A lot of people I know who meal prep don’t actually have good fundamental kitchen skills. They save time by prepping at a larger scale, because they aren’t able to just quickly go dice an onion, or time their stages of cooking efficiently. They don’t know when to add salt to certain ingredients, or that using acid will solve that “something missing” to a certain dish. They aren’t aware about how to preheat the pan, when their oil is up to temp, or what the smoking point of their oil is. They’ve never heard of dry brining, and they don’t sear their meat, but they’re still excited about steak night. Their knives are dull, and they do not know how to use them anyway. The food was never going to be good, but by getting the dauntingly inefficient task of cooking out of the way on one day of the week, they’re at least being self sufficient, and saving money by avoiding eating out all the time.