Why Home Cooking Beats Restaurant Dining

Dining out is, without a doubt, one of life’s great perks, but doing so regularly can lead to not just expense but also bad health. If you’re trying to maintain a toned physique, spending every day at your favourite restaurant isn’t the best way to achieve it. The good news though is that you can recreate some of your favourite dining experiences at home, for a fraction of the cost and calories, and still enjoy the restaurant feel. Restaurants really aren’t your friends when it comes to a healthy diet. You can make things better by opting to have your dressing on the side or your chicken grilled rather than fried, but the real importance lies in the nutritional value in what you’re eating. There’s no substitution for a home cooked meal, where you can really make healthier choices across the board. And once you get into the habit of cooking at home you’ll want to do it more and more! The kitchen is a place where you can really get into a creative mind-set – the world is your oyster with regards to home cooking, so get to work creating some delicious and healthy meals for you and your family. The first step towards creating a good environment for cooking is to ensure that everything is clean and organised. With a little bit of planning and strategy, you can capture the quality and the aesthetics of a really great restaurant kitchen – all conducive to a healthy cooking environment! You also need to ensure that your kitchen is immaculate in terms of cleanliness so as to keep the kitchen a place you want to cook regularly. This means keeping work surfaces clean and uncluttered, keeping the fridge clean on a daily basis and checking the dates on food so as to avoid wasting too many ingredients.

 

You should have one designated shelf in the fridge for uncooked meats, a drawer for vegetables and a shelf for dairy produce, so that everything remains uncontaminated. After you’ve cooked a meal, you should wipe down the stove top, the worktops and anywhere else you’ve handled the ingredients to remove the risk of bacteria forming. Also, you need to maintain your motivation to eat healthily. Create lists for your week for each day of meals so you know what you’re making when, and create a collage of phrases and photos to maintain your motivation to achieve a healthy body – believe it or not, it does actually work! Organise your kitchen so that you keep all of your unprocessed foods together and away from any processed foods that the rest of your family may be buying. This will limit your temptation to snack on things you shouldn’t be. Keep a large bowl filled with fresh fruits next to the blender so you’ll be motivated to make your morning smoothies and juices. Put your grains and measurable foods in clear jars so that you can see them clearly and will be encouraged to use them in your dishes. You should also keep an accurate inventory of the food you have so you can plan your weekly shop properly. These tips will help you to create a really inviting place to cook and eat, so that you can avoid dashing out for takeaways and last-minute meals at restaurants instead of cooking a family meal. So start cooking today and see your wellbeing improve by the second!

Categories: cooking, Food, Healthy, Healthy Eating, Home, home-cooking, kitchen, restaurant

Could Blubber Burgers Encourage Your Child to Junk the Junk?

Every week, families meet at Estes Hills Elementary School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to boost family wellness with a cooking and nutrition programme called Cooking Matters. Hosted by Community Nutrition Partnership (CNP), a non-profit based in Chapel Hill that serves Orange County’s low-income residents, Cooking Matters gives families the tools and skills to plan, budget and prepare healthy meals.

The programme teaches families about how diet affects their wellbeing using an unusual technique; blubber burgers. By putting seven and one quarter teaspoons of fat between two buns, children learn just unhealthy their favourite junk food is. According to second-grade student Simone Brown, ‘It looked creepy! And it tasted horrible!’ The children also converted grams of sugar in beverages, such as Coke, Snapple and Gatorade, to teaspoons and found they need to change their choice of drink.

Simone’s mother Kisa noted that her daughter seriously considers the fat and sugar content of foods before deciding what to eat. Jillian Mickens, CNP program manager, knows just how necessary effective nutrition programmes like this are. ‘People seem to forget that, I guess, especially in an affluent place like Chapel Hill,’ Mickens explained. ‘It’s not hard to find people that need assistance with food or nutrition education or hands-on training about how to cook healthy.’

Estes Hills Principal Drew Ware enthused, ‘Programmes like this are about growing the whole child, which is the vision of the district. It’s about bringing families together with the school.’ Literacy teacher Mary Andrews, who organises the programme, added, ‘You see children engaged in cooking, asking good questions and trying new foods—trying things they would never try when they’re at home.’

Recently, the families met for their final class and graduation, and enjoyed homemade sliders –made from antibiotic- and hormone-free meat – with fresh toppings, fruit and guacamole. Dipping his fork into the guacamole for a taste test, Carol Centeno, a freshman at East Chapel Hill High, commented, ‘It’s perfect. Better than my mum’s!’ Waving his burger in the air, fourth grader Alfonzia Perry, added, ‘Cooking’s great! Just to make something delicious and then taste your own creation—it’s great!’

