eli5: How do “instant” versions of foods (instant oatmeal, coffee, rice, etc.) exist? Why are they not the standard since they’re so efficient?
In: 11
Instant foods are simply prepared and dehydrated versions of the food.
There is a balance between quality and nutritional value on one side, and convenience and ease/speed of preparation on the other. Cooking foods tend to involve some pretty complex or time consuming actions. Let’s use potatoes as an example. It can easily take 30 minutes to make mashed potatoes from whole potatoes, once you account for washing, peeling, chopping, boiling, and mashing. But instant potatoes turns that 30 minutes into less than 5. All of the preparation steps were handled at the factory, so all you need to do is add water to the potatoes and the process is complete.
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