You lie on your couch, scrolling through Instagram reels when you hear an ominous grumbling from your stomach. Rather than getting up and looking at what you have in the fridge, you instinctively open DoorDash and order a meal from the comfort of your home. While this has become an increasingly common occurrence, people should try to take time out of their day to cook a quality meal, even when it may be easy to order meals instantaneously.
Learning how to cook by yourself is much healthier than eating out or ordering food online. When you cook for yourself, you have greater control over the ingredients in your food, which can lead to great benefits of boosted energy levels and improved sleep, according to certified registered dietician Jordan Hill.
Additionally, you can track the nutritional value of your meals more effectively when you cook at home. Researchers Julia Wolfson and Sara Bleich found in their 2015 study that cooking dinner at home is associated with a healthier diet. The big problem with the American diet is that people are relying more on purchased food, which is usually more energy dense and contains lower nutritional value.
Although some may argue that ordering takeout saves a lot of time, and that time is money, so buying takeout is saving money, right? However, that is far from the case. Cooking at home is significantly cheaper than takeout. Let’s take pepperoni pizzas as an example. On average, pepperoni pizzas cost $15.49 for takeout and $24.25 for delivery, but only $9.90 to make at home, according to CNET writer Pamela Vachon. Additionally, many recipes for homemade pepperoni pizzas take only 20 minutes to make with the right preparations to make a healthier, more cost effective and more enjoyable meal. This is a change people should start making now; the gap in cost between getting food from restaurants and cooking meals at home isn’t likely to lessen soon either due to inflation. According to an article published by Purdue University, restaurants will be forced to raise prices in order to match the raised prices in the grocery stores as well as rising costs to operate the store.
As food delivery has become increasingly accessible to the general public, many are less drawn to taking time out of their busy days to cook a proper meal for themselves. Cooking food, however, is actually a great way to unwind after a long day of working. Cooking has been proven to have mental health benefits, with clinics and therapists even starting to use cooking as a form of therapy. Research shows that cooking sessions have led to improvements in self-esteem and confidence, leading to less anxiety.
Learning how to cook is a vital life skill for high schoolers transitioning into adulthood. A fundamental part of being independent is having the ability to take care of yourself, whether physically or mentally: cooking is a great remedy for both.
A major part of becoming an adult is knowing how to take care of yourself, whether it’s physically through healthy meals, mentally through therapeutic cooking or financially through saving your wallet from overpriced restaurants. Plus, cooking a meal for yourself doesn’t necessarily call for a Gordon Ramsay-level beef wellington. It can be as simple as throwing together some leftover ingredients sitting in your refrigerator to make a sandwich. The first step is to go out and get your hands dirty (with flour, of course).
