if i could stay home and cook all day, i definitely would.

This is why it's part of my cooking philosophy that a kitchen should never truly be clean. Pristine, as you say here, is probably a better word. Of course it should be clean enough that you can work in it and it doesn't attract pests, but I think an untidy kitchen should actually be a mark of pride - it means you actually use it!

I know too many people that have these beautiful kitchens with the latest and greatest in appliances, cookware, countertops and the like and the majority of their meals are at restaurants. I never understood it.

The few times I say lets grab takeout or go out is almost always because I'm tired. Not the mess really or the groceries or anything like that, I just don't want to have to think. I want to have someone serve me instead of the other way around.

The link to the article just comes back to this blog post.

Something about the top reason seems sketchy to me. I didn't think the marriage rate was 50% anymore anywho.

I do 99 percent of the cooking in my house (I live with my sister.) I love doing it, and I'm way faster than her.

I'm w/ the same understanding as Rosebud...

As for me. I love grocery shopping and working in the kitchen.

I could spend hours in grocery stores (and do - I work in one! Yay!) and it always irks me a little when I'm in total reverie and my boyfriend interupts to say, "Can we just hurry it up and get out of here? Please?" Another classic - "Don't walk away, I want this to be quick."

My biggest excuse right now is that I'm bored with the stuff I know how to cook and if I want to use recipes that requires planning to make sure I have all the ingredients. Sometimes I just have a particularly hard day and the last thing I want to do is go home and try to figure out a meal and I don't have a significant other to do it for me, either.

Most of the time when I opt to eat out vrs not at home is because I planned poorly. Usually its already late and i'm are starving or i just want to relax.

Its not about free time but using your time wisely. I just made most of my dinner at 9:00 am today because I know I wont have time to do anything until about 7:30 tonight.

I now try to keep some frozen almost ready stuff thats easy to make dinner out of (spaghetti sauce, quesadilla filling etc, frozen stuffed shells).

My problem is that I've very bad with meal planning. I'll be out of the house for 2-5 dinners a week, about half of which are arranged on the same day. So while I have a decently stocked pantry, I don't have a lot of the fresh ingredients (meats, vegetables, cheeses) that can be used as the main part of a dish. And grocery shopping for two chicken breasts and a bell pepper at 5:30 p.m., in the long lines of everyone else doing the same thing, is just too time-consuming.

Where is the "My husband would rather order out than eat what I cook" option?

I do cook, almost every night, but grocery shopping is a huge barrier for me. Like a sizable percentage of people, I'm only home at night (after 6:00) and on weekends, and the crowds in the grocery stores at those times are freqently too much for me to handle. I often have to make a week's worth of groceries last two or three weeks because I can't muster up the energy to tackle grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping takes too long in North America because the stores are too damn big!!

I hate, loathe and despise going grocery shopping now that we are back in North America. It takes an hour!!! And invariably, you forget something and have to backtrack through miles of aisles. Ugh.

In Switzerland, they have "super stores", but neighbourhood stores are either small or very small by our standards, yet they have everything North American stores carry, and more. They just don't have 100 boxes of the same cereal taking 4 linear feet of shelf space; they have 1 or 2 product rows of any given product. they have a lot more specialty and high-end products that we don't have too.

Oh, and on top of that, you can shop online too.

Grocery shopping as the most time consuming household chore? We (my husband AND myself) cook almost every meal in our home and grocery shopping is never time consuming. Proper meal planning and knowing the layout of your store account for this. Enter with a list, buy only what’s on the list (with a few inspirational exceptions), and organize your list to the store’s layout. I know what I sound like, but it saves money and time! And to Mschatelaine's point, I do try to shop at the smallest grocery store that has most of what I need, and always go to the same store.

However, being vegan we do tend to have to go to multiple grocery stores to find the right ingredients. That’s no fun.

