from a frozen meal, which is arguably easier, and it's definitely cheaper than MREs.
  I also have considered buying a few boxes as emergency food and throwing them in the trunk of my car. I live in Canada, and getting stranded in a blizzard isn't impossible. I have access to my trunk from the cabin of my car, so I shouldn't need to get out to get them and I could stay nourished while waiting for rescue. MREs are supposed to be paired with heating/cooking packs, which would help the car warm up when I'm having one, and with a decently sized container of drinking water, I could wait weeks for rescue, as long as I have adequate protection from the elements (jackets, blankets, etc), and some way to dispose of my bodily waste without contaminating my "living" area. I almost always travel with a radio (I'm a certified amateur operator, aka, ham radio), and a battery bank for my cellphone.
  For a couple hundred dollars (maybe? Maybe more? IDK what the prices are for MREs right now), myself and a passenger could survive for a while being stranded in the white wasteland of Canada, without really having to do anything.... Just waiting for rescue.
  With global warming, last year we barely got snow where I am, and I don't travel much, so the whole thing is on the back burner at best. The idea was to have it, and if I don't need it, a few months before everything expires, the MREs become my lunch, and I buy a fresh box for my vehicle.
Dont forget to put it on a tray.
- I'm not a monster.

Yes, it does end.

it ends when you become lunch

Do people not eat salads? Like some spinach, a nice vinaigrette, some nuts, and maybe a little sliced baked chicken, with a few raspberries or something?

Do people not eat salads?
What, like a rabbit?
- Rabbits aren't salads, silly. They are second order salads.
Can you say it in freedom units?
- Do people not eat cheeseburgers? Like some ground beef, a nice condiment, some veg, and maybe a little sliced bacon, with a few fries or something?
- EAT RABBIT FOOD WITH SOME CHICKEN

What's wrong with Kramer's method of just bringing a sleeve of crackers to eat at work?

And what do you do down there all day?
TCB. Taking care of business.

Everything bagel, cream cheese, provolone, tomato/cucumber in that order. Eat open faced. You're welcome.

Where is the crushing existential dread and multiversal blackhole?
- Go look at a tiny plant sticking out of a sidewalk crack. You'll feel better
I used to do something like that for lunch. Next thing I knew I was crashing from not enough protein, and developing high cholesterol. Be careful eating the same basic things all the time, it’s easy to accidentally max something out without thinking about it.
Everything bagel, cream cheese, capers, smoked salmon

Well, what do you want to eat? I guess if you don't want to prepare your own food, those are the only options, whether at work or at home. Otherwise, make whatever you want and take it to work. Cook more food than you need for your dinner and take the leftovers. Make a salad (tons of options for them), make a sandwich. You don't have to eat canned soup, make some nice homemade soup and freeze a bunch of individual servings to grab and take. The possibilities are endless.

I don't understand; could somebody please explain?

Prepping food is hard and buying food is worse. The meme comments on the burden of needing to feed yourself as an adult.
- Still doesn't make any sense at all. Is she suffering from some sort of eating disorder?
- Thank you for explaining. I appreciate it.
  Sadly, I can't say I share her perspective. I regularly struggle to buy food, so... ¯(°°)/¯
This bitch has first world problems and she thinks they're huge.
In reality it's as simple as a sammich so she just looks dumb.

Microwaving some leftovers might be an option. You get the great food you put effort into making, without actually having to make the effort at lunchtime.

Grow the fuck up.

A Br*tish person complaining about lunch, that’s rich.

Maybe try having a proper one, like the rest of Europe, and you will find the answer to all of your complaints.

Can you give an example of a "proper one" that isn't cooked?
- Bread with (good) cheese and some fruit.

Really? I've been an adult for quite a while and I always look forward to lunch (all meals, actually). Plenty of quick, simple, and appealing meals to make.

I think something that is missing in the minds of the "but you could just..." posters here is that the mindset of the OP doesn't always come from laziness, immaturity, or the inability to understand how to pack a sandwich, it sometimes comes from crippling or barely functional depression.

