I’m seeing a lot more apartments without kitchens than I did 20 years ago.

I’m gen z and everyone I know cooks elaborate meals. We love it

Fun fact - Throughout much of recorded human history, there is evidence that much of the human population has relied on centralized food services and kitchens.

Not knowing how to cook is not as uncommon as people seem to think.

maybe the ones that are still living at home and parents are cooking all thier meals? its a notable increase thats for sure.

Both my kids are Gen Z and at least from my experiences talking to them and their friends, one of the big factors is no one taught them when they were young. I’m not talking anything formal, just helping out in the kitchen, chopping veg, grating cheese, whatever. Either their parents don’t cook or they didn’t let them be active participants in meal prep.

My kids however do know how to cook, as they’ve helped out since they were little. Learned from my own experience as a picky eater - get your kids involved in making stuff and you won’t have to worry about them only eating chicken nuggets or whatever. Once they were teenagers, they got assigned meal prep once a week - they’d pick a recipe, help with the shopping, and make dinner (with help if they asked for it). And now they’re both adults who can make their own food. It’s shocking to me though how many in their generation just were never given the chance to learn the basics when they were young.

I call myself a cook, and my son a chef. I have a few dishes that I know so well that I just wing it on measurements. He creates dishes on vibes. He has this intuition about what he does. Part of that does come from his mom and I, but I think a lot of it comes from his maternal grandma.

I did not know how to do much “grown up” stuff when I moved out 20+ years ago. I don’t think this is a generational divide. If anything, Kids These Days™ have short form videos that they can lean on for cooking and even basic home maintenance. Car repair videos on YouTube are ubiquitous. They’ll be fine.

I’m on the older side of Gen Z and absolutely love to cook (and consider myself pretty good at it). I don’t really like meal prep though. Something fresh each day for dinner, and if there’s time, lunch. I also try to source as much as possible (herbs, vegetables) from my terrace/“garden”.

I’d say it’s about 10% of the time trying a new recipe, 70% of the time just cooking from memory based on past recipes we liked (adapted for what’s available, of course), and 20% just trying something new from scratch.

Food is also one of my biggest expenditures each month. We don’t really eat out at all, but still. Good ingredients and not going by price in the supermarket is the main luxury I splurge on.

My younger brother is essentially the same, though a bit more budget-aware. He also cooks at least once a day. I quite often get pictures of his food, and it always looks delicious.

Funnily enough, we cook pretty differently, and both completely differently than our mom.

Friends in the same generation also all either like to cook, or, well, just cook.

So, can’t exactly confirm your hypothesis. We’re not US-American though.

I’m 27 and perfectly fine at cooking! But yeah, just like someone else here mentioning it’s because I have a sibling who’s 10 years younger than me so I basically raised them. I was cooking for the family by like age 12.

I don’t know many people my age who blatantly don’t know how to cook. My husband isn’t the greatest at cooking with no recipe, but he can absolutely keep himself fed with the dishes he does know. He can even fry an egg, despite the fact I only let stainless steel pans in our kitchen.

I’m a young millennial (31) with some old gen Z friends (mid to late 20s) and the cooking thing is all over the place with us. The biggest cook is the oldest Gen z guy in the group who loves cooking. Me personally I don’t care to cook. Cereal for breakfast, a microwave meal or sandwich for lunch, then a frozen pizza or frozen chicken for dinner is good for me.

Gen Z is not specific enough to be a useful demographic cluster. You have to overlay it over another specification or it’s trying to pretend someone who is somewhere in an ill defined age range, living in Shanghai as the child of a politician is going to have something relevantly similar to someone of a vaguely similar age, though with possibly a full 10 years difference, from Nunavut, put into the foster system.

I don’t think it is a “idk how to cook” more than “i don’t need to cook” problem. You don’t need to know how to cook to survive when food delivery services is just one click away and if that is not your thing you can always takeaway or dine-in at the restaurant/shops instead.

I can cook, i enjoy cooking, i prefer cooking but sometimes i am lazy so i do takeout or dine-out instead. Most of the people i know don’t know how to cook (by that i mean anything more than reheating precooked food, frozen food etc) if anything i am in the minority.

They’re fine. We talk about cooking before class on occasion and my students tend to be pretty on top of that, and baking. This is especially true of women who take care of their siblings. Honestly, it’s on par for the age, but there is one more unique aspect and that’s reliance on Tiktok or IG for recipes.

That means that I’ll sometimes run into people who love cooking but they’re often making what’s popular at the time. But… my cohort, millennials, aren’t too different in using our online recipes. They’re just a little less… creative, compared to what you see on Tiktok. Plus, video format is trash for cooking, but that’s my own opinion.

Gen Z has a basic competence issue apparently because everyone complains about their ability to do everything. Weaponized incompetence or whatever they are calling it. The good news when it comes to being able to cook is that anyone can figure it out for themselves. If you can make instant ramen noodles then you can cook.

I highly recommend anyone who wants to learn to cook get a hold of the Fannie Farmers CookbookFannie Farmer Cookbook find a used copy somewhere because $50 for a book first published in 1869 is friggin ridiculous.

This book is basically a reference book as well as a recipe book. It explains just about everything from measuring to prepping to storing things in your pantry. It is stuffed with recipes for basic things and then a bunch of recipes that build on those basics.

My mom was a lifelong food lover and taught herself to cook because her mom couldn’t. She had a library full of cookbooks from all over the world and through the ages. The only cookbook she gave me when I moved out was the Fannie Farmer Cookbook which is a tome to be sure. She told me it was the only one I would ever really need. Everything else is just recipes.

Gen Z, millennial, Gen X it doesn’t matter who you are it is flat out cheaper to cook your own food. If you are single then soups and casseroles are your buddy. If you make a different one every other day and freeze the rest you will have a constant supply of a variety of meals you can reheat at will so you don’t get burnt out. If you are a couple just about every meal feeds four which is dinner plus leftover lunch for the both of you.

I live in Houston, TX which is one of the most diverse food scenes anywhere with some of best restaurants for every kind of food and I can’t find a steakhouse that consistently makes a better steak than me. The closest I’ve come was from a guy selling steaks at a bar I used to go to 15 years ago. No one makes better pancakes than I do. I’ve never been hesitant to order pancakes when I’m out but I’m always disappointed and feeling ripped off. The difference is staggering. Pancakes are cheeeap and making them better costs next to nothing. The only restaurant food I buy is food I don’t make yet.

Stop giving your money to people who really don’t deserve it. Learn to cook. One thing at a time. Every success leads to more success. The knowledge you gain is for life. You pass some of it on and one day far in the future every human will be a master chef because what else is there to do?