Cooking at Home Is Good for Your Health

Food prices are soaring and eating out is more expensive. But you can save money if you cook at home and bond with your family, too.

Eating home-prepared food is less expensive and healthier. Food prices have soared, up more than 10 percent in 2022, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Department of Labor.

While your grocery bill is no doubt higher, prices on store-prepared meals, take-out, and restaurant fare are almost always higher than what you can serve at home and are often less healthy. The good news is careful grocery shopping, meal planning and good old-fashioned home cooking can go far to save money — and provide healthier meals with less fat, fewer calories, and more fiber.

After all, most people don’t use a deep fat fryer at home or pour corn syrup into every item. You’d have a hard time engineering your own efforts to be as unhealthy as many convenience foods. Commercial food is designed to push the buttons that make you want to come back again.  

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If you started packing a lunch or skipping Friday night at the steakhouse during a turndown in family income, consider keeping up those new habits. People who eat often in restaurants tend to be heavier, research shows. Eating take-out or store-prepared food is also tied to overeating, higher cholesterol levels, and lower vitamin intake. 

At home, you decide how much salt to add. You can choose olive oil over bacon fat and include favorite vegetables that you or your kids are likely to eat. You can also introduce your kids to new, healthier foods less expensively.

At home, do your kids tend to eat a different microwaved frozen item on their own schedules while watching television or texting? An abundance of research suggests that family dinners help kids learn to eat well. They can protect kids against obesity beginning as early as four, according to a study of 8,550 four-year-olds led by Ohio State University epidemiologist Sarah Anderson, PhD. The tots who regularly ate dinner as a family, had limited screen time, and got enough sleep were 40 percent less likely to be obese.

Family meals also may protect older girls from eating disorders. Although one family meal a week is better than none, that may not be enough. In a study of 4,746 public middle and senior high school students, 18 percent of the girls who said they ate with their families one or two times a week had a dieting problem, compared to 9 percent of the girls in families who ate together three to four times a week..

Not surprisingly, parents eat better too when they’re setting an example. Mothers are less likely to binge if they eat with family at home more often, and fathers cut back on the fast food.

When you do take your kids out, you don’t need to throw up your hands. You might explain that portion sizes in restaurants are much bigger than they used to be and offer to share an entrée. Send away the bread basket, and share or skip deserts.

Over the past decade, calories dropped significantly on newly introduced items, according to a study that tracked the calories on all menu items in 66 of the 100 largest U.S. restaurant chains. In fast-food restaurants, teach your kids to notice any calorie counts listed by items on the menu, and encourage them to try a new, less caloric option by choosing one yourself.

The best way to keep a check on you and your family’s nutrition, calories, and even your food budget is to concentrate on more healthy home cooking. If planning time is an obstacle, the internet can speed and simplify the chore.

Get weekly shopping lists and meal plans from sites like EatathomeCooks, or quickly find recipes all over the internet.

Get your kids involved with online searching and they may even volunteer to help cook, or clean. Kids who do chores flourish.

Some old-fashioned ways such as cooking, setting the table, cleaning up — even conversation — may seem more satisfying, if you happened to let them go for a while.  

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