Good morning! It’s Thursday, which means it’s almost Friday! Woo hoo!
I would like to first point out that I have added a gardening tab up top. On that tab you will find a lot of gardening resources, from websites to books to blogs. I have also added a PDF 2010 calendar which you can use for garden planning this season. I will be adding to this tab all season long as I find new great resources, so check back periodically.
On to today’s topic – eating at home instead of eating out. Why would you want to eat at home when you could just eat out? Well let me give you 10 great reasons to cook at home and avoid the restaurant:
1. You know exactly what you are eating. Since you prepared it, you know what’s in it. Who knows what’s going on back in that restaurant kitchen!
2. You save money. You can cook a delicious and nutritious meal at home for much cheaper than eating out.
3. You consume fewer calories. Research shows that people consume fewer calories when eating at home compared to eating at restaurants. No giant dinner platters with three servings on them in your own kitchen.
4. You not only consume less calories but you also burn calories. Washing dishes by hand burns approximately 151 calories per hour for an average 145 pound person. Not to mention cooking, which burns approximately 139 calories per hour for the average 145 pound person. Do 30 minutes of each and you’ve just burned 145 calories.
5. You can fix your meal however you want. Cook your food to suit your own personal tastes.
6. You can spend quality time with your family while preparing and eating a home-cooked meal. Hear about everyone’s day and linger at the table as long as you want.
7. Cooking at home regularly makes eating out more special. When you don’t eat out all the time, that birthday or anniversary dinner out at a restaurant is that much more exciting. And since you’ve been saving money by eating at home (see #2) you can afford to splurge on a bit nicer restaurant that you normally would.
8. Leftovers! Save the dinner leftovers and eat them for lunch the next day. Saves even more money (see #2).
9. Cooking at home is actually faster than eating out (other than drive through). Add up the time you spend driving to a restaurant, waiting for a table, deciding what you want, waiting to order, waiting for your food, waiting for the bill, and then driving home. In that amount of time you could have prepared an excellent dinner at home and avoided all that waiting!
10. Do you really need another reason? Review the first 9 reasons!
Okay the last one was sort of a cop out but it just seemed wrong to call this post “9 Reasons to Cook at Home”. 😀
Did I forget anything? Are there any other great reasons to cook at home instead of eating out?
Everything Is Homemade 
I have three more great reasons to cook at home rather than eat out:
1. You can reduce the original calorie content of a recipe by swapping out lower-cal ingredients, and I found that I can boost my kids’ veggie intake in almost every one of our meals by adding veggies to the main dish (even when it doesn’t call for them)
2. Cooking at home means an opportunity to teach your kids kitchen basics as well. I cannot tell you how many people I know that don’t know how to cook simply because their parents never showed them. The next generation will be even worse, I imagine.
3. Creating wonderful food memories! If I never cooked at home, my kids would never tell me that my meatloaf (or gravy, or waffles, etc.) is THE best in the WHOLE world. I will never forget my mom’s potatoes au gratin (which were THE best in the WHOLE world) and my kids will never forget mine, either.
Obviously I’m not a vegetarian, so sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in with the rest of your readers, but I love how practical you are and I can’t help but come back every few days and catch up on your posts. Keep at it!
Hi Mia! I love the reasons you added. Cooking with kids is such a wonderful opportunity to teach them about food and lays a great foundation for the rest of their lives. At least I think it does – I don’t have any kids yet so I can’t say from experience. 🙂
And thanks for the kind words! I’m glad you are getting some value from this blog!
I completely agree. One of the reasons I love to cook at home is the fact that I know exactly what’s going into my mouth. Also, I like that at home you can play around with ingredients, come up with new things, etc. Finally, I can attest to the cooking as workout section. Whenever I get done doing a major project, my legs and back are just as sore as they’d be from a workout (well, almost).
Thank you for this information! I’m using your post for my speech in my class! I’m motivating my classmates to cook, rather than going out. It’s especially great because we’re college students and saving money is pretty hard. Great post! Thank you so much for the information!!! (ps: I included you in my bibliography, I would never plagiarize)