What are the Benefits of Home Cooked Food? Part 1 of 2

What are the Benefits of Home Cooked Food? Part 1 of 2
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Nutritional Value of Home Cooked Food

The major benefit of home cooked food is its better nutritional value compared to restaurant or processed foods. Fresh home cooked food with proper ingredients is richer in nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, and micronutrients and providesmany health benefits.

The benefits of home cooked food in terms of better nutritional value extend to the following:

  1. Cooking at home in low heat preserves vitamin B complex that provides nutrition to the body and mind. The high flames of restaurants and factories destroy the delicate vitamin B complex.
  2. Restaurants tempt patrons with unhealthy choices such as fries, pizza, bread, and desserts. On an average, people consume 50 percent more calories, fat, and sodium when eating out. Cooking food at home enables one to cut off such unhealthy items or ingredients.
  3. Restaurants usually serve big portions, causing overeating of unhealthy and unbalanced food. Cooking food at home allows setting of appropriate potions for each kind of food. A large serving of healthy salad, for instance, can balance a small portion of unhealthy fries.
  4. Restaurant meals tend to veer towards easy-to-cook and low cost but less nutritious foods such as rice and noodles instead of the more nutritious vegetables and whole grains. Cooking at home enables adoption of a whole grain diet rich in fiber, vitamins , and anti-oxidants that prevent many diseases.
  5. Cooking food at home allows incorporation of seasonal fresh fruits and vegetable into the diet. Standardized restaurant menus rarely incorporate such options.

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Avoidance of Harmful Substances

Most restaurant and processed food contain Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a popular additive to improve flavor. Research indicates that regular consumption of MSG causes wide ranging adverse side effects such as depression, disorientation, eye damage, fatigue, headaches, obesity, diabetes, adrenal gland malfunction, seizures, high blood pressure, excessive weight gain, stroke, and other health problems.

The labeling “No added MSG” only means that the manufacturers have not added MSG directly into the product. The ingredients used to make the product could contain MSG.

Other harmful ingredients used by most fast foods and processed food manufacturers are raising salts, baking soda, and certain toxic preservatives.

Cooking at home with adequate care in selecting the right ingredients ensures that the preparation is natural and wholesome, and free of harmful substances such as MSG and baking soda.

Most restaurants procure cooking oil based on the consideration of low costs and enhancement of shelf life of the food, with little regards to the health impact of such oils. Cooking at home provides the option of using healthy mediums such as olive oil.

Among the other advantages of cooking food at home is the possibility of washing and cleaning the ingredients of all dirt, impurities, artificial colors, and pesticides. The tired stressed-out cooks who prepare food in restaurants and factories hardly take the time and effort to wash and clean the ingredients with care.

Control over Quality

Cooking at home provides the option to use the ingredients of choice in meal preparation. This not only helps avoidance of some offensive ingredient from an otherwise desirable food, but also caters to special dietary needs owing to food allergy or some other reason.

The health benefits of home cooked food in terms of quality extend to the following:

  • the use of fresh ingredients. Many commercial oriented fast foods, restaurants, and processed food manufacturers try to finish off their out of date ingredients by mixing stale and fresh ingredients.
  • maintenance of proper hygiene. Not all restaurants and food factories follow good hygiene principles, and consumption of fast food and processed foods run the risk of contaminated food intake that could cause intestinal infections and gastric ulcers.

Other Benefits of Home Cooked Food

Benefits of Home Cooked Food

The most understated benefit of home cooked food is cost savings. People generally tend to spend twice the amount to eat out compared to cooking at home, even when procuring high-end organic ingredients for cooking at home. As a general rule of thumb, a person saves $2 for breakfast, $6 for lunch, and $8 for dinner when cooking at home.

Cooking food at home also provides a means of physical activity, which is in itself a form of exercise. Every member of the family taking part in meal preparation makes it a shared event and a source of greater bonding. Allowing children to participate in the meal planning and cooking process teaches them valuable self-sufficiency skills.

While eating out occasionally has its own advantages, dining out on a regular basis has many harmful consequences. Cooking food at home enables one to enjoy a wholesome and nutritious diet that preempts many diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, and improves eyesight, vigor, longevity, and immunity. Research at the University of Southampton indicates that children with higher quality weaning diets including home prepared foods have a greater body lean mass.

Image Credit: flickr.com/srboisvert

References