The Instant Pot Will Not Solve All of Life’s Problems

There are a lot of fundamental problems with existence, but among the most pressing is that you need to feed yourself three times a day, basically every day, for, like, 80 years. If you’re an American woman, the stakes of food preparation are likely to be even higher. Statistically, you’ll probably get married and have at least one kid, and although your family will probably need you to get a full-time job, you’ll also be saddled with the majority of the domestic labor, of which food acquisition and preparation is an omnipresent component.

Lately, women’s trendiest ally in this battle is a kitchen-dwelling robot pod called an Instant Pot. The Instant Pot’s massive popularity—Amazon of the product during 2018’s Prime Day sale alone—is based on a simple promise. If users insert some ingredients, press some buttons, and pay careful attention to the details of a recipe, then out comes a