![\"\"](\"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4311333683_ea3fdcfc55-e1351122048507.jpeg\" "\\"Meal")
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\u201cIt\u2019s too much work to learn how to cook since I\u2019ll just be making food for myself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I gotta level with you.<\/p>\n
As much as I brag about getting a home-cooked meal on the table every day, 99% of what I make is eaten by only one person\u2013me<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love sitting around the table with friends and family and sharing an epic meal, but that rarely happens in my busy life.<\/p>\n
Dinner, lunch, (and sometimes breakfast) are usually eaten alone\u2013or at best with people who have brought or ordered their own<\/em> food.<\/p>\n
One of the most common excuses people have for not learning how to cook is that they think it will be too much work if they\u2019ll only be making food for themselves.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve found over the years that this just isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n
When done right, you can cook all your meals for yourself alone and end up actually saving<\/em> time, money, and energy.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Learn the Basics<\/h2>\n
It used to be that if you wanted to learn how to cook you just asked your mother (or grandmother) to teach you.<\/p>\n
Not anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n
This cultural chain of knowledge has been broken as we have switched from eating real food prepared at home to eating Food Products\u2122.<\/p>\n
As a result, if most of us want to learn how to cook, we\u2019re going to have to look a little harder for somewhere to learn it.<\/strong><\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I created this site\u2013to help you<\/em> learn how to cook even if no one around you knows how to. Thanks to the series of tubes<\/a> known as the internet, learning new skills is becoming easier every day.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve mentioned before, cooking involves just two skills:<\/p>\n
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- Learning how to use a knife<\/a> to cut up food.<\/li>\n
- Learning how to use heat<\/a> to cook food.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Learning the basics of cutting and heating is easier than you\u2019d think, and results in you being able to throw a healthy and tasty meal together no matter what you have on hand.<\/p>\n
Make What YOU Love<\/h2>\n
The best thing about cooking for yourself?<\/p>\n
You get to make exactly what you want.<\/strong><\/p>\n
No need to go easy on the spices because one of your family members doesn\u2019t like strongly flavored food. No need to swap beef for chicken because your significant other is on some wack low-fat diet.<\/p>\n
When you can cook what you want, you can be sure that what you\u2019re putting in your mouth is both tasty and healthy.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re interested in eating healthy, I suggest you make fresh meat and veggies the bulk of your diet, minimizing stuff like sugar, flour, and seed oils that have taken over the human diet.<\/strong><\/p>\n
If you are cooking for yourself alone, you can easily stick with these guidelines without having to worry that someone else won\u2019t be down with your style.<\/p>\n
Cook In Bulk<\/h2>\n
The biggest sin I see repeated over and over again in recipes for one is that they are simply scaled-down versions of normal-sized dishes.<\/p>\n
The problem is it takes you the same amount of time to cook a dish small enough for one as it does a dish big enough for four.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Look, I get it. You want to eat something completely new at each and every meal during the week. That\u2019s the way our culture works, and I used to be the exact same way.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s time for a little tough love: the key to being successful at cooking for one is learning to love leftovers<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The ability to eat something completely different for every meal is taken for granted by most, but it is a recent phenomenon, and it\u2019s completely unnecessary.<\/p>\n
In fact, this transformation of food from something that is consumed for survival into something that is eaten for entertainment may very well be contributing to the \u201cfood reward overload<\/a>\u201d that is likely contributing to the obesity epidemic.<\/p>\n
If you can kick this habit, you\u2019ll be much better off. Just follow these three steps:<\/p>\n