Home Cooked Food
From a mere ape to men, humans have undergone the greatest evolution in physical forms and intelligence, and our dietary habits have evolved over the course of time too. We were primarily dependent on raw meats and plants as a primitive man, and with time we started to take cooked food. So, we learned various techniques to prepare meals, different people started introducing their own kind of food culture depending on the availability of ingredients and cooking materials in the particular location. Now due with time and the advancement of technology and the necessity of a faster and tastier food, infinite number of ways are introduced to prepare our meal. However, the current pace of our society has led to the creation of a new trend in the food culture called the “Fast food”, which is amassing popularity and acceptance from the mass over our traditional “home cooked food”. which is definitely not a wise and healthy choice of us. Home cooked meal is the best and healthiest food for our body and mind.
One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” Luciano Pavarotti, we all ought to pause for a moment out of our busy schedules and decide which vegetables or meat could be best for our body. We eat to live and to live we must eat, our body is what we eat therefore choosing what to eat is very essential for a healthy mind and body. Choosing home cooked meals is our best choice because Restaurants, both fast food and otherwise, are known to be high in calories, sugars, fats, sodium and carbohydrates, and it is also likely they compromise for low nutritional content for a cheaper cost. Even the healthier, low-cal options can contain a very high level of sugars and fats but eating at home, on the other hand, allows you to cut out the unnecessary items in your diet. We are in total control of the food we cook and the food we consume, and also the nutritional intake, we can save a lot more money by eating in! This money-saving strategy will improve our finances and cut down our stress levels. Therefore, home cooked meal is the healthiest and economic than consuming fast foods which are most often wrongly perceived as more economic.
“Part of the secret to success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” Mark Twain. Cooking at home can give us the clean conscience of not only knowing what’s in our food, but how clean our food is. Naturally, we will want to make sure our kitchen and dinnerware are sterile and our ingredients are prepared thoroughly before eating. Cooking at home will give us the peace of mind we need in knowing we have the freshest ingredients (or at least since our last trip to the grocery), and we can be rest assured knowing that our food has been stored and cooked at the correct temperatures. Preparing our own meals and digging in gives us the better choice of eating what is healthier, cleaner, safer and better for our own body.
Cooking our own meals affords us the peace of mind that goes along with having complete control over the type and quality of ingredients in our meals and the degree of cleanliness that goes into the preparation. When we prepare our own meals, we know what our food contains. When dining out, we are leaving the ingredients to the fast food chain or the chef in charge. Preparing meals at home allows us to easily accommodate family members or guests who have allergies or food intolerances, some of which, such as peanut and shellfish allergies, can lead to life-threatening emergencies. A protein named Gluten found in wheat, rye and barley is difficult for many people to digest and causes a serious autoimmune response in some. However, since wheat is so common in the western diet it can be very challenging to find restaurants which can accommodate this dietary requirement, so eating home cooked meal would be much easier, safe and efficient for us.
Like the famous saying “The belly rules the mind”. Food is much more than just something that tastes good and fills up our stomach. What you eat can heal, cause sickness, or even inflict pain. Cooking our own meals can teach us what foods are high or low in certain vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. It will even boost our creativity as we learn to combine nutritious foods to satisfy our palate. The physical act of preparing our own meals will lead to a newfound appreciation for the food you consume. This is very important since mindless biting and eating fast food and junks can contribute to unhealthy weight gain. When you are conscious of what you prepare and consume it will make you less likely to overeat. So consciously selecting our menu and preparing ourselves can help fight or prevent the most common depressing issue of obesity by simply choosing home cooked food.
Family dynamics can be greatly improved with more meals at home with family. It is also a great teaching tool for parents to instill healthy eating habits in their children and greatly benefit from the ritual of preparing and eating meals together. Even several studies conducted by the University of Michigan found eating family meals at the dinner table is associated with fewer psychological issues and higher academic success in children and promoted sociability in the family. More over according to Washington State University nutrition researchers Martha Marina and Sue Butkus, statistically children who grow up in households where meals are eaten together tend to show less tendency toward engaging in risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking, violence and taking drugs,.
On the contrary, in the fast moving country like America fast foods have become very popular as it is considered cheap and tastier. Approximately 3% of Americans admit to eating at fast food restaurants at least once a day. That's about 9.5 million people who chow down on quick meals. But do we really compromise the adverse effect of fast food, for the purpose of saving money? Most fast food items are usually cooked in fat like French Fries and Donuts, which makes these foods calorie dense. Eating such can lead to undesirable weight gain(obesity) and many other increased health risks like diabetics, heart attack, liver failure, stroke, etc. “If we’re not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn’t settle for junk food.” Sally Edwards, as rightly said, fast food is junk and for healthier life we ought to avoid fast food as much as possible for there are better alternative called the Home cooked food which is much safer, cleaner, value added food. Although fast food sounds cheap, the much worst effect it causes to the health in the long run would be far more expensive in terms of both wealth and our health, so people who are fast food lover and obsessed, should start taking a major change in their eating and selection of food.
The second reasons for people choosing fast food over the great home cooked food is the time it saves for people who eats fast food, people believe eating fast food saves their time of preparing the meal at home and gives them some extra time to do other meaningful activities. Yes, it is agreeable up to some extent but there is little difference even if we prepare our own meals and the good effect home cooked food provides us far outweighs the time we save taking fast food. First cooking our own meals provides us with an opportunity to be creative, be aware of what we are eating, and when we dine with our family together, we inculcate values and we don’t need a separate time to teach our kids about healthy eating habits. Moreover, eating home cooked food saves our health and we won’t need to visit hospitals frequently. So, in the long run fast food would take more of our time, visiting doctors and taking care of our health. Like the famous slogan “Have Fast Food, Have Fast Diseases”. Fast food just doesn’t save time but also poses us a greater risk to our health and life. While home cooked food provides us much more values and does all the good.
“We have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education, and it's impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.” Ken Robinson, explains it explicitly what fast food does to our values, spirit, energies and to our physical health for the mere compromise of saving time and temporary conveniences. However, home cooked food which is far value-added meal and safer, provides us with much more mesmerizing options. It is cleaner, well managed and regulated ingredients, gives us time for family interactions and instill healthy eating habits to the children when family dines together. It is safer to our mind and body, so it saves us the cost and time of visiting doctors and getting treatment later. Therefore, Home cooked food is the best! and always try as much possible to eat home made food.