An 8-minute read.
After a long day at work…
how often do you feel like just plopping down on the couch and vegging out?
However, after about 30 minutes of scrolling on your phone, the question in almost everyone’s mind is:
“What am I going to eat for Dinner?”
There are a couple of criteria we almost subconsciously weigh when choosing dinner:
- What’s quick and easy now? (Time and Convenience)
- Do I want to eat it? (Taste)
- How much money am I willing to spend (Cost)
- What are healthy dinner ideas? (Health)
- Do I REALLY wanna eat that again? (Variety)
Using these criteria, we’ll break down the main dinner options so you can decide which is best for you…
1) Cook Dinner at Home
An option as old as human history itself.
There’s nothing quite like harnessing the flavors from natural ingredients and transforming them into a symphony of delicious flavors that excite your taste buds and leave you feeling satisfied…
That is… if you have the time, energy, and skills required to produce such a delicious meal…
Let’s be honest with ourselves; not many of us do!
How many times have you had a flash of inspiration from an insta cooking post (some cute, healthy dinner ideas)…
purchased a whole set of ingredients…
and tried your hardest to make the meal…only to have it turn out nothing like how you wanted or even worse…
You don’t even end up making the dish, and the majority of those ingredients just go bad in your fridge?
We all been there. Even me! lol
At the end of the day, between the time it takes to shop for the ingredients, make the dish successfully, and then clean up afterward, unless you have an abundance of cooking skills or stick to painfully simple recipes… often the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.
To be clear…I’m not advocating that you never cook.
I think it’s a worthwhile skill to grow and will serve you throughout your life; it can even be an enjoyable experience for some! (aka, meeee, lol.)
However, for someone who lacks time and skill, cooking can seem like an impossible equation that’s simply frustrating instead of enjoyable.
2) Can Takeout or Fast Food Be Healthy Dinner Ideas?
Be honest, when’s the last time you used Uber Eats or DoorDash?
I get it…having virtually any food you want at your fingertips is an ever-tempting option.
And if you’re able to choose options that align with your goals and you got it like that 💰, I see nothing wrong with it.
But for the vast majority of us… if we’re ordering takeout, it ain’t healthy. Cuz sometimes ima order some fries with my salad. 🙂
On top of that, if you’re getting meals delivered, you’re paying like 3 different service fees, and if you’re a generous tipper like me, often what would have been a $20 meal turns into $40.
A sidenote, friend to friend: 70% of fast-dining/takeout options are of “poor dietary quality.”1Ask Google. …between the high-fat, high-sugar, often overly processed, low-nutrition food that leads to a drug-like dopamine hit that results in overeating and bad habits that can form a nutrient deficiency.2 3 4 5
For optimal health, takeout should really be in moderation.
3) Go to a Sit-Down Restaurant
I LOVE going to restaurants.
It’s the whole experience for me: picking the restaurant, meeting with friends, looking at the menu, finding new inspiration, having conversations while we wait, and then enjoying a delicious meal together. (Or, in my case, talking about what I liked & did not like about the food lol. I can’t help it!)
It’s literally my fave 🙂 …
If I had the time and money to spend every night, you’d know where to find me: a new restaurant. (Did you see my Italy 🇮🇹 (EATily) insta posts?)
However, for me and most others, going to a restaurant for dinner night after night just isn’t feasible.
Between the travel time, wait time, and the higher prices, ya girl just isn’t there yet.
4) Home Meal Prep
The middle ground that more and more people are finding.
Front-loading your prep time in one or two mass preparation sessions per week can save you an abundance of time compared to daily cooking. It also makes it much easier to make good choices around mealtime when you already have food prepared and just need to heat it up. On top of all that, if you do it right, it can be very cost-effective.
It’s the definition of what are healthy dinner ideas.
Where most people run into issues is the actual preparation…
Again, we return to the requirement of basic cooking skills, time, and energy.
Admittedly, you can find a lot of pretty simple meal-prep recipes online that will help you improve your cooking skills…
but by the same token, if you lack the skills to make a variety of meals or don’t have a good system to maintain variety…
You can quickly get bored of your food, which can lead to the temptation to pick up fast food on your way home or order out.
I recommend that you try home meal prep for yourself.
Pick a few simple recipes, and prep so you just have food for two or three days.
Dip your toes in and see how it goes.
You may really enjoy it!
Click here for my Beginner’s How To Blog On Meal Prep!
5) Meal Delivery Services
The newest frontier in dinner-time technology… 😆
As I see it, this is the best of both worlds… if you pick the right service!
A meal delivery service can come with all the benefits of at-home meal prep AND MORE!
Meal delivery services virtually eliminate prep time and effort when meals are pre-prepared and delivered to your door.
In addition, with the right service, you can choose from a plethora of healthy, interesting options at a reasonable price.
With meal delivery services, you can eat a different meal each day of the week without worrying about wasted leftovers.
People’s biggest concerns are whether they will like the food and whether it is worth the money.
Truthfully, this comes down to your situation.
Every meal service is different.
The only way to find out is to try them. Most services offer a first-time discount so that you can try the food without spending too much cash.
With regards to the money, you gotta look at the whole picture:
Assuming you are avoiding takeout for health reasons and don’t have unlimited funds or time to spend at restaurants, your other option is spending hours every week cooking.
If you do the math, with a meal delivery service, dinners cost around $15-20, and if you were to prepare that same dinner considering all the time for shopping, prepping, cooking, cleaning, etc, it would average out to about 1 hour total prep time.
So the choice is:
Pay $15-20/meal or spend an hour.
Now you have a question to consider here:
Do you value the few hours of free time you have every day more than $15-20/hour (Minimum Wage)?
If not, then a meal delivery service may not seem worth it.
However, that’s just the monetary/time breakdown…
We’re not even mentioning the mental energy you gain back when you don’t have to figure out your meal on the fly each night or plan in advance.
Think about the time you could be spending with family and friends, pursuing meaningful goals and hobbies, bettering yourself in the gym, or learning a new skill.
Your time is extremely limited and valuable…so what price do you put on it?
What are Healthy Dinner Ideas? and the Bottom Line
If your goal is to prioritize what are healthy dinner ideas, you can eliminate takeout and fast food altogether or at least limit them to a rare treat.
So, you can meal prep at home, cook at home, go to a healthy restaurant, or use a meal delivery service.
Do you have the time, skills, and energy to cook each night or do the weekly prep?
Do you have the time and money to be going to restaurants frequently?
Only you can answer those questions.
If it’s a “No” to both questions, you may want to consider a Meal Delivery Service.
If a Meal Delivery Service sounds like the option for you.
Take advantage of our Meals of Dopeness First-Time Order Offer by getting $20 off your first order when you use code “STAYDOPE20” during checkout.
Stay Dope,
Citations:
- Most fast food still bad for you, study shows ↩︎
- 3 Ways to Stop Ordering Takeout ↩︎
- How to Overcome Food Addiction ↩︎
- Five ways junk food changes your brain ↩︎
- Eating ‘Junk-Food’ Produces Rapid and Long-Lasting Increases in… Cue-Induced Motivation and Food Addiction ↩︎
Relevant Readings:
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