There are some necessities in life one of the major one is eating a healthy meal daily. There are a lot of pros and cons to cook at home. Start cooking real, whole foods from scratch and you’ll be amazed to see the pounds drop off. Not only because you’re avoiding chemicals but also because you’re cutting out all that extra fat, sugar and salt.
Check out the many reasons why it is better to cook your meals at home
1. Firstly, it is cheaper to cook at home than to buy take-out or eat at restaurants night after night, especially once you’ve gathered some basic ingredients. If you find a few recipes that appeal to you, make a list, and buy only what you need, you can make a week’s worth of dinners for about the same amount of money you’d spend in a mid-range restaurant for two or three meals. At the same time, there are always leftovers when you cook at home. You can use these meals for lunch the next day. That will eventually same you tremendous amount money.
2. Secondly, cooking for yourself, is healthier.You control the amounts of fat, sodium, carbohydrates, or any other substance. You can buy fruits and vegetables in season and at their peak of flavor and nutritional value rather than settling for browned lettuce or fruit that tastes like cardboard. Portion control is as easy as deciding how much food to put on your plate, eliminating the temptation to eat all those fries that came with your restaurant burger. Restaurant food uses a lot of butter and heavy cream that can be high in calories. That makes it easier to stick to a diet plan.
3. Cooking for yourself allows you more flexibility than using prepared foods or ordering at a restaurant. At home, if you don’t like black olives in your pasta, don’t use them. If you like extra basil, add it. You can use olive oil instead of butter, or soy milk instead of dairy. The choices are limitless.
4. Your meals are suited to your taste, every time. What restaurant can do that for you? Some of us like spicy food while others prefer less spice. same lies with salt and sugar. At home you get the food suited to your taste every time.
5. You can adjust the servings: You may have noticed that in most restaurants your favorite restaurant recipes come in adequate servings which may sometimes lead you to crave for more. This means, another serving main mean an add-on to the bills. When you cook your favorite restaurant recipes at home you can have the freedom to adjust the servings to your liking. Instead of just having one round of your favorite dish, you can have as much as you want with your proper proportion and estimate.
6. Cooking at home can be faster than going out.Add up the time spent driving to a restaurant, waiting to be seated, waiting to be served, eating, paying, then driving home again. You could have fixed something simple and tasty much faster and been more comfortable in the process – shoes off, favorite music on the stereo, relaxing in your own home.
7. Avoid intake of unwanted chemicals & additives: All the techniques used to process food – canning, dehydrating and freezing – virtually destroy the flavor of food, so chemicals under the guise of “natural flavors” have been added to enhance the flavor, while color additives are added to make the foods look fresh. It might make the food look and taste better, but it’s not doing much for our bodies. Monosodium glutamate is in almost all processed food and certainly in almost all fast food out there. All sorts of medical studies have revealed that MSG causes obesity, along with a lot of other nasty things. It’s a chemical we should never put in our bodies, and yet it’s something that is in virtually every processed food we buy. Free yourself from MSG by cooking from scratch at home.
8. You would probably eat less at home since you can save it for later. However, you might eat everything at a restaurant because you do not want to throw away the food you paid for.
9. Better Health: The fewer chemicals you have in your body, the better your health will be. Studies have shown that chemicals can cause obesity and cancer, along with neurological complaints. The better you feed your body, the longer you will live with a greater quality of life.
10. The last advantage in cooking your favorite recipes at home is that, the more you get to cook recipes the more you practice and master the dish that you like. This in turn will open doors to tweak your own recipes from the existing recipe that you have been practicing and maybe you can come up with your own recipe. As the saying goes practice makes perfect, this is the best way to level up with your cooking skills and be a chef of your own.
Above all, cooking a great meal with your spouse or B.B.Q with your family can lead to some unforgettable memories. Always eat and share time with your family at the table.
There’s no greater feeling than knowing you cooked a fabulous meal for yourself, saved money, saved time and improved your health. So go ahead. What are you waiting for? Rattle those pots and pans and enjoy!