@jamiemariel Entering with a list based on the store's layout doesn't do anything to account for the physical difficulty of pushing through crowded aisles on a busy night. It just takes time, no matter how prepared you are.

Shop on off hours? I don't know I just don't have that problem, or don't see it as one. There are plenty of chores more time consuming and compared to the way we used to, or the way others currently, get food its a non-issue.

If folks really consider busy grocery stores a barrier to cooking, they may want to consider getting up early on weekend mornings - I had clients who found it easier to go to Winco at 6:00 in the morning on Saturday - they had a list, and knew the floorplan, and the store staff were delighted to see them there. Sometimes, they even gave them little bonuses , like samples of new products, just for being there early. When you do this, you're all set to go home for a good breakfast, and have an excellent start on your weekend. I've done this a few times, and would like to make it part of my routine. Once I'm fortunate enough to return to the "world of work" again, I'll probably do this.

I'll go grocery shopping to avoid having to clean the bathroom. :)

My biggest obstacles to cooking are hot weather and dirty dishes. :) Oh, and having night classes. Can't cook if you're not at home.

I love grocery shopping! It's always nice to see what produce is in season and to get new ideas. Plus, it's fun (sometimes) to shop within a budget and see what's on sale. I also get a sad little kick out of comparing my grocery basket (and it's almost always a basket) to everyone else's enormous carts filled with packaged stuff.

Also, grocery shopping, like cooking, takes some time. And having a mental (or physical) list of what's in your pantry helps you keep it well-stocked, which makes it easier to cook when the time comes because you should already have most of your ingredients.

I do go to two different grocery stores: one conventional store for stuff like canned tomatoes and beans, dairy products, bread, etc. The other has much higher quality local produce and meats (and ironically less expensive, especially if you get seasonal produce and tougher cuts of meat), but everything else there is ridiculously expensive. They don't even carry "regular" cheddar. Only $10/lb fancy cheddar.

Oh, and I occasionally shop at a third co-op for bulk grains, dried fruits, nuts, flours, and spices.

I dunno - I always think that grocery shopping is fun. It's never a pain for me! Except for when I go too long without stocking up on pantry staples. Then it sometimes gets a little expensive.

I cook almost every day. Unless I have plans to go out to dinner with friends or my boyfriend. I also make my own breakfast, coffee, snacks and lunch every day. I don't see the point in paying all that money to eat out for every meal!

Doesn't surprise me that lots of people don't know how to cook. I teach college and I always end up asking my students about cooking--it is appalling how many of them don't know how to do much more than use a microwave, and how many come from families where people didn't cook. It makes me feel fortunate to like to cook, to come from a family where we all had to learn to cook, and to marry a man who also likes to cook and cooks well--and loves to grocery shop!

i really love to cook, but a lot of times i don't (or cook something less extravagant) because i don't want to clean up. this is not to say my kitchen is ever pristine, because it definitely never is. just. the idea of cleaning. sigh.

which makes me wonder, do we have any kitchn articles on how to make less of a damn mess when you cook? :)

I'd much rather do the grocery shopping than do the laundry. And try limiting your budget when it comes to food and dining out. We only had about $150 to spend of groceries each month for a family of four. We couldn't afford to eat out just cause we were tired, I had to be creative for times when we were low on staples or no extra money to run and get something. That in my opinion is how you learn to cook, when you have to.

At first I was wondering why you were linking to Market Watch, but then I saw that this was a a story based on a survey paid for by Bosch. Funny.

But I'm surprised that as much as 28% of the respondents do not know how to cook. That's a lot.

My household falls in the uneven cooking responsibilities category. I do 90% of the cooking. I don't mind as long as the kitchen is clean. The tidier it is, the better and more creative my cooking is. That said, we hate cleaning up afterwards -- and we have a dishwasher.

I love grocery shopping and I like to visit grocery stores when I travel so I can see what locals eat.

Dear friends, if Peapod is available, it is your new best friend. Between Peapod and milk delivery, I have hours a week of my time back. Well worth it, especially with three small kids.

