Ask HN: What if an entire city banned home cooking?
Every meal would come from centralized kitchens, automated meal factories, or restaurant-style delivery. No chopping, no dishes, no cooking smells, just ready-to-eat meals at your doorstep.
Pros:
* Guaranteed nutrition and food safety
* No more time wasted cooking or cleaning
* Potentially less food waste with centralized meal prep
* Economies of scale make ready-to-eat meals as affordable as home cooking
Would you live in a city like this? Every woman would come from central casting. No small talk, no dinner,
no funny smells, just ready-to-bang honies at your doorstep. Pros: * Guaranteed sex. * No more time wasted seeking mates * Potentially less semen wasted with bespoke receptacles. Would you like to live in a city like this? No cooking smells? I can't eat meals prepared the way I prefer? No friends and family bonding while cooking? No ability to experiment? Sounds awful to me. We're already stripping far too much humanity from our daily lives as it is. It's okay. Just admit that you don't like cooking. "The caves of steel" is 1954. That's 71 years ago. No.
“Guaranteed nutrition and food safety” from whom? The same corporations gaming organic labels and the same regulators who approve additives banned everywhere else? Hard pass. Cooking is older than civilization itself. It’s how we became human. Proposing to outsource it to “automated meal factories” is the same energy as suggesting we outsource reading, conversation, or choosing a partner. The “economies of scale” argument is particularly rich—those efficiencies will flow straight to shareholders while you get Soylent Green with a subscription fee. Maybe Elon can try it on Mars first. > Guaranteed nutrition and food safety Nope. There is no 'guarantee' the centralized kitchen produces nutritious foods. Further, you the recipient have no way to verify with any ease the accuracy of any 'claims' of nutrition made by the centralized kitchen. And if merely having a "centralized kitchen" guaranteed food safety, there would be no recalls of processed foods for listeria or salmonella contamination. A "processed foods factory" is exactly a "centralized kitchen", just with a different destination for the output food items. > * Guaranteed nutrition and food safety ... or your money back?