The reason is you can make food that gives you great buffs.  You can get foold form vendors but the buffs are not as high and dont last as long.  If you raid haveing a 23 spell dmg buff is great.  As well as haveing 30 stam and 20 spirt in a BG.  It is worth the time to lvl Cooking up IMO.  Make your choice  but taking 5 mins out of every few hrs of play time to lvl cooking is not that much of an effort for the prize at the end.

Blizzard wouldn't make a useless profession.

^
Win.

Im not sure if this was posted before TBC but when you get to 62-64 you'll see just farming the mats and making your food and drink is much less expensive than buying Level 65 req food and drink for 60 silver x5.

This is one of those "just lvl it while you're young and trust me on the benefits" skills.  I utterly ignored both this and fishing until about lvl 45.  Then I began seeing the buff food and started to see how as one poster put it that gathering your food was so much cheaper over time.  When you get to the point where you have thousands of hit points and mana points you can either eat for for a few seconds, or you can sit for about 10 minutes while it comes back naturally (and all the once dead mobs repop around you).

Not a waste of time

I started cooking when I was lvl 30

Even if "well fed" only adds like 2 to stats when I'm lvl 45, I think it's worth it. You have nothing to lose.

Plus the mats are really easy to farm

i am a lvl 31 hunter and i have very low cooking skill, if i want to start cooking again do i have to go back to the starter places to lvl up my cooking

at 31, you could be not too far away from the main city...

at 46, I have started on this also just outside Undercity...
most probably the same case for Ally

Cooking is also very hander if you are a hunter and have a pet that eats fish or meat, as you can cook up some good food for them.

It can also help level your fishing skill if you cook fish you have caught yourself!!

@hanolax
yes and no
you only need the low level raw materials and the materials are not soulbound

you can choose to ask it in trade or get it off the ah. but likely its wont have a lot of it and not as cheap as getting it yourself if your low or midlevel- however if you are in outland it could be cheaper to continue questing and grinding and buy it (since the income is greater that way as the expense of buying will be - lowbies will be happy to supply you if you pay well for their level ;) )

if you happen to have a low level fishing skill as well then thats your best way .. level fishing and cook the fish and get both at once.

alternatively . the cheapest and simplest way is to grind the low level mobs for a bit. of course the best way is to start cooking skill. and one of the first recipes is where you need eggs, get them outside silvermoon city easilly (from the level 6 hawks) (be adviced that the eggs are also used for the xmas event so dont buy them on the auction untill the xmas event is over (additionally .. there might be loads of eggs for pennies when the event is over))

basically .. first get the best recipes where you need only one material and some spice. then go outside and only grind the mobs that drop it.

especially if you have a aoe spell it probably will take less time as you would expect.

most relaxing is leveling the fishing, especially if you are lucky enough to have a dual screen setup .. just watch a movie and cast with a shortcut, hover over the cast and stick your mouse so you only have to rightclick when you hear a splashing sound. then recast, move mouse and continue watching the movie... (of course windowed mode is also a option but you wont be enjoying a lot of the movie :P )

also.  if you have a low level alt, just send all the materials from it to the one your skilling with during the leveling of the alt.. then whenever you have some food you need on the alt you can make it on the main

I main tank for our kara raid group, and I always carry about 5 stacks of spicy crawdads with me at any given time.  The buff they give can be the difference between having 301 hp left and 1 hp.  As a tank, *ANYTHING* that gives you extra stamina is worth bringing.

Our casters always have spell damage food, our healers have healy food, and dps have their appropriate foods like agility, and im not sure if there is one for attack power, but if there is they have it.  Makes bosses go down faster, and players stay alive longer.

You don't have to level cooking, but in our realm the raid foods go for 1g each and up...and I got tired of spending the gold on every raid.  I now can make the food for the other players as well, and everybody <3s me for it =)

Healy food <3 FTW

I love my golden fishsticks :) And they sell for 1.5g each on the AH.  Since one night raiding might mean I need 2 stacks (it's good to come prepared) that's 60g I'll have to buy herbs with so our alchemists can make 'healy' pots, lol.

Healers go through a LOT of consumables: Draenic Wisdom, Healing Power, Mana Pots, superior wizard's oil, and fishsticks :)  So anything you can do yourself to reduce the cost of raiding is good.  Save that money for the repair bill... ^^

Not a complete waste given the buff - but be warned - if you don't fish it may be hard to level. There is a gap around 275 where only fishing or a spore recipe from DM will get you past the gap to be able to quest the next recipe. This is a change - so no more tender wolf or omelets will get you to 285 (required level for next recipe quest).

I've got a char on a medium pop server - don't fish - and have been looking for two weeks to find the mats to gap 10 skill points.

i think that the butcher should not be selling cooked food he should sell the mats for cooking with the meat and that would make things loads better. plus cooking rules in game. it gives buffs and it helps loads with cash too who would shell out cash for a life extending pie. lol

Leveling cooking is not a waste of time.  Leveling cooking by buying ingredients is, at least in the low to mid level range.  Just level it as you go.  Whenever I'm in town and in the mood I go cook whatever I have.  Most times cooked items sell for more than their ingredients.  Also, I save the ones that give a buff.  It's not a skill I actively seek to max out normally, but rather over time I inch it up.  At higher levels it usually pays to process materials into finished products, so why not have the ability?  Just download one of the add ons that helps you manage it, and you can queue up things so you don't have to figure out the best stuff to cook all the time.

at 70 you get an extra daily =)

i think cooking is great to learn, i have been grinding my skill & ive just hit 300, its a good profession to have simply becuase of, as u say, the buffs they give! +stamina, +mp5, +healing it all adds up!
i got stuck at skill lvl 280, and had to grind my fishing skill up from 150 > 280 (major head ache) just to catch the fish i needed to make the recipes to get to 300!

so beware! grind your fishing whilst doing your cooking leveling ;) big tip

^  Two fanboys

wtf are is wrong with people,sigh.  Learn how to spell.

Cooking FTW.  Cooking will make you healthy, wealthy and - with some recipes - wise.  I invested the money and (primarily) time running all over creation to get all the recipes I could and I am very glad I did. 

Even if you're not a fisher (leveling which can be very annoying), you will constantly encounter all sorts of cookable meat in Outland: Clefthoof Meat, Talbuk Venison, Warped Flesh, Ravager Flesh, Serpent Flesh, Chunk o' Basilisk and Raptor Ribs come immediately to mind.  Each of these items can be made into delicious treats that sell for 1-2g per piece (at least on my server).  Ask you non-cooking guildies to send you their meat - which they would probably just vendor for a couple silver - and you have a real profit generator.  Whenever I log on, I check the AH for raw meat / fish and, when priced right, I buy 'em up, fry 'em up and make bank.  Beyond that, your culinary skills will help your guild save money on raid food.

A final benefit of selling food on AH is the ridiculously low deposit needed.  Whereas an expired auction or three can cost you as much as a weapon or piece of armor is worth, a stack of high end food might cost only a 5-10 silver deposit.  This means that inventory is no problem - you can put all you want on AH time and again without worrying about lost deposits eating into your profits. 

some food, the basics will be more than the cooked item.  but i think that's the lower levels...i am only a 30 troll mage, on cenarius server, but what i have found is people are willing to buy the basics to level their cooking.  For example...a stack of clam meat...i don't remember if it was only 4 or 5, or the whole stack of 20, will go for 1.5 gold or more.

Just have to watch, and see...and i think it's all about the fun.  if it's too boring to fish,...let me do the fishing for you.  *winks*

meitchrfoo