How To Stop Eating Takeout All The Time
No time, no cooking know-how, no money: Excuses be gone! (Photo: Getty Images)
Does dinner usually involve swinging by the drive-thru, calling the neighborhood Chinese takeout joint, or popping a sad frozen meal in the microwave? Don’t freshly prepared vegetables and meat, prepared in your own kitchen, sound so much better? For many Americans, lack of time and know-how — coupled with perceptions that cooking at home is costly or elaborate, or that it’s stressful to prepare meals after a long workday — can hamper home cooking efforts. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
WHY YOU NEED TO MAKE THE CHANGE
Research shows that people who frequently cook at home not only eat more healthfully, but also consume fewer calories when they do go out. A recently published study in the journal Public Health Nutrition examined survey data from 9,000 adults, and showed that people who cook six to seven nights a week consumed less — 2,164 calories, 81 grams of fat, and 119 grams of sugar — than people who cook dinner once a week or less — 2,301 total calories, 84 grams of fat, and 135 grams of sugar.
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Other research also shows an association between home cooking and other health benefits — a longer lifespan being one of them. A study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University also showed that frequent family dinners are associated with lower teen substance use.
HOW TO DO IT
If you think you have no time to cook a healthy dinner, get that myth out of your head. “I tell my patients, ‘You can cook an amazing, delicious meal in less than 30 minutes,’” nutritionist Keri Gans, RD, author of “The Small Change Diet,” tells Yahoo Health. “It can take longer to dial the phone and wait for delivery.”
One big time-saver: Planning meal prep. And that planning can literally take place on your way home from work, Gans says, though if your excuse is you don’t want to take time to stop at the store on your way home, then do your meal prep on the weekend. Try roasting a big batch of vegetables (you can even buy them pre-cut-up!) or buying and cooking chicken breasts in bulk on Sunday afternoon, to eat throughout the week. And whatever you don’t end up using, you can freeze. (Bonus: Buying in bulk also saves money!)
Another tip is to keep easy-to-cook foods in the kitchen so you can prepare food on the fly. “I always recommend having five to seven staple items in your fridge and pantry that you know you can make two to three go-to, fast, simple, delicious meals [from,” says nutritionist Keri Glassman, RD, founder of Nutritious Life and The Nutrition School, tells Yahoo Health. “The depth and complexity can obviously vary a lot depending upon skill and time, but the habit is a good one for everyone.”
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Gans also notes that you don’t have to cook your entire meal from scratch. Look for timesaving produce options like canned and frozen vegetables (just look out for low- or no sodium for the former and sauce-free for the latter) or bags of vegetables that you can steam in your microwave.
OK, so cooking dinner at home sounds great and all… but what if you don’t know how to cook? Firstly, anyone can cook. “We need to take away the thinking that a [dish] has to be filled with a lot of ingredients, that is has to be something fancy,” Gans says. “People have to realize it can be very, very simple.” So you don’t know how to cook chicken — try picking up a roasted chicken from the grocery store, which can then be cut up and used for the next few meals. Stick a potato or sweet potato in the microwave, or put a piece of fish under the broiler. And again, canned, frozen, and bagged vegetables are also great options.
Finally! You Can… is a Yahoo Health series empowering you to achieve your wellness goals — once and for all.
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