>The Easy Path says dinner's hard and you've had a long day, so get something simple, like take-out or microwave. The Easy Path is entropy. The Easy Path is self-care over struggle.

If you see this sort of food as "self-care" then that's where the war has been lost.

>or you have to shop around the sides

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person in the world who enjoys this. Discovering, for example, the versatility and cost-effectiveness of skim milk powder was a real game changer for me. Similarly for dried legumes and fruits.