The reason I don't cook more than four nights a week or so is I am dead tired by the time my kids are in bed and when my husband offers to order out, I am not going to say no most of the time. If I don't cook by six I generally don't have the energy, and sometimes we eat Pb&j, sometimes we order out. The other four nights I have myself together enough for a family dinner.

My kitchen is spotless and pristine like above after I clean it. By the next meal, it's dirty again. The circle of life.
But ugh, I hate nothing more than seeing these gorgeous grandiose kitchens, fully stuffed to the gills with cooking equipment, only to find out that they never cook or use a lot of the items. I mean, what's the point? Might as well spend your money on something else other than convection ovens, yards of counterspace, and expensive refrigerators if you're never going to use them. Who are they trying to impress?

Disabled here so I use Peapod for my groceries, although when I was more mobile I used to love to go to the store. As for cooking, I cook a couple of times a week and make enough to last for several meals - again because of disability, I can't do a lot of standing and walking so this is what works for me. Also, I only do easy recipes that don't require a lot of ingredients, a lot of steps and/or a lot of pots and utensils.

What are people doing in the grocery store that makes it the most time-consuming chore? A trip takes me just under an hour and I've got groceries for a week.

I guess it helps that I stay stocked up on staples and dry goods so I don't have to think about having things on hand like breadcrumbs, spices or four different types of vinegar. I tend to buy the same thing every time, mostly vegetables, and find creative ways to prepare them rather than find unusual recipes that require exotic ingredients I don't usually have.

I agree with Kariwk 100%. Sometimes a lot of behaviours are instilled into children very young. I have a very good friend of mine who would not eat a lot of vegetables and no salad greens... I got a bit fed up inviting her for dinner and getting a list of things that she could/would not eat. To me that is a huge sign of maturity - besides emotional maturity there is culinary maturity.. :-)
Anyway a few years later she moved to Maine her husband planted a small garden and she started eating fresh produce off her garden, and now she eats absolutely everything. She commented that had she known how fresh things tasted she would have eaten all of them earlier - she had been raised like a lot of 60, 70, and 80s american families in canned vegetables...
I was stunned, I grew up in the Mediterranean, a 70s baby, so everything we made and consequently I make is made completely from scratch and fresh. I had another american friend of mine comment about a similar effect in her family, that the food was so bad when she was growing up.
I wake up Saturday mornings early, go to my pilates class, stop at the farmers market stock up with vegetalbles and produce for the week, stop on the way home for groceries like dry ingredients and condiments and nuts, and by Sat noon, my shopping for the week is done and I have an idea what I am making all week.... I love the entire process of "foraging" for food, cooking, eating, enjoying being together when we cook and eat. It also part of a culture, which a LOT of americans would rather eat fast food and hang out with friends and go to movies or participate in passive activities, than interact like the cooking experience.

oh, a comment above also reminded about this trend of people buying high end kitchens just for the value that they bring to their property. My husband is an engineer and went to the French Culinary Institute a decade ago to learn cooking for fun. On a trip to California his boss invited him to their house for a party they were throwing and asked him to help with part of the cooking. When my husband turned the oven on, he smelled plastic. It turned out they had their WOLF stove for over a year and had barely cooked in it... that baffles me...

I second xhtmlgirl, Peapod is amazing! If a grocery store near you has delivery do it! For one it has helped me spend less because I don't have products strategically setup up to lure me into impulse purchases. I buy only what's on my list. The delivery fees are very reasonable, it was only $7 for me the first time and then a free 60 days after that. I think the produce is better from the delivery than in the store (I would imagine it goes from the truck to your order without ever entering the store). The only downside is all those plastic bags since you can't use your own reusable ones. It has helped me keep my kitchen stocked and I'm surprised after trying it, that people still continue to go to the store at all!

What are people doing in the grocery store that makes it the most time-consuming chore? A trip takes me just under an hour and I've got groceries for a week.

