“What’s for dinner?” may sound like a simple question, but for many Kiwi parents, answering it has become a job in itself.
Research commissioned by HelloFresh has found 80 percent of New Zealanders with dependent children said thinking, organising and planning dinner before cooking took more effort than they wish it did, compared with 59 percent of those without children.
Across the wider population, 66 percent of Kiwis felt the same way. The study, conducted by Talbot Mills Research, found the responsibility of making dinner has often concentrated to one person.
Fifty-eight percent of New Zealand adults said they carry most or almost all of the responsibility for deciding and preparing dinner. Women were more likely to carry the load, with half saying it felt almost entirely to them, compared with 29 percent of men.
The findings also showed that the pressure was particularly pronounced among parents and younger New Zealanders.
Eighty-three percent of parents said that making everyone happy with the meal should be easier, while 81 percent said the same about finding time to cook.
Among younger adults, 75 percent of 18–29-year-olds and 76 percent of 30–44-year-olds said dinner planning took more effort than they wish it did, compared with 46 percent of people aged 60 and over.
According to clinical psychologist Jacqui Maguire, much of the pressure associated with dinner can build before the cooking even begins.
The mental load of dinner isn’t just the cooking. It’s being the person who has to remember that dinner needs solving in the first place.
“What looks like one task, getting dinner on the table, is actually a chain of cognitive work: anticipating what the household needs, deciding what everyone will eat, keeping track of ingredients and budgets, and fitting it around everything else happening that day,” said Maguire.
“None of those decisions is particularly demanding in isolation. The pressure comes from their accumulation, particularly when the same person is responsible for anticipating, remembering and coordinating them day after day.”
Maguire highlighted that that distinction mattered because the visible work in a household tends to be noticed, such as who cooked, who shopped and who cleaned up, but much of the cognitive work happens invisibly in the background.
Parents are clear about what would ease that pressure:
- 85 percent said quicker recipes would help reduce the stress of organising dinner
- 80 percent said sharing responsibility would help
- Greater variety would help 79 percent
- 77 percent want meals suited to different dietary needs and preferences
- 64 percent said ingredient delivery would reduce the stress
“Reducing that load isn’t simply about making cooking faster. It’s about reducing the number of things someone has to hold in their head.”
More trends & insights here
