Learning to make 3-4 meals… in the sense of… muscle memory
I confirm that it makes a different experience when it feels like the cooking (and shopping) can be done by System 1 entirely. Here is a list of trivial inconveniences it removes:
you don’t have to choose from a long list of recipes you know (or you could google); additional criteria like “I have all ingredients at home” and “not the same thing I had yesterday” sometimes immediately narrow it down to 1 choice;
you don’t have to read the recipe to know the list of ingredients; this also adds the meal to the list of things you can buy on impulse;
you don’t have to read the recipe, so you can start cooking immediately;
while cooking, you can talk with other people / think about something / read a book, because only a small fraction of your attention is needed for cooking;
you can do things in parallel, again without paying much attention to it, because you already know there is enough time to do X while waiting for Y.
In practice this means that even having a busy day when my attention and willpower are depleted, cannot stop me from having a healthy meal. As a bonus, my kids love 2 of my muscle-memorized meals, so I don’t have to worry about their reaction.
I confirm that it makes a different experience when it feels like the cooking (and shopping) can be done by System 1 entirely. Here is a list of trivial inconveniences it removes:
you don’t have to choose from a long list of recipes you know (or you could google); additional criteria like “I have all ingredients at home” and “not the same thing I had yesterday” sometimes immediately narrow it down to 1 choice;
you don’t have to read the recipe to know the list of ingredients; this also adds the meal to the list of things you can buy on impulse;
you don’t have to read the recipe, so you can start cooking immediately;
while cooking, you can talk with other people / think about something / read a book, because only a small fraction of your attention is needed for cooking;
you can do things in parallel, again without paying much attention to it, because you already know there is enough time to do X while waiting for Y.
In practice this means that even having a busy day when my attention and willpower are depleted, cannot stop me from having a healthy meal. As a bonus, my kids love 2 of my muscle-memorized meals, so I don’t have to worry about their reaction.