Eating a whole food based diet is critical to good health; however, our busy lifestyles have forced us to rely more and more on fast food, pre-made and packaged meals.  Reliance on these “convenience” foods has not only contributed to the rising obesity epidemic, it has also created a generation (or two or three) who have never been taught how to cook.

Cooking is critical to regaining good health.  It gives you control over food choices and what’s in the food.  The ability to chose and use better quality ingredients can make a big difference in your health without great expense.  Most fast, pre-made and packed foods contain high amounts of sugar, sodium and other low quality ingredients.  When cooking at home you would use real salt NOT MSG, real sugar NOT high fructose corn syrup (or any of the many other chemically derived sugars our bodies don’t recognize), good quality fat such as olive oil, butter or coconut oil NOT a cheap quality vegetable oil. These differences can make the difference between improving or worsening health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and cancer just to name a few.

Cooking doesn’t have to be difficult.  The key is balance.  See https://www.choosemyplate.gov.  A balanced meal could be baked/broiled meat or fish, brown rice, potato or quinoa cooked with butter, and vegetables cooked with butter.  Spaghetti with whole grain noodles and ground turkey or beef and vegetables is also an easy balanced meal. Google “easy healthy balanced meals” for more ideas.

Teaching our children to cook is key to the future of their health. We are now faced with rising rates of obesity in children because of the lack of time or inability to cook.  No one makes time for health issues, they just happen. Make the choice now, cook!

ref: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/obesity/facts.htm