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Comment by zeveb | Hacker News Reader

Meat is remarkably easy to cook: apply heat to meat, done. Vegetables take preparation, require more-complex treatment, need to be managed well (I have no problem eating a quick meal of just a steak or chicken breast; I really would hate eating a quick meal of only carrots or just onions).

Meat's convenient in a way that vegetables aren't.

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I can only assume you are buying your meat pre-boned and sliced or diced, chicken breast already removed from carcass etc, probably in some lovely single use plastic. In which case someone else did the prep for you, not sign there's less prep required.

Veggies are less effort: peel some, chop into suitably sized bits. To compare like with like compare with pre-sliced and peeled veggies, or animal carcass before skinning and butchering. :)

Something like a rosti with cheese or added spinach or cabbage is cooked meat speed fast and tasty, as are a whole host of the traditional leftovers recipes that grew up to use up spuds, carrots, cabbage etc next day.

>Vegetables take preparation, require more-complex treatment, need to be managed well

Are you treating your vegetables like wagyu beef and giving them massages or something? If not, aside from a quick wash, cooking vegetables is no more difficult than cooking meat. Sautee them, bake them, pan fry, deep fry, air fry, broil, steam, sous vide, etc...

This is the opposite of reality in my experience. Most vegetables can be quickly steamed, boiled, stir fried etc. Legumes or tubers take longer, but require little active participation.

Meat on the other hand is greatly benefited by things like marination, mechanical tenderizing, monitoring temperature as it cooks. You can whip up a steak pretty quick, but probably not any faster than you could stir fry some veggies.

If we're talking steak in particular, it's going to be faster than any palatable vegetable based dish every time. Total cook time is about five minutes, and prep is less than a minute.

Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying.

Peanut butter celery sticks would be a better example I think.

A thin steak cooked as fast as possible, sure.

There are so many variables it's hard to say anything concrete, but on average I'd bet people spend less active time preparing vegetables to eat than meat.

>If we're talking steak in particular, it's going to be faster than any palatable vegetable based dish every time. Total cook time is about five minutes

Maybe with very thin, low quality grocery store steaks. When I eat meat I buy steaks from a butcher that are over an inch thick, and require 5-7 minutes minimum per side for medium rare. Sometimes even more for thicker cuts

>prep is less than a minute. Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying.

A lot of people think vegetables are difficult because they don't have knife skills so it takes multiple minutes to cut a piece of produce. With practice, prep for cooking vegetables should be just as fast. Also, even if it does take an extra couple minutes of my time, its worth it for my own health and morals by not supporting industrialized farming

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