Cooking upgrades your health

Q: I’m sick of cooking all the time! Why shouldn’t I go back to eating out and ordering in more often? -- Leslie J., Lafayette, Indiana

A: If you follow guidelines, it may be OK. But ... there’s always a but ... if you’re like most Americans, at least four to five of your weekly meals are already from drive-thrus, diners, pizza joints and chain restaurants. At an average of $15 dollars a meal, they cost four times more than having a healthy home-cooked meal. And your budget isn’t the only thing that’s damaged when you eat lots of commercially prepared meals.

A 15-year study found people who regularly ate two or more commercially prepared meals a day were 67% more likely to die from cancer and 18% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than folks who rarely ate commercially prepared food.

The good news is that the pandemic created an uptick in the number of folks cooking at home. One report found that 11% of people are eating breakfast at home every day more frequently; 12% are having home-cooked dinner more often, and 13% are eating lunch at home more often. The big question: Will you stick with it? We hope you do. So here are some tricks to make it easier:

-- Cook once, eat three times. Soups, casseroles, stews, pasta sauces, whole chickens and poached salmon can be cooked once and then divided into multi-meals or frozen for later enjoyment.

-- Cook with the greats: Create wonderful meals as you follow online video instructions from chefs such as Daphne Oz and Lidia Bastianich. At www.whenway. com, enjoy the “In the Kitchen” videos featuring Dr. Mike and Chef Jim, in coordination with Dr. Michael Crupain, their co-author of “The What To Eat When Cookbook.”

-- Get friends and family involved! Cooking together is fun, and it upgrades everyone’s health.