I work from home and the thought of even making a sandwich most days in the middle of the day is just too much. I don't want to make a sandwich; I want to go back to bed for eight to ten years and I agree that lunch is the fucking worst.

(But so is breakfast, and dinner, and all of the meetings, and work, and life generally speaking, etc.)

it sometimes comes from crippling or barely functional depression.
For sure but here on Lemmy it seems to be the case in like 80% of posts. If that many people were actually depressed across the whole population, civilization would long have collapsed.
- So you're saying a niche platform with a lot of tech guys who are actively facing layoffs daily nowadays isn't representative of society overall? I'm super surprised.
  But relatedly depression levels have risen across society over the years, it's gonna impact the posting.
This is precisely why always working from home is unhealthy and the context switch would be worth the psychological boost it provides if not for the commute. I know people really liked the liberation of WFH at first but I just don't think it is going to be sustainable. It has nothing to do with productivity, but it's the next simmering mental health crisis.
- I like how the "why don't you just" people have now moved on to armchair psychology.
Then you are just burnout, this ain't complicated. If you need to rest, fucking rest.
- Oh wow! My crippling depression is cured! Why didn't I think of this before? Thank you so much!

Breakfast is the worst. Sausage, ham, pancakes, cereal, eggs, hash browns, or toast. Want a breakfast burrito? Take a normal burrito, add scrambled eggs. Want a breakfast sandwich? Swap out sliced bread with english muffin or bagel, optionally add an egg.

Screw that. I'm having leftover spaghetti for breakfast.

One of the greatest freedoms of adulthood is realizing you can have whatever you want for breakfast and nobody can stop you imo
- Cold pizza breakfast hits in all the right spots.
Avocado toast! With an egg on top!
Bread in the toaster; mush an avocado with salt, pepper, lime juice; fry an egg and put it on top

Shit take.

It’s frustrating as an adult with ARFID/eating disorders. I can’t bring myself to eat leftovers because I worry that they are contaminated. I’ve thrown away so much food because I won’t reuse a pasta sauce jar if it has been opened.

A lot of the common “easy” meals are things that I absolutely will not eat - spaghetti, canned veggies, ground beef. Sometimes I struggle with eating ramen. It’s fucking embarrassing but I literally cannot help it. I will gag and puke if my brain decides I can’t eat something.

Sounds absolutely horrible. I usually have to tame myself, to not eat all leftovers in the evening so I have some for tomorrow.
Have you considered taking a serve safe restaurant hygiene class. I used to be similarly worried about food, but after learning about the safe handling and storage rules and temperature danger zones, I'm much less worried about left overs.
- I got the manager certification a long time ago, and it oddly made it worse. Weird things like being convinced that my refrigerator isn’t consistently keeping temperature or that the plastic in the packaging has holes in it. Texture sets me off and there’s a lot of variation I’m sensitive to.
  I can’t get a family sized bag of chips or cereal for example, because I can only eat them the same day I opened the package. I know that there is nothing wrong with them, but the thought of a stale one upsets me. I love apples, but rarely eat them because I don’t want to risk a mushy one. I know a mushy apple or stale chips aren’t “contaminated” but they feel intensely like they are.

This is a first world problem

Reading this makes me really angry for some reason.

Are you an American, who gets a mandatory half hour unpaid in the middle of the workday?
- 😭

If only not stuffing your face for one meal was a thing.

I’ve just started with smoothies. Some greek yogurt(has loads of protein), frozen vegetables, honey, and water(to make it a drink) and it’s already goin’ pretty well.

I agree, it’s awful to deal with.

