Yes, much more, in my case. My transition from a standard American diet took a couple years, but is one of the biggest improvements I've made.
I get most of my fruits and vegetables through a CSA or the farmers market, which use much less packaging than any store or restaurant I've seen. The farms are within a couple hours' drive.
I get most of the rest -- mostly dry legumes, nuts, and spices -- from a bulk food store a couple blocks away, filling containers I bring with me. I also avoid packaged food, as I document in this blog post: http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging, which has improved the deliciousness, freshness, savings, convenience, and healthiness of my diet.
All the restaurants I know of buy their stuff directly from markets early in the morning.
In London, restaurants all pile down to Smithfields, Spitalfields and Billingsgate markets at the crack of dawn for their day's ingredients - they don't go down to their local supermarket and walk around with a basket.
They fill up their crates with the stuff they buy and head back to their kitchens.
> And my homemade food is more delicious, convenient, cheaper, healthier, etc.
I get everything else you are saying, but how is homemade more convenient?
Convenience is the most important reason (for me) to do take out. Normally its picked up when already out on the way home, no time spent preparing/cooking, no time spent cleaning up (except the extremely bad part of throwing it all in trash)
It's more convenient because I cook many meals at once so have several containers worth of meals in my fridge almost all the time.
Also, when meeting people, I have them over for lunch or dinner more than before learning to prepare food from scratch, business and personal, so meeting gets easier. And cheaper -- I save money cooking them and me dinner compared to eating out and just paying for me, though they usually bring something with them.
Plus it deepens the relationship faster to cook at home and share, so there's a convenience in shortening the get-to-know-each-other part of a relationship.
The picking it up takeout on the way home part is an inconvenience. As is dealing with paying for it. I pick up my CSA delivery once a week, but it's one of the highlights of the week. Seeing all the fresh fruits and vegetables, the anticipation, the creative challenge of figuring out how I'll combine and prepare them... I'd choose it over going to art galleries, movies, or many social things. In fact, I bring people with me to pick them up as a social event.
In summary, food becoming an enriching part of my life replaces a lot of time wasters. Healthier food means less exercise time and cost for the same fitness, etc.
I don't follow recipes, but make tons of vegetable stews in the pressure cook.
This video -- http://joshuaspodek.com/20-minute-vegetable-stew -- shows how I do it. The video isn't supposed to be entertaining or glamorous, just showing how I make a half-dozen meals in about 20 minutes' preparation time.
People give the stews rave reviews. The same technique as in the video with different vegetables gives very different stews. Following the same process as different vegetables come in and out of season... I've never tasted the same result twice, but they're always delicious.
1. Phone for delivery, and they will say "45 minutes" (it will probably be here in 35).
2. Phone an order for me to pick up, and they will say "half an hour", and I'll go and get it, and it will probably take me 10 minutes to get there and back, again 35 minutes.
3. Take a small detour, and spend 10 minutes sitting at the food vendor (as in your example). How convenient this is depends on how big the detour is. If you are on foot, even a small detour can add quite a bit of time. If you are driving, parking up and walking between car and vendor is an oft-ignored time sink.
4. Spend 20 minutes preparing and cooking, then eat. Put the leftovers in the fridge or freezer.
5. Get something I made earlier in the week out of the fridge or freezer, put it in the microwave for 3-5 minutes, eat it. (Granted, the same is true if you over-order your takeout)
Options 1, 2, and 3 all rely on the vendor being open and not too busy at the time I decide I want the food.
If you only ever eat out or takeout, hire a cleaner, and have someone do all your laundry, you might be able to get away without doing any grocery shopping. In which case, adding such shopping to your weekly routine might add an extra hour. However, if you do already have to do that shopping, then spending an extra 20-30 minutes each week in the supermarket choosing vegetables is likely to be more convenient than stopping off at a food vendor each day.
Depending on the variety of food vendors available on your route home, and the size of their menus, you may be stuck eating pretty much the same thing every night, or having to take larger detours, or make special trips to get something different (negating the convenience). If you cook at home, then there may be a few dishes requiring exotic fresh ingredients that you can't have, but beyond that, the world is your oyster. You can get a lot of variety from basically the same stuff put together in different proportions.
Yes, much more, in my case. My transition from a standard American diet took a couple years, but is one of the biggest improvements I've made.
I get most of my fruits and vegetables through a CSA or the farmers market, which use much less packaging than any store or restaurant I've seen. The farms are within a couple hours' drive.
I get most of the rest -- mostly dry legumes, nuts, and spices -- from a bulk food store a couple blocks away, filling containers I bring with me. I also avoid packaged food, as I document in this blog post: http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging, which has improved the deliciousness, freshness, savings, convenience, and healthiness of my diet.
I compost and recycle so my landfill garbage gets emptied about twice a year, as shown in this video: http://joshuaspodek.com/leadership-environment-podcast-5.
One takeout meal produces months worth of garbage so in my case the difference is orders of magnitude.
And my homemade food is more delicious, convenient, cheaper, healthier, etc.