Posted on
13 Dec 2020,
in
Life Offline.
I love cooking. It not only gives me satisfaction to cook something delicious but also allows me to make something for others to enjoy. However, it seems that the trend with our meals is becoming driven towards industrialized foods more than ever. We are eating our meals through takeout apps, eating at restaurants or buying microwaveable dinners more often nowadays because it is convenient, fast, and seemingly inexpensive. So is there even a point in cooking for ourselves anymore?
Current Food Industry
Okay, let’s get this straight; times are changing and we can see a shift in our foods being advertised as healthier. It is important that we still need to keep in our minds that these are corporations who are looking for a profit do not always have our health as their top priority. Companies aim at giving us:
Craveable foods that end up making us want to buy their foods even more.
Processed foods with cheap ingredients like salt, fat and sugar.
Convenience to eat snacks/desserts that are usually difficult to make by hand.
This eventually makes occasional unhealthy foods to become everyday foods. This is why home cooking was advocated a lot for those who had problems with obesity.
Home Cooking Benefits
Is cooking for ourselves that much better than having someone else cook for us? One can argue that they pick healthy options when ordering takeout. That is great for those who want to save time and effort that they would otherwise spend cooking the meal. However, this is not always the case. There are many important things we gain from cooking for ourselves. The main thing is to able to control exactly what we eat.
Portion Size: Eat a healthier amount and easier to control our weight.
Save Money: Budget our spending, buying food on sale or in bulk, cook extra for another meal. Able to freeze/pickle foods to extend their shelf life.
Save Time: Some home cooked meals can be quick to prepare and can even be faster than driving to a restaurant. I recommend looking through the reddit page called Eating Healthy On A Cheap Budget as there are many easy meals to make there.
Quality of Ingredients: Pick ingredients that help us to look and feel healthier, boost our energy, stabilize our weight and mood, and improve our sleep and resilience to stress. Diet is very important for our fitness so we need to make sure we get the best ingredients for our bodies.
Source of Ingredients: Get to pick the source of our ingredients. Is the fish sustainably caught? How far did the coffee and wine travel to get here, and did the farmers get paid a fair wage? In most cases outside of home cooking, we won’t know the source of the ingredients.
Food Safety: Able to control hygiene. We can also ensure you wash your hands carefully before preparing and serving meals. 4 million Canadian get food poisoning each year.
Home cooking is also known to be good for our mental/physical health.
Feelings Of Accomplishment: The simple process of cooking at home can be empowering and improve your mood and self-esteem.
Stimulate Our Brains: Can sharpen our mind, fight cognitive decline, and decrease our risk of Alzheimer’s.
Exercise Our Creativity: A 2016 study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people who spend a little time on something creative – writing, doodling, singing, cooking, etc – seem to lead happier lives.
Patience: Cooking takes time. Spending that time waiting is a good lesson in patience.
Stress Reliever: Taking time out from a busy schedule to cook can also be a great stress reliever.
Be More Social: Spend more time cooking for family and eating together. Expand your social circle by inviting friends.
Increased Serotonin: Since home cooking is known to be a healthier option. We can accurately say that we will have more serotonin which helps our sleep, appetite and mediates our mood.
Future Of Home Cooking
Here is a view from Harry Balzer, a renowned expert and speaker on food, nutrition, and the restaurant industry. He said, “We’re all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that’s the future. All we need now is the drive-through supermarket.”
With many online food apps being more prevalent than ever; it is very clear that Harry Balzer was somewhat correct. There are even signs that robots will be in our kitchens to cook for us and we can possibly 3D print our food instead. This alleviates the need to learn how to cook ourselves. So if people are cooking less, what is the point of cooking at home?
Conclusion
Even after all this research about home cooking being less popular, and the thought that many people may believe that home cooking is a thing of the past; I do not believe that home cooking will disappear, especially anytime soon. As convenient as it is to get meals outside of our homes, it is also easier for us to get the resources and tools to learn to cook at home. There are so many articles and videos out there that will help us learn to cook, I even took a couple of courses on skillshare that were so useful in making me more confident in my cooking. The power that home cooking has, is to give us control over our nutrition, budget and overall health and that won’t be easily replaced.
