Eating the same thing every day: habit, poverty or plain laziness

Eating the same thing at home every day: lack of money or lack of imagination?

How many times have you repeated the same dish this week? Some people have lost count. In one corner of the conversation, one of the most honest answers was blunt: "No, I'm not poor." That phrase says just about everything. Eating a varied diet has become a class marker, but there are also people who take repetition to the extreme and brag about it.

Monotony as a method

Some people never get bored of routine: coffee, eggs, chicken, salad, tomato, potatoes, yoghurt and cottage cheese, with two weekly rotations. That fixed diet has proven effective: whoever trinc it for three months lost five kilos. There are also those who simply do away with eating altogether: a vegan meal-replacement shake as their only intake, 24/7. And the most pragmatic of all: "rice with stuff, legumes with stuff and pasta with stuff."

Variety: a matter of class or of equipment

The other camp argues the opposite. The answer "No, I'm not poor" sums up the equation: varying the menu costs money, or at least that's how it's perceived. But some insist the problem isn't the wallet but the equipment: with a sous-vide cooker, vacuum sealer, pressure cooker, oven and a wok, repetition only signals a lack of technique. In between are those who rotate supermarket processed foods and those who swap chicken for tuna and potatoes for rice.

Meanwhile, the average consumer remains caught between the savings of routine and the boredom of the palate. The irony of it all: the person who trinc the fixed diet for three months lost five kilos, but spent a fortune getting back to normal.