Nourish
Is Ordering Takeout Really Easier Than Cooking?
Picture it: It’s 12:15pm, you’re at your desk at work, and you feel your stomach start to grumble. Or, it’s 6:15pm, you just walked in the door, and you remember you have no food in the fridge. All of a sudden, you realize how hungry you are. In both scenarios, it’s tempting to pick up the phone and order takeout. But is that really a faster path to meal time than preparing a healthy recipe?
We wanted to find out, so we asked two barre3 interns, Amanda Askari and Candace Molatore, to put the two approaches to the test. For three days, they compared ordering takeout from a local restaurant with making a barre3 recipe. Takeout orders were placed when cooking began, but to keep things fair, the cooking calculation was adjusted to include the time they spent shopping for ingredients.
Let’s hear from Amanda and Candace about what they discovered!
Day 1: DIY Salad vs. To-Go Salad
After gathering all of the ingredients for our DIY Salads, we called in our to-go salad orders at a restaurant near the barre3 office. Chopping all of the veggies took some time, but with everything right in front of us, it was a fairly quick prep. Altogether, with shopping and prep time, the salad took 39 minutes (19 minutes for shopping, 20 minutes of prep). By the time we waited for our takeout salads to be made, walked there to pick them up, then walked back to the office, the to-go salads clocked in at 44 minutes. The DIY Salad was 5 minutes faster—and as an added bonus, we had some produce left over for a future meal.
Day 2: White Bean & Kale Soup vs. Thai-Food Delivery
Shopping for ingredients on day two took roughly the same amount of time as on day one (19 minutes), but this recipe took significantly longer to make. Once our soup ingredients were in front of us, we placed the call for Thai delivery. The woman at the restaurant said our food would be to us in 30 minutes. There’s not much to making the White Bean & Kale Soup besides mixing the ingredients in a pot. Once everything was in, we just had to wait for it to simmer. The soup was ready just as our Thai food arrived, but with shopping time included, the recipe took about 20 minutes longer than the takeout. It’s worth noting, though, that the soup produced several meals worth of leftovers, so in the long-run, it was actually a time saver.
Day 3: Summer Tacos vs. Pizza Delivery
Taco ingredients in hand, we called in our pizza order. Within 10 minutes, we already had the chicken diced and ready to go into the pan. While the chicken was cooking, we chopped the pico ingredients. A slightly under-ripe mango cost us some time, but all told, preparing this recipe (including shopping time) took 47 minutes. It was also a huge hit in the barre3 office! So, where was our pizza? After the tacos were sitting happily in our stomachs for about an hour, we called the pizza restaurant for an update. They told us that our pizza wasn’t even on its way yet! It finally arrived at 2:08pm, almost two hours after we finished our Summer Tacos. The pizza place was obviously a little backed up on the day we ordered, but even with their average 1-hour delivery time, the Summer Tacos still would have been faster.
The Verdict
Although our day-two takeout meal was a little faster than our handmade recipe, cooking for ourselves was the ultimate victor. On two out of the three days, the recipe was quicker than the takeout, but more importantly—and this was true on all three days—it was more rewarding.
We learned how to make three healthy meals that we will definitely use again. We figured out how to find the right ingredients quickly and apply the leftovers to future recipes. Maybe most rewarding of all, we got to experience the camaraderie that happens around food—when our recipes yielded more than we expected, we were able to gather around a table and share them with our coworkers.
Are you feeling inspired to get cooking? Check out our library of barre3 recipes, including a bunch of barre3 Anywhere summer recipes!
Picture it: It’s 12:15pm, you’re at your desk at work, and you feel your stomach start to grumble. Or, it’s 6:15pm, you just walked in the door, and you remember you have no food in the fridge. All of a sudden, you realize how hungry you are. In both scenarios, it’s tempting to pick up the phone and order takeout. But is that really a faster path to meal time than preparing a healthy recipe?
We wanted to find out, so we asked two barre3 interns, Amanda Askari and Candace Molatore, to put the two approaches to the test. For three days, they compared ordering takeout from a local restaurant with making a barre3 recipe. Takeout orders were placed when cooking began, but to keep things fair, the cooking calculation was adjusted to include the time they spent shopping for ingredients.
Let’s hear from Amanda and Candace about what they discovered!
Day 1: DIY Salad vs. To-Go Salad
After gathering all of the ingredients for our DIY Salads, we called in our to-go salad orders at a restaurant near the barre3 office. Chopping all of the veggies took some time, but with everything right in front of us, it was a fairly quick prep. Altogether, with shopping and prep time, the salad took 39 minutes (19 minutes for shopping, 20 minutes of prep). By the time we waited for our takeout salads to be made, walked there to pick them up, then walked back to the office, the to-go salads clocked in at 44 minutes. The DIY Salad was 5 minutes faster—and as an added bonus, we had some produce left over for a future meal.
Day 2: White Bean & Kale Soup vs. Thai-Food Delivery
Shopping for ingredients on day two took roughly the same amount of time as on day one (19 minutes), but this recipe took significantly longer to make. Once our soup ingredients were in front of us, we placed the call for Thai delivery. The woman at the restaurant said our food would be to us in 30 minutes. There’s not much to making the White Bean & Kale Soup besides mixing the ingredients in a pot. Once everything was in, we just had to wait for it to simmer. The soup was ready just as our Thai food arrived, but with shopping time included, the recipe took about 20 minutes longer than the takeout. It’s worth noting, though, that the soup produced several meals worth of leftovers, so in the long-run, it was actually a time saver.
Day 3: Summer Tacos vs. Pizza Delivery
Taco ingredients in hand, we called in our pizza order. Within 10 minutes, we already had the chicken diced and ready to go into the pan. While the chicken was cooking, we chopped the pico ingredients. A slightly under-ripe mango cost us some time, but all told, preparing this recipe (including shopping time) took 47 minutes. It was also a huge hit in the barre3 office! So, where was our pizza? After the tacos were sitting happily in our stomachs for about an hour, we called the pizza restaurant for an update. They told us that our pizza wasn’t even on its way yet! It finally arrived at 2:08pm, almost two hours after we finished our Summer Tacos. The pizza place was obviously a little backed up on the day we ordered, but even with their average 1-hour delivery time, the Summer Tacos still would have been faster.
The Verdict
Although our day-two takeout meal was a little faster than our handmade recipe, cooking for ourselves was the ultimate victor. On two out of the three days, the recipe was quicker than the takeout, but more importantly—and this was true on all three days—it was more rewarding.
We learned how to make three healthy meals that we will definitely use again. We figured out how to find the right ingredients quickly and apply the leftovers to future recipes. Maybe most rewarding of all, we got to experience the camaraderie that happens around food—when our recipes yielded more than we expected, we were able to gather around a table and share them with our coworkers.
Are you feeling inspired to get cooking? Check out our library of barre3 recipes, including a bunch of barre3 Anywhere summer recipes!
