Despite my mom’s incessant half-joking threats that I will never find a husband unless I learn to cook and her earnest attempts to teach me to cook before college, I’ve never had much interest in the culinary arts. Sure, I appreciate a home-cooked meal, and I’m certainly not shy when it comes to trying new and unusual cuisines, but the thought of actually having to prepare said dishes is enough to make me consider living off frozen pizzas and PB&J well past my college years. So it may seem surprising that the most frequently visited channels on my beloved basic cable are the Food Network and the Cooking Channel.

However, these two food channels aren’t just for cooking anymore. Gone are the days when Emeril Lagasse “bammed” his way into America’s heart, teaching us how to make the perfect bowl of Cajun gumbo. And long-gone are the days when we were invited into Paula Deen’s Southern kitchen to learn that “butter balls” are exactly what they sound like (cream cheese, butter and health complications all rolled into one delicious deep-fried ball). Of course, the lack of Paula on our home TVs may be for reasons having less to do with food choice and more to do with word choice.

Nevertheless, over the years, the Food Network and the Cooking Channel have undergone some major transformations, the biggest being the shift from an emphasis on cooking shows to an emphasis on what I like to call “eating shows” as well as food competition shows. Food Network host Guy Fieri is a perfect example of this trend. He first became employed by the Food Network after winning the second season of “America’s Next Food Network Star” and then went on to prove his title not through his instructional cooking show “Guy’s Big Bite,” but through his hit eating show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” where he travels the country visiting local eateries.

And Fieri’s not the only one who has found success eating instead of cooking. Food Network’s favorite female hosts Rachel Ray and Giadi De Laurentiis have also branched out to host eating shows in addition to their cooking shows. Even the Cooking Channel, whose name seems to promote strictly instructional cooking shows, now offers “Chuck’s Eat the Street” and “Unique Eats” along with numerous other eating programs.

In addition to the growing popularity of eating shows on TV, reality competition shows have also begun to take over nearly every network – including the Food Network and Cooking Channel. When it first debuted in 1999, “Iron Chef” was little more than a kooky cooking competition show with a small cult following. Now, 14 years later, it has become the pioneer for other popular reality competition food shows including “Chopped,” “Dinner: Impossible” and “Hell’s Kitchen,” where chefs compete to cook gourmet meals given limited ingredients and limited time. The stakes are higher, the drama is intensified, and, as a result, viewers are much more interested.

So what does all this say about the American viewers who have made eating and competition food shows far more successful than traditional cooking shows? Does it say that our attention spans have shortened, as we are no longer able to sit through a 30-minute program in order to learn how to make a meal? But then again, why should we when we can instead watch a restaurant chef prepare a dish from start to finish in a three-minute segment on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and then multiply it by 10 to fill the half-hour? Does it say that Americans have come to value the final product over the process of obtaining it? Or does it say that Americans have simply become obsessed with drama and can no longer be stimulated by mere instructional programming?

Maybe it says that as Americans we live in a world full of lazy dogs, sleepy cats and noisy yellow ducks ready to eat the bread, with few red hens to do the work to get it. One thing I can guarantee is that my weeknights will continue to consist of me downing boxes of Easy Mac while drooling over whatever new food Guy Fieri has annoyingly gotten stuck in his beard and dubbed the new mayor of Flavortown.