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### Topic

#### Is cooking worth it?

I just did some math after making 200 Meat Tetrazzinis and this is what I came up with:
To make a Meat Tetrazzini it requires the following ingredients:
5 Grain
4 Cherries
2 Allspice
2 Meat
1 Milk
1 Egg
1 Rice
1 Honey
1 Mushroom
1 Tomato
The combined value of all those ingredients is 64 Currants. The energy needed to turn all of these ingredients into a Meat Tetrazzini is 27. Since we know that 1 energy is basically equal to 1 Currant we can conclude that the "cost" to make a Meat Tetrazzini is 91 and the "worth" of the Meat Tetrazzini is 192, which is a 101 profit. However, vendors only buy back at 75% of an items worth, so they only pay 144 for Meat Tetrazzinis, which is only a profit of 53.
Also take into consideration how long you have to wait while cooking/grinding/fruit changing and any energy spent on repairing broken tools, and I start to question if cooking is even worth it?
Perhaps just donating my raw meat to shrines would be more profitable when the amount of time saved is factored in.
So what do you think, is cooking worth it?

Posted 7 months ago by TRB4 | Permalink

### Replies

- I stopped cooking a few months ago. It was partly an issue of it not being worth it and partly just that I didn't feel like doing it (or gardening) any longer. Food is cheap and easy to get in the game and, as you see, it is undervalued financially. Once I stopped, I unlearned all the cooking and croppery skills. I spend my time on other facets of the game.
  Posted 7 months ago by WalruZ | Permalink
- i only make awesome stews as people tend to trade for that.
  Posted 7 months ago by Airya | Permalink
- i want muffins
  Posted 7 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ | Permalink
- I have forgotten all my cooking skills except the ones necessary to make tangy sauce for essence of purple
  Posted 7 months ago by chilirlw | Permalink
- Cooking might be closer to worth it depending on what you make. Meat Tetrazini has a lot of steps and a lot of ingredients. Simpler awesome pot foods may return a greater profit when time is considered along with value.
  If it means anything, I no longer do it ;)
  Posted 7 months ago by Liza Throttlebottom | Permalink
- I've also unlearned most of my cooking skills. Just found myself only 2 or 3 things over and over.
  Posted 7 months ago by sissyO | Permalink
- Worth it? Maybe. But, I still find it extremely satisfying to mix up a batch of Earthshakers and a bunch of Deluxe Sammiches or Lemburgers or whatever sounds good that day. It's just fun. :)
  Posted 7 months ago by Grem Sketch | Permalink
- don't forget that cooking gives some good img rewards too. so that should be factored into the "worth" column. There are some good spreadsheets linked to the forums on the costs/prices of all of these things. At the end of the day I think it's fun, so I haven't unlearned my cooking skills. Maybe if even better skills come along though :-)
  Posted 7 months ago by Lettuce | Permalink
- Unlearning seems silly to me. LEARN EVERYTHING!
  Posted 7 months ago by Listo | Permalink
- I buy awesome stews from auction when they are below 170. The people who cook them are very nice to do it cause I don't like it myself.
  Posted 7 months ago by Tibbi | Permalink
- I enjoy cooking because my daughter is in the game and I love to cook for her. In the real world she lives several hundred miles away but in Glitch I can make dinners for her all the time.
  Posted 7 months ago by Miss Bobbit | Permalink
- Aww Miss Bobbit. :) That is so sweet!
  Posted 7 months ago by Yeti Spaghetti | Permalink
- As Lettuce implied, the real profit in Meat Tetrazinni comes in the form of of large amounts of iMG, rather than currant/energy value.
  Posted 7 months ago by Zigniber | Permalink
- I pretty much never cook anymore.
  It's probably worth doing, but pretty much anything else is more worth doing.
  Posted 7 months ago by E D D I E | Permalink
- I love eating so I have focused to be a cook since my glitchen day. Sometimes I sell the foods to vendor, some other time I just use them to do other things like mining. At any end, I need a lot lot lot stacks of food so it is best to make them.
  I used to love meat terrazinni and expensive grilled cheese so much but I'm considering awesome stew at the moment. It doesn't need multiple cooking and the ingredients you don't have to buy but gathering beans kinda :( because you need to harvest a single tree for a single stew.
  Posted 7 months ago by rosedragon | Permalink
- I cooked for about a week, but really, I find it extraordinarily boring (oxymoronic as it sounds). I'm not a super-duper efficiency-oriented player, and even I got tired of cranking out various ingredients to make one item. I still garden, but I either use that for hooch or to sell.
  Posted 7 months ago by Djabriil | Permalink
- I don't pay to much attention to the economics of the game. I simply do whatever I like to do (except for this housing upgrade, which is kinda forcing me to do an enormous amount of harvesting to collect items required to make expansion items.... I say forcing even though I could *choose not to expand or decorate..I'm aware of the difference)
  Posted 7 months ago by Woochi | Permalink
- I made 40k iMG today from preparing and cooking Meat Tetrazzini and Rich Tagine alone (aside from reflecting all my icons once for the day). I'd say it's worth it :)
  xXx
  Posted 7 months ago by Just Willow | Permalink
- I love the cooking skills, but I don't feel like they're worth the effort/energy/iMG. I cook for the sake of cooking. I make stuff just to fill up a stack. Apparently, I use it because I always wind up running out of something. I very rarely donate cooked items to shrines; preferring to donate the raw items to clear out inventory. With the cooked food, I usually leave it around Ur or give it to an AFK.
  Posted 7 months ago by Jarhaven | Permalink
- iMG conversion than cooking. Long ago this was mediated by limit number of pigs in game, but now with Ur and home streets stuffed with pigs you can simply nibble your way to greatness. Plus, no need to worry about mood, nor is there a big energy sink, so just top off with a few meat along the way.
  I like to cook though, particularly when playing Glitch as an aside.
  Posted 7 months ago by Sturminator i` | Permalink
- Cooking makes more sense if you donate the results to shrines, meaning you get full value with no discount. I make Meat Tetrazzini all the time in batches of 36 for donation, and get more iMG in the process of cooking than I do from the donations.
  I reduce the energy costs thus: start an ingredient prociessing then while it's running beign a focussed meditation. That gives me back much of the energy used and some extra iMG as well.
  Posted 7 months ago by Tiresias | Permalink
- I enjoy cooking in game (I'm even a member of Finley's Catering Service). YMMV if you do not like cooking.
  In regards to Meat Tetrazzini, however:
  Today, I made 576 in one game day and, due to poor planning, had to purchase one of the needed ingredients that I should have been able to grow/harvest myself (rice). Since I also had to purchase the honey (impractical to just find that much in a reasonable amount of time) and mushrooms (no choice there either, really), it has now become one of my least favorite things to cook in the game.
  Now, I did manage to get a fwag ton of iMG for it (even managed 1256 bonus iMG for one batch - woo hoo!). Also, it was for a catering request, so I made 59c profit each (based on your "cost" projections).
  But, between making two sauces to get one other sauce (and the spice "max grinds" therein), using 6 different items that must be harvested from creatures or trees, two items that should be grown and two items that need to be purchased, I think I will be swearing off of it. I certainly swore during it - heh.
  So, in regards to Meat Tetrazzini, nope not worth it!
  Awesome Stew, however? Made of win.
  Posted 7 months ago by foolbunny | Permalink