Why You Should Opt for Home-Cooked Meals Over Fast Food

By: https://www.livestrong.com/article/517636-homecooked-meals-vs-fast-food-meals/ When comparing the nutritional value of fast food vs. home-cooked meals, the meals that you prepare yourself are frequently much healthier. Fast foods and restaurant meals may be high in salt, artery-clogging cholesterol and calories. By preparing your own dishes, you can control the ingredients, substituting sugar-free sweeteners or low-sodium options and including more vegetables and whole grains. Choosing healthy fats for your Read More

By: https://www.livestrong.com/article/517636-homecooked-meals-vs-fast-food-meals/

When comparing the nutritional value of fast food vs. home-cooked meals, the meals that you prepare yourself are frequently much healthier. Fast foods and restaurant meals may be high in salt, artery-clogging cholesterol and calories. By preparing your own dishes, you can control the ingredients, substituting sugar-free sweeteners or low-sodium options and including more vegetables and whole grains. Choosing healthy fats for your recipes will contribute to the health of your heart.

You can also manage the portions you dish out — the larger-than-necessary serving size in most restaurants can lead to overeating. Instead of the 12-ounce steak you might order at a restaurant, you can enjoy a 3- or 4-ounce piece of meat and fill the rest of your plate with healthy veggies, cutting down on saturated fats and upping your fiber intake. Instead of sugar-laden desserts that tempt you at restaurants, you can serve fresh fruit or fruit compote to help meet your daily requirements.

Too Much Sodium

Another difference between fast food and homemade food involves sodium content. At home you’re inclined to use less salt to season meals, but restaurants and fast-food outlets use generous amounts to enhance flavors. Food additives and preservatives also contain salt. Even if the pastries, donuts or bread you buy doesn’t taste salty, you can bet the sodium content is high.

In fact, few realize how much salt is in the restaurant food they eat, as demonstrated by a study published in Appetite in 2017. Americans eat 89 percent too much salt, says Time. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) is 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, which is about 1 teaspoon. Excessive salt intake causes water retention and can raise blood pressure, resulting in possible damage to the heart, blood vessels, brain and kidneys, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.