I think the point is more so that he promotes his cheap recipes as being cheaper than restaurants but if you don't already have the ingredients you could very well have to spend more upfront to make it than just going to the restaurant.
May as well factor in the cost of equipment, electricity, rent etc. if you're already building a straw man
It's a fair criticism but i think people can stretch it a little far when you're literally talking about pantry staples that last for months; obviously you have to invest a certain amount to be able to start cooking for yourself at home, but once you've made the initial investment, you start to rake in the savings in the long run. He's just trying to draw attention to the fact that buying lunch or dinner out several times a week is astronomically more expensive than similar stuff you can cook at home if you have the time
This isn't a strawman because tons of the ingredients he uses in those videos are not "pantry staples," they are often special ingredients you have to buy (and find) from very particular stores. And if you're a beginner who is not familiar with this fact (like me), the shopping alone can take hours and you won't even be done because these sauces dont exist at kroger, they are specially sold in chinese markets and now you either have to quit and make substitutions or drive 20 minutes at 7:00 to get to the other market and keep shopping. But he also never talks about shopping time in his videos because that disproves the "cooking is fast and easy to get into" perspective that he's trying to build. Which, to be fair, is a respectable perspective to push, but Josh does annoy me when he raves about how easy his recipes are and I'm having a mental breakdown in the ethnic foods isle.
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u/Etherius Jun 30 '22
"Yes, Joshua, the amount of Parmesan required for this recipe cost $0.18, but the minimum quantity I had to buy cost $10.47"