The results of a study by vouchercloud.com found that 18-25 year olds in the UK are only cooking on average two of their evening meals per week after leaving home.
Students were found to be more likely to go home to their parents or order takeout food than cook for themselves.
2,413 UK adults between 18 and 25 who had moved out of their parents’ home within the last 2 years and were single took part in the poll.
The questions began with ‘what was your main motivation for moving out of home?’ and the most common answer was ‘independence’ (42%), followed by ‘needing my own space’ (25%) and finally ‘university’ with 21% of those asked citing this reason.
Furthermore, when asked what the hardest thing about living away from home is 39% replied with ‘cooking’, 36% with ‘cleaning’ and ‘waking up on time’ with 27%.
Finally they were asked how many meals per week they cook for themselves and why they didn’t cook more. The results showed that on average 18-25 year olds only cook two meals per week, and the most common reasons were that they don’t know how to cook many meals (28%), an inability to cook (27%) and laziness at 25%.
“Hopefully, parents will look at the results of this study and spend more time with their children in the kitchen before they fly the nest and discover they can’t in fact fend for themselves”
They were also asked where they would get the remaining meals. Answers showed that 61% would get it from their parents’ home, 59% would rely on takeaway food, 50% would simply snack instead of cooking a meal, 41% eat at restaurants and 32% would eat with friends/parents.
27% admitted that they hoped to find a partner to cook for them and it was revealed that on average young adults spend £32:00 per week on takeaway/restaurant food.
Furthermore, when asked how much they would spend on food to keep in the house the average answer was £15:00 per week showing that young adults on average spend over double on takeaway/restaurant food than food to cook at home.
Chris Johnson, Head of Operations at vouchercloud.com, stated, “Hopefully, parents will look at the results of this study and spend more time with their children in the kitchen before they fly the nest and discover they can’t in fact fend for themselves.”
Hannah Eves
Image: Flickr Nicole Abalde
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