Health Benefits Of Homemade Meals
Everyone always talks about the benefits of eating at home. It’s no secret that homecooked meals are healthier for your wallet, but few realize how good it can be for your health, too. Eating at home isn’t just the trendy thing to do. It’s incredibly healthy. These health perks might offer you a little more incentive to cook at home.
People often underestimate the impact their financial situation can have on their health. Eating takeout is incredibly costly, especially if it becomes a frequent habit.
When you cook at home, you save a lot of money over the course of a year. The overlooked outcome? Less stress over making ends meet because you saved thousands of dollars by just eating at home.
People don’t realize how many calories are in a typical restaurant meal. The average takeout meal contains a whopping 1,205 calories. If you order out frequently, weight gain will become an issue.
Cooking at home allows you to trim calories, reduce portions, and become more aware of your food intake. The end result? Slimmer waistlines for you and your family.
It’s no secret that prepackaged meals and convenience meals tend to have extra chemicals and preservatives in them. This tends to make convenience food a little dodgy in terms of healthiness.
While the FDA approves all the preservatives in our food, approval doesn’t always guarantee safety. It’s impossible to fully understand the implications of the preservatives and chemicals in our modern food supply.
Cooking at home means you get less preservatives and gunk in your food. And that, alone, means you risk less toward your health.
If you have allergies, this perk to home cooking tends to be the most important one: allergen awareness. Having a food allergy can make a trip to a restaurant or convenience store feel like a game of Russian Roulette.
When you cook your food at home, you don’t have to worry about it being comingled with ingredients you’re sensitive to. You have complete control, and that’s a beautiful thing for food safety.
Is it a cake, or is it a secret vessel for your favorite protein powder? Why not both? Most restaurants, takeout venues, and convenience companies don’t have the chutzpah to add health supplements into their recipes.
If you have been hoping to find a way to make your favorite protein powder, sports supplement, or herbal supplement more palatable, sneaking it into the right recipe can help. Home cooking makes that easy to do.
While many of the perks of home cooking are obvious, some are a little more surprising. One perk involves your ability to be mindful of what you eat.
When you’re in charge of cooking the food, it’s hard to ignore all the effort you put into it. It makes you savor the flavor a bit more than you would in other situations.
While many of us might see the “chore” of cooking as a source of stress, the truth is that it doesn’t have to be. Cooking is a great creative outlet and also lets you create something that you can actually see and hold in your hands.
The trend of “meditative cooking” tells people to focus on the food, rather than stressors at home. Surprised? Don’t be. Cooking has been linked to better outcomes for some forms of mental illness, especially if it’s giving you a chance to meditate.
We have all had moments in restaurants where a chef or a waiter botched our orders. Whether it was a matter of it just being taste (“EW! Onions!”) or a matter of it being a serious dietary requirement (“You served me bacon?! I’m Kosher!”) doesn’t matter.
We all know how aggravating and even hurtful getting the wrong order can be. Cooking at home eliminates that stress and makes it possible for you to custom-tailor your meals to meet your needs.
Did you know that eating with your family can help strengthen your social connections and boost emotional wellbeing? Healthy relationships happen when you all hang out together. That includes hanging out over food.
Cooking at home tacitly encourages people to eat with their family. After all, a hot meal is best when it’s fresh out of the oven. If you’ve been feeling detached from your family, food could be the answer.
When you go out to eat, you probably don’t think about food sanitation. It’s usually a “given” that kitchens keep things tidy…or is it? Unfortunately, food sanitation is not something you can always count on.
You only need to watch one episode of Kitchen Nightmares to realize that things can go really wrong behind the scenes. Eating at home lets you guarantee your own sanitation, provided that you clean up well.
Did you know that doing intellectually stimulating things can help stave off diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia? It’s true, and believe it or not, cooking can help.
Cooking can stimulate your mind and get you thinking. Reading cookbooks, learning about food traditions, and even trying to figure out how to convert milliliters to cups can all help boost your brain activity.
One of the biggest health perks of a home-cooked meal is a long-term effect: a healthier planet. Restaurants, convenience stores, and microwave meals all require more resources to run.
Eating food prepared at home reduces your carbon footprint. A smaller carbon footprint means you help reduce global warming, giving future generations a healthier planet.
It also helps curb the amount of waste we make. After all, those takeout boxes can seriously add up. So, it’s not just about nourishing yourself. It’s about nourishing Mother Earth, too.