Categories: Blubber Burgers, home-cooking, nutrition

Student Feels “Popped with a Pin” Thanks to Slimming World

Since she joined Slimming World in January last year, Eimear Lynch has gone from weighing 13st 7.5lbs to 9st 7.5lbs; and from a size 16-18 to a size 8-10. The 29-year-old Liverpool student was delighted when her young nephew asked: ‘Auntie Eimear, has somebody popped you with a pin?’ However, her journey to weight loss wellness wasn’t quite so accidental – or as easy.

Eimear was a size 12 before enrolling on her media and cultural studies course at John Moores University. ‘My weight just crept up and up,’ she says. ‘I found myself squeezing tightly into size 16 clothes – but bordering on size 18 was the turning point. I was feeling frumpy.  I couldn’t wear trendy, fitted clothes and I became really fed up with myself. “I was always a bigger girl but I didn’t realise it. At school, all my friends were conscious of what they ate, but I wasn’t, and it was the same at university where, of course, I drank more too – I was a student!’

Then Eimear started with Slimming World, and the weight began to fall away. ‘It was like I was on a mission, though the fact that you can eat everything, just in moderation, helped,’ she explains. ‘It’s ridiculous how much better I feel, in terms of health and in my confidence. Now I will have porridge for breakfast, with bananas; maybe a jacket potato with beans for lunch and for tea a steak with roasted veg or wedges or a spaghetti bolognese.’

She adds, ‘I used to use jars before, but now I will cook everything from scratch and, for instance, with anything like a cottage pie or a spag bol, I won’t add oil, I will dry-fry the minced beef and the beef will be lean. I am always prepared now so I’m not tempted to snack on rubbish because there’s nothing else or I haven’t time and I always have fruit with me – I eat lots of bananas, apples and watermelon.’

‘It’s ridiculous how much better I feel,’ Eimear smiles. ‘Healthwise, I feel so much better and it has given me such confidence. Before I hated shopping because I would look at clothes and think “well that’s nice, but it won’t look good on me,” now I can just think “oh, I like that”. Now shopping is my favourite thing to do. For the first time this summer I will be able to wear nice summer dresses – I’m planning a whole new wardrobe. I go running now and to aqua running classes – my whole body shape has changed. I feel fantastic, inside and out.’

Categories: confidence, home-cooking, Slimming World

Plan, Cook, Exercise, Drink: Weight Loss Tips

With so many random fad diets and fitness programmes out there, wouldn’t it be nice if someone just listed the wellness steps you can take to lose weight – ones that actually work? Junk the jargon, miss out the marketing, and just follow these tips that can improve your overall wellbeing, and help you to lose weight.

 

Firstly, begin your weight loss journey with a destination in mind. How much weight will you lose? Use your BMI target to calculate how much weight you actually need to lose, and ask a medical health professional to help you set a healthy target. Once you have your goal in place, take a look at your time. Time management is often overlooked in weight loss, but it’s a huge determining factor in your success. In order to sustain your weight loss efforts, plan which part of your day will be dedicated to exercise, when in the week you will stock up on groceries, and when you will do the cooking.

 

Speaking of groceries and cooking, make sure your kitchen is well-stocked with fruits, vegetables, healthy meats, grains, cereals, spices, and flavourers. Then, ensure that you cook using healthy cooking methods and ingredients. Healthy home-cooked meals are a big reason behind anyone’s successful weight loss, so use less oil and salt and more fresh produce, and you’ll start seeing results in no time.

 

When it comes to your exercise programme, you need to have 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity every day. This should involve both cardio exercise and weight training, as any workout that stresses on muscle tone and increased heart rate will always help you lose weight and keep it off. A good way to get moving is by having active hobbies, such as playing a sport, dancing or even cleaning the house, as you’ll be working out without even realising!

 

Remember, stress is always detrimental to healthy weight loss in the long run, so find ways to combat stress such as yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises, or even simple hobbies like reading. Finally, make sure you drink plenty of water as your body relies heavily on water for all important bodily functions. Drinking at least eight glasses of water daily can help to re-hydrate you after exercising and curb your appetite so that you eat less, and so you will consequently lose more weight.

Categories: home-cooking, Time Management, Weight Loss