Cooking vs takeouts: it depends...

Cooking is actually stressful, I mean it can be enjoyable sometimes but some other times it can be stressful as well or maybe I'm just too lazy to cook 😅. I started cooking at the age of 10, all thanks to my mom making sure that all her children can cook, be they male or female. I remember going to meet her in the sitting room and asking questions like "What should I put next? The rice is boiling, what next?" And that was how I learned. Over time, I no longer asked those questions and could easily make decisions on my own.

In the university, this skill became very useful to me as I can easily cook tasteful meals but sometimes I'm limited by the resources I have. I see students who mostly survive on buying takeouts and I won't blame them because I can relate to some of their situations. Some people's problem is that they don't have time. Coming back home in the evening and trying to figure out what to cook while your stomach growls in protest can be very frustrating, and the easiest to do is probably to just buy takeouts.

So, for the question; do I whip up a homemade meal or succumb to takeouts, it actually depends on some factors. The first factor is that if I have been home all day. If that's the case, I usually cook my meals before hunger comes knocking. But if it's the case where I just got back from an outdoor activity and I'm wrestling with hunger, then I consider the next factor; do I have free money to spend? I usually make a budget for my money and when it comes to making a decision like buying takeouts, I try to see if there's free money that's not already budgeted for something important.

If there's free money, then sure, I immediately buy takeouts because it's the more convenient option. But in the case where all my money is already tied to important things, then I give up on the takeouts and just cook something simple like noodles, or I take snacks to suppress the hunger while I quickly cook up something. And when I say snacks, I'm actually talking about garri, I always have that available at home for situations such as this 😅.

In all honesty, cooking is actually better because it is safer and healthier. It is safer in the sense that you know the nature of the ingredients you used to cook your food but when it comes to takeouts, you never know what goes on in the kitchen of those restaurants. Some might use chicken that died from one illness to cook and there's no way you will know. They can also use expired products or spoilt food items just to save cost. Let's not even talk about the condition of some of the utensils they use or even the general state of the kitchen of some restaurants and eateries

Anyway, I actually bought a lot of takeouts when I was at the university, especially during my last 2 years as a student. There was a certain semester where I mostly bought takeouts, and I mean I do that up to 5 days a week. This was during my 4th year when I was doing my industrial training, I always left home before 8 AM and got back around 6 PM daily, from Monday to Friday. So, I mostly buy takeouts because, by the time I got back home, I was already too tired to cook. So, cooking or buying takeouts depends on different factors for me.

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