Benefits of a Home-Cooked Meal

photo credit: ebony.com

New study shows that preparing meals at home leads to a healthier diet—and saves money. All that time you spend in the kitchen making your meals can yield some big benefits for your body—and your wallet.

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, individuals who spent more than an hour preparing food each day had a higher-quality diet and a ­greater consumption of vegetables, salads, and fruits than those who spent less than an hour preparing their food, Those who avoided the kitchen also spent more money on food and depended more on convenience foods to quench their hunger in a haste.


Below are the key benefits of home-cooked meals


Natural Ingredients
 
cooking at home allows you to control the ingredients in your food, so you can use natural and or organic ingredients instead of unhealthy processed foods. Processed foods, frequently served in restaurants or available in pre-made meals from supermarkets, are likely to be high in sodium, fat  added sugars and bad sweeteners.  The World Health Organization and several dietician recommend greatly reducing the intake of processed foods. Eating home cooked foods lets you add in more fresh  vegetables and fruits to your diets so that you can focus on all-natural ingredients.


 Healthy Eating and Substitutions

You can use healthier cooking methods and substitutions for unhealthy ingredients when cooking your own meals. For instance, most restaurants would use  oils or butter with trans fats, you can cook at home with non-fat cooking spray or healthy vegetable oils such as olive oil and canola oil. In addition, at home you can substitute unhealthy ingredients for healthy alternatives. For instance,  substituting fat-free milk for whole milk. Also with home cooking,  it will help you control portion while maintaining balanced diet that nourishes your body, stick to your daily calories allowance. 




Special Diet Needs

If you have special diet needs, it can only be fulfilled when you eat food coked at home. For intance, people with certain health conditions like hypertension are supposed to high-sodium/salt foods, diabetics are supposed to avoid all kinds of carbohydrates and sugars. Food with or without certain ingredients that are to be avoided in a person’s health is best cooked at home. Another very important aspect is allergies. Not every restaurant indicate the list of ingredients used in the meal that they prepare. If you are allergic to certain kinds of foods, then there are chances that you will eat food with such as allergen and fall ill.


Economic Value

Eating more home-cooked food is cheaper than going to a restaurant or buying pre-cooked meals. Few restaurant meals are cheaper to buy , and even fast food value items are slightly cheaper to make at home. A University study, reveal that you can make a homemade burger for less than it would cost to buy a fast food burger, for instance, it far more cheaper to make banana chips at home than  buying pre-made one at the supermaket . Preparing food in large quantities, which you can do at home, allows you to be more economical with your money 


In sum, when you cook at home, you can be assured of good food quality. There are a very few restaurants out there that use fresh ingredients. several of them use processed or stale ingredients that may have disastrous effect on health. When you cook foods at home, you are assured of good nutrition. In addition, veggies are washed well and so are the other food items. Food cooked outside also contains chemicals in the form of artificial flavours, colours and preservatives, which are disastrous to health. In fact, when you cook at home, the food is healthier and filled with more nutritive value. You also get to eat fresh foods.