Personally, I buy protein powder even though I know the ingredients are actually too cheap to justify the price. But I’m too lazy, and the reward of a cold chocolate shake after working out makes me forget about the outrageous cost. It’s a little guilty pleasure I’ve come to terms with.
It’s not really cooking tho more like mixing stuff. To make your own protein powder, you need to mix almond flour, flaxseed flour and other high protein flours (pea or coconut etc). Sounds super easy, but than you are still lower in protein (but have higher fiber) than mosts protein powders. To come close to the stuff you can buy, you have to add some other type of protein concentrate (whey / soy protein etc) and if you add costs of all items you get around the same price as the protein powder (almond flour alone is super expensive)… so you have to ask yourself these question: is it really that much more healthy than the protein powder you can get? Is it worth the time I spend perfecting the ratio? Is it really cheaper than getting an average protein powder?
Why does it have to be powdered? Why can’t it be real food?
Because the powder is in most cases a supplement to the food and not the food itself. Having a protein drink after workout does not exclude eating a well rounded (to your needs) meal. It is complementary to it. Yeah you could chug 10 egs or so after the workout, but that isn’t that fun.