There are good reasons for eating home cooked meals that include saving money and eating healthier. In a survey conducted by Zagat it was found that the average American eats 4.5 times per week and that number did not include breakfast. For those who love to dine out you might want to consider findings from the American Heart Association’s Scientific; if you eat more meals prepared at home, you may reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
People who ate about two homemade lunches or dinners each day — or about 11-14 meals a week — had a 13 percent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared to people who ate less than six homemade lunches or dinners a week. Type 2 diabetes is a major risk factor for heart disease. Interestingly enough the reaserhcers of this study as in the Zagat findings did not use data from breakfast. They looked at data from almost 58,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and more than 41,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and followed for up to 36 years (1986-2012). At the start of the study none of the individuals were said to have cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
“The trend for eating commercially prepared meals in restaurants or as take-out in the United States has increased significantly over the last 50 years,” Geng Zong, Ph.D., a research fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts has said. “At the same time, Type 2 diabetes rates have also increased.”
The researchers of this current study didn’t provide a satisfactory number for the allowable amount of homemade meals one should have. It is clear based on other surveys and studies that there is a correlation between eating out and increased body weight. While that by itself may not be the reason that people develop Type 2 diabetes it is certainly a contributing factor. The researchers demonstrated that eating homemade meals was associated with less weight gain over eight years in these middle-aged and older health professionals.
