Top 10 Benefits of Cooking and Eating at Home (Healthy You!)

Benefits of Cooking and Eating at Home

We have always been huge advocates of cooking and eating at home! So here are 10 of our top benefits for getting out those pans, firing up that oven, and doing some healthy cooking!

1. Cooking at home is one of the most important things you can do for you and your family’s health.

Cooking at home is so much healthier because you can serve more nutrient-dense foods. A typical fast food meal does not contain the proper nutrients to keep a family healthy and fit.

Restaurant meals can just as bad for you as fast foods, with the same amount of calories, salt and fats.

2. You control portion sizes, which helps control the size of your family!

We are all starting to be more aware that portion sizes have gotten out of control and so have our waistlines. By learning proper portion control, we can start to control the amount of food that we serve and eat.

When serving carbs like pasta and rice, use a measuring cup until you learn the correct portion sizes. 1 cup of pasta and 1/2 cup of rice.

3. Kids love routine and rituals. Dinner hour would be considered both.

Kid thrive on routine and quite honestly, so do many adults. Life can be uncertain at times and dinner hour can provide a much needed sense of stability.

Cooking at home provides a chance to set a time for dinner and stick with it. The dinner bell doesn’t have to ring right at 5:00 though, dinner can be later in the evening when schedules are hectic.

4. You control the salt, fat, and sugar that goes into your foods.

This is one of our favorite pitches for cooking at home! You control all that salt that is loaded into fast foods. And we won’t even go into the fats and sugar …

5. You save tons of money!

Families can spend close to or more than $300.00 a month eating out. That’s a lot of extra money for most families. When you start shopping with a grocery list and a plan, and start eating more at home, you will be amazed at the amount of money you will save.

6. Families that eat at home eat more vegetables.

We also love this one! Families that eat at home together prepare more home-cooked vegetable dishes and eat more vegetables. It’s easy to plan more healthy vegetables into our meals when we spend time going over our weekly menu. And who doesn’t love finding a new recipe for veggies cooked a different way?

7. Families that eat meals together get more bonding time.

It is true that children that have home-cooked meals together are a little closer to their parents. Bonding time over meals is very powerful, and this is also a good chance to fill your kids (and parents) with wisdom gained from the other folks at the table.

8. Spend time cooking with the kids.

Cooking with kids can be a lot of fun! Children that learn to cook young have an advantage over those that do not. Learning how to cook is one of the life skills that is necessary to learn in order to have a healthy life.

9. You know where your food came from and how it was raised.

Well, we certainly have learned a lot in this decade about how our food is being prepared and raised. There are many questionable practices that we have just recently become aware of. When you shop for your own food, you have a chance to read all the food labels and become more aware of what is in the food.

10. Cooking at home will make you a much better cook!

Every time you cook at home you get just a little closer to Julia Child! If you strive to make cooking fun, you will find that you really don’t mind pulling out those pots and pans and you will become a much better cook.

Conclusion – It really is healthy to cook and eat at home, but sometimes it’s just not possible. Remember – cook extra and freeze some for those times you don’t have time to cook, instead of ordering out. Finding time can be a challenge, but hopefully here at DinnerPlanner.com we can provide some much needed help.

Benefits of Meal Planning