Well in my case, I'm walking two miles there and back. Not only is that time consuming, but it also means that a week's worth of food is out of the question, because I can't carry that much at once. (A granny-cart helps, but mine finally rusted out.) So I have to make the trip several times a week. It's good exercise, but much more time-consuming than any other chore I do.

There are no grocery stores between my house and my office so I rarely go anymore.

We get a weekly veg CSA box and a monthly meat/egg CSA box and both are en route and I can't take more than one meal off per week or we won't use everything up. Both factors simplify things dramatically.

But every now and then I LOVE going to the store to get new ideas, try new snacks, buy a load of overripe something for cheap, stock up on cream and wine and cheese....it's just not the same asking my husband to do it. He never gets more than what I specifically put on the list, and that's no fun.

There are a plethora of grocery stores that are open 24 hours a day.
* Plan your shopping after 9 p.m. - you will be delighted to find very few shoppers in the store at that time.
* keep a list all week of things you are running out of and take the list to the store with you (important)
* buy a crock pot and learn to use it

Our favorite organic market is less than five minutes from where my husband works. He likes to do the shopping and I like to do the cooking, so it's all good!

having a csa has also forced me to use what we get - and shopping is quicker because i basically just supplement that. keep lots of dried goods - grains, beans, spices, olive oil - on hand, and bought in bulk when i can, and all i'm finding i need to get on a more regular basis are proteins - milk, eggs, cheese, tofu, etc.
oh, and fruit and some snack-ey things

I am actually way more likely to want to cook when my kitchen is clean than when it's dirty. Because if I have to clean it first, then I don't bother. I don't want to clean twice!

Also, our food is mostly condiments. Just about zero vegetables because I eat them all within two days of shopping. Or they go bad because I don't know what to do with them.

For me a lot of it has to do with 2 things...the way I look at eating - a reward, a treat, highlight of the day...and the availability of any kind of food right "then" - do I want sushi? Mexican? BBQ? In n Out" - the combination of the above 2 is deadly for me cooking in the kitchen.

I love these comments, and think the 28% that don't know how to cook might be a low estimate--and a growing problem. Have been wondering how this economy will affect that. When my kids were growing up I made sure they knew how to make a great omelet (you can eat/serve it for any meal), a good reduction sauce (make it essentially non-fat or taste how the flavors explode with a half-teaspoon of butter), and how to make a paillard (put a chicken breast, pork chop or other piece of boneless meat between two pieces of waxed paper and pound to make a cutlet). There's a plethora of wonderful meals that can be make around those three skills. Also, keep a few basics on hand: spices, for sure, and spaghetti sauce, bread crumbs (make your own from stale bread), extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, etc.

You also have to account for the fact that too many people have not been taught how to enjoy eating, either. Take all the fat out of something and it stops tasting good. Fats slow the uptake of sugar into the bloodstream. Diabetes, anyone??

And the final blow--that is inspiring, too: All the beautiful food on television that appears quicker and easier to make than it really is. You don't have to have a culinary masterpiece to eat well every day.

I think it depends what one considers "cooking," too. We do very little of what my mother would consider to be cooking, yet we eat a lot of healthy and fresh food and eat very little in terms of pre-made meals or takeout.

We'll often make pots of things like beans, rice, pasta, and have those in the fridge, then our meal prep will consist of something like assembling burritos or tossing stuff onto rice or pasta. We do a lot of salad-type meals and/or hummus and tabouli (that we may have made or may have bought) that also just involve taking stuff out of the fridge and everyone assembling their own. We do sometimes cook things like soups, pasta, curries.

By some standards, we cook pretty much every day in that we combine ingredients and use the kitchen and the dishes, but many Americans of the WWII generation would say that we do very little "cooking" at our house. I also think a lot of people whose cooking is limited to pasta, rice, stirfry, etc. would say they "don't know how to cook."