I recently gave up eating takeout every night, but I’m too lazy to cook, which led to me replacing it with basically nothing but canned food. Like I’ll mix a can of beans and a can of mixed vegetables together, put half in a bowl and put the other half in a container for tomorrow, put salad dressing on it, and then that’s my dinner. I also eat a half can of fruit per day, because I found the shelf life and inconsistencies with produce to be too annoying.
On the one hand, I think I’m eating better than I was when I was doing nothing but takeout. My salt consumption has plummeted, and in general, I think the nutritional facts for my canned meal are better across the board than the takeout meals I was doing.
On the other hand, if there’s some long term issue with eating too much canned food, then I’m definitely going to be affected by it. I was thinking cats lead pretty good lives with nothing but canned food, so maybe I’ll be ok.
Anyway, am I going to die a horrible canned food death, or am I ok?
Frozen vegetables and frozen fruit in smoothies are considerable replacements. Alternatives include looking into sandwiches or wraps using stuff you can reasonably expect to consume in a reasonable amount of time. Could also consider throwing stuff into the oven (oven roasted root vegetables or broccoli/cauliflower and a rice cooker can make a decent meal with very little active cooking and more just watching the clock).
A pressure cooker is also a nice idea along that vein (dump everything in, leave it and come back to some chilli in a few hours).
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I’m 100% sympathetic to the “I want to not eat out but it’s a chore to cook”.
Ovens, pressure cookers, and rice cookers are absolutely wonderful because of how set and check back later they are.
Dressing up even simple foods like ramen with blanched leafy vegetables, poached eggs and some ham is fun.
Furikake is a great way to add a bit of flavoring to white rice. Alternatively some soy sauce and sesame oil are both good pairings for rice and ramen as appropriate.
Wraps can be fun too and may be a nice alternative to bread.
Ramen toppings is one of the only things that saved my sanity in college. I used to poach an egg in the broth while the noodles cooked. Added sushi nori cut into strips, frozen precooked shrimp, frozen corn or peas, and sweet chili sauce where a lot of my faves. Hmm… I wonder if I have any ramen in the cupboard now?
In Canada at least most groceries stores with have frozen mixed vegetables in ‘Asian’ or California’ mixes. Great for a quick ramen stir fry.
I would definitely consider frozen veggies as an alternative to canned veggies. To keep things as simple as possible, you can microwave them and they are ready in under 2 minutes. They taste significantly more fresh, and have way less salt content.
If you are looking for other options with long shelf life, pickled/lacto fermented mixed veggies could also be a great option!