One of the best things that we can do for our health is to cook our meals at home.
Cooking at home allows you to know exactly what ingredients are in the food you are consuming.
Planning home-cooked meals will allow you to decide the quality of the ingredients that you purchase.
Cooking and eating your meals at home will also save you money.
Meal preparation at home can be difficult for some people.
Many parents with young children work full-time jobs. Often times they don’t have time or energy to invest in preparing home-cooked meals. I completely understand this because I have been there.
When my children were growing up, I often felt stressed out and overwhelmed. I didn’t always make time to cook at home and fast food was often consumed in our home.
Unfortunately, I had no idea about the importance of nutrition. I had never heard of genetically modified foods (GMOs) and toxic pesticides.
So admittedly I made many mistakes. When I did cook at home the quality of our food was often lacking. Chicken nuggets and macaroni was a regular meal that I fed my kids.
With the advances in technology, most of us have access to information. So most of you have probably heard about the importance of nutrition for overall health.
Opting for better food choices and avoiding toxic chemicals is the only way to ensure that you and your children can be as healthy as possible.
Finding ways to make home cooking easier on yourself is key to making it possible.
If cost is an issue to buying organic food, then plan weekend trips to your local farmer’s market.
The food sold at farmer’s markets is usually grown locally. You are able to talk to the farmers and ask questions about how they source their food and what growing practices they use.
You can use this guide from the Cornucopia Institute to help you when shopping at farmer’s markets https://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cornucopia-Farmers-Market-Pocket-Guide_Web.pdf
At a farmer’s markets, you will get good quality fruits and vegetables and in good amounts so you could even go in with a friend or family member and split the cost and food.
Planning ahead is another way to make the process of cooking at home easier. Create a menu for a few days out of the week and prepare a grocery list. Purchase and prepare the items in advance so that you are not spending time at the last minute having to do those things.
Delegate the process amongst family members. Depending on the number of your family members and their ages you can assign duties for everyone to help out.
With everything from washing and cutting fruits and veggies, seasoning meat, cooking, setting the table, to washing dishes after dinner there is a job that almost every family member can do.
There are many reasons to love the art of cooking.
Here are 10 things to consider when deciding whether to pick up fast food or to cook a meal at home with your family.
1. History of Cooking
Food cooking has a long history that dates back to prehistoric times. Archeologists and anthropologists have discovered evidence showing that cooking food dates back as early as 500,000 years ago with widespread cooking fires beginning about 250,000 years ago with the appearance of hearths (brick or stone-lined fire pits). Cooking is an intricate part of human history.
2. Cooking with Love
Cooking represents family traditions and close family ties. During the holidays and for important events many families come together and celebrate by cooking and eating together.
3. Energy Matters
You often hear people say that a meal was made with love and how that affects the taste and the experience of eating that meal. Cooking organic whole foods while in good spirits and in the comfort of your own home will bring positive energy and joy into your life and home.
4. Placebo
The power of the mind is incredible. The Placebo effect is a well-known phenomena, in which participants in drug studies are given sugar pills along with other participants that are given the actual drug being tested and neither the participants nor the doctors involved in the study know which patients are given what and at the end of the studies they have found that participants that were given a sugar pill had improved equally compared to the individuals given the drug and in some cases even better.
The point being that simply the belief that they were being given a drug that would improve their symptoms or conditions, is what helped and not the actual drug.
By cooking meals at home that are made with whole food ingredients while feeling good about your food choices knowing and believing that you are eating healthy nutritious meals will have a positive effect on your health.
5. Ingredients are Important
The types of food and ingredients that we choose are important and will determine the success of that meal both in taste and in the nutritional value. Due to the overuse of Glyphosate and GMOs in our food supply, it is important to opt for organic food as often as possible or to grow your own food. When we eat out at restaurants or pick up fast food we are eating food that has high levels of pesticides and possibly is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), both of which are extremely bad for your digestive health and can lead to all kinds of health concerns and chronic illnesses.
6. Food Choice and Quality
Everyone wants to eat, cook, and prepare easy and quick meals but we also want to make sure that the food we are eating and feeding our children will provide the essential vitamins and nutrients that our bodies need to function properly. Eating processed nutrient-deficient foods essentially puts us at risk for illness and disease, cooking and eating at home can be a way to avoid that.
7. Food is Energy
Human beings derive energy from food. If we eat foods high in calories and low in nutritional value we will end up feeling low in energy and sluggish.
8. Nutrition
I wish I had learned about the importance of nutrition sooner and that by eating a nutritious healthy diet I could feel so much better mentally and physically. We all require certain amounts of vitamins and minerals in order for our bodies and minds to function properly. Far too many people do not have an understanding of nutrition and how the lack of proper nutrition leads to illness and disease.
9. Family Time
Family time is very important and it is often difficult to find time to share quality interaction with your children especially during the workweek. If you usually eat out or pick up food during the week, start off by committing to making 2-3 home-cooked meals a week as a family. Meal prepping and planning can make this a lot easier. Delegating age-appropriate duties amongst family members will help eliminate all of the stress for you as well as give them responsibilities and a sense of helping and being part of the team.
10. Family Cooking
Growing up I didn’t have a close-knit family and I didn’t grow up cooking or eating family meals. When my boys were growing up we did sit down for family meals however, I did not teach them and include them in the meal prep and cooking process. One of my biggest regrets is not teaching my sons how to cook. I hope to change this with my grandchildren. I look forward to teaching them how to meal prep, cook, and the importance of nutrition and good food quality.
