Cooking at Home is Back on the Front Burner

By Janet Helm, MS, RD

During these tough economic times, people are returning to the kitchen. In fact, the share of family meals eaten at home is approaching a 20-year high. That’s not only fabulous news for saving money, it may be one of your best strategies for achieving a healthy weight.

The evidence is rather convincing that the more time we spend making our own meals, the healthier and trimmer we’ll be. Harvard researchers took a global view of family meals and found that the more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. When they tracked U.S. food preparation throughout the years, they found that when we don’t cook our own meals, we actually eat more of them. As the amount of time cooking has dropped, the number of meals we eat in a day has climbed. Since the late ‘70s, we’ve added about half a meal to our daily intake.

More and more studies also show that family meals benefit children in a multitude of ways. Children and teens who share family meals three or more times per week are significantly more likely to be in a normal weight range and less likely to engage in disordered eating, according to a study in Pediatrics. Another study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that the odds of being overweight or obese were considerably greater when families reported at least one away-from-home dinner purchase in the past week.

For the majority of American families, the evening meal is now prepared an average of five times per week. The majority of women in a recent survey say they rely on cookbooks for their dinnertime inspirations. That’s fine, depending on the cookbook. Cornell University researchers examined how some cookbook recipes have changed during the past 70 years. They found a nearly 40 percent increase in calories per serving for nearly every recipe reviewed. This jump represents about an extra 77 calories. This was primarily due to changes in serving sizes and ingredients (extra meat instead of vegetables, more sauces, butter or sugar). Plus, families have gotten smaller, so a dish that once was eaten by 8 people is now consumed by 4.

Fortunately, that’s changing and now there are so many healthy cookbooks to choose from (including one that I’m writing along with the editors of Cooking Light magazine), and there’s a tremendous collection of blogs today that focus on nutritious and delicious food. Check out Healthy Aperture to get a snapshot of what’s healthy on the web.

So let’s rejoice in people cooking more at home. But it’s important to remember that the problem of portion distortion is not limited to restaurant meals. Keeping an eye on portion size is important at home too. Switching to a smaller plate will help. Cookbook portions may have gotten larger, but so has the size of our dinner plates. It all comes down to how much you eat, no matter what recipe you’re using.

Do you find yourself cooking at home more often? What are your favorite dishes to prepare? Share your thoughts in the comments below or in our Food and Cooking community.