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I am not some anti-Mountain House schizo but I have noticed a somewhat annoying trend on Youtube where the outdoor "cooking" meta seems to revolve mostly around just boiling water and eating freeze dried food or ramen. I have nothing against freeze dried meals and MREs and I actually quite like them, but it just feels kind of off to me if you can't actually take the time to cook real food in the woods.
Maybe it's partially because I'm not an ultralight backpacker (I like military surplus, tactical gear, and bushcraft), so to me it makes sense to have a slightly heavier cook kit that lets me do more than just boil water. Not only that, but a Jetboil by itself's weight and volume is similar to that of all the pots and pans have in my backpack. I also love to cook at home and I do not depend on fast food and frozen dinners in my diet, and I suspect that a lot of people who only bring bag meals on the trail don't cook at home much.
