There's also cost and logistics factors at play. Most young people don't have yards for gardens enough to grow their ingredients, and the cost for that can be prohibitive even if you have the space. Also, families are smaller and those packaged ingredients come in sizes that are more manageable for smaller volume meal preparation. Additionally, precooked and processed food is all too often far less expensive than the separate fresh ingredients.

Now, in my case, I'm allergic to so much that I rarely by the precooked and processed stuff. But, I do buy packaged ingredients.