I've been making my own yogurt lately a half gallon at a time. It's dummy easy and comes out a bit thinner than most store yogurt. It works really well as a drink or smoothie base
- I’ve heard of this homemade yogurt thing. I may have to give it a go depending on how much I need but for now I don’t mind buying the stuff at the store.
smoothies aren't very healthy or nutritious though. Blending removes a lot of the health benefits of fruit.
- Well it’s good thing that not a single source I could find seems to agree with you or maybe I’d worry! The hell do you think chewing is?
  Blending a smoothie is perfectly fine and does not hurt the nutrients at all.
- I think it’s the filtering out of pulp and other solids, leaving only sugary juice that would make it unhealthy. However the point of a smoothy is to blend actual fruit including fiber and other solids, and throw in some protein
  Veggie smoothies would be even more healthy than fruit smoothies but I’m not up for trying that yet
  My blender has a “Smoothie” program with varying speed and pulsing and sensing when it’s done, so it’s literally one click

Where's all the people who loathe breakfast because they aren't hungry until lunch?

Followup question because I'm not one of them. Should we not talk to you until you've had your morning coffee and cigarette? You know it doesn't give you permission to act like a dickweed to everyone Amanda.

Bring my morning coffee and cigarette to me in bed and you'll have a fast friend for life

I skip breakfast so technically lunch is breakfast but it’s then I eat my main meal and it’s always top notch. Who wants to eat a large meal in the evening?

Me. Can't stomach a full meal until late noon.
I do, it makes me sleepy otherwise Ill stayup way too late
- Mind that stomach valve, they wear out.

Where is your tupperware lunch box? hmmm?

Don't eat lunch. When you finally convince your boss to let you work 8 hour days with no break instead of 9 hour days with an awkward 1 hour unpaid break you can do nothing with, that's 1 hour you can spend on yourself that you didn't have before. Also, now you don't have to waste as much of your spare time exercising so the time savings are twofold.

Not everyone can do that unfortunately as it is illegal. We're "forced" to have a lunch break, which I support the idea of, I just hate that I have to stay the extra hour when "normal" full time jobs are 9-5 and the lunch is in that 8 hours...
- That was ~~one of the few~~ the only advantage of living in Texas. It was not difficult to get out of that 1 unpaid hour "break" so I could go home earlier and get paid the same for spending less time at work. Lawmakers pushing for mandated unpaid breaks are helping corporations keep their employees at work longer.
Also, now you don’t have to waste as much of your spare time exercising (to fight weight gain caused by eating 3 meals a day as an adult)
Just make sure you don't compensate by snacking more

As a non-UKer, meal deals are amazing.

Diet shakes :)

Then you realize cooking can be a hobby!

Since COViD, I

make bread
“cuisine of the week”, learn to prepare meals from around the world
replaced teflon cookware with cast iron, stainless and carbon steel, and learned to use them
got a steel griddle top covering my entire stove and learned to play short order cook. Played a little hibachi chef but made too much mess trying to twirl and flip things
got a smoker

This weekend I have a 10 lb pork shoulder to smoke. Easily pulled pork for the week and unless my kids come home from school, I’ll likely freeze a bunch

I stopped reading at "make bread". Waaay too little free time for that
- Bread is probably the least time consuming thing on that list though. There's a whole slew of no-knead recipes out there, and it takes about 5 minutes to measure out and mix together the ingredients. After that it's just waiting for it to rise, another 5 minutes to shape the loaf, proof it, toss it in the oven and wait till it's done. For 10 minutes of active prep time, you can have a nice loaf of crusty white bread that's nearly as good as something you'd find in some bougie bakery. Granted it takes a couple seconds of pre-planning since the rise/proofing times are long, but most basic no-knead recipes are super forgiving on that, and if something comes up before you're able to bake it, you can toss your uncooked dough into the fridge for short term storage, or freeze it for long term.
- Yeah, but then you read my main point. Cooking can be a hobby, something you want to do. Find that

Eating is a chore, I watch a video so i dont think about it, instant noodles are real easy to make at work, toss in some broccoli if youre feeling like a but fancy

Sorry to hear you don't have functioning taste buds

Yes georgia, it ends when you marry mr successful and he pays for everything.