You know I love cooking but what if you needed some motivation to use your kitchen for homemade meals?
I can easily show you all the benefits of cooking at home that are the very same reasons why I started cooking.
Here are the top 15 benefits that should encourage you to show an interest in cooking, so let’s jump right into it.
Benefit 1 : It is a good stress reliever
I don’t know about you, but at work, I usually spend my time working in front of a computer all day long with stressful clients sometimes so when I go back home, I can feel mentally drained and exhausted.
That is why I need something to clear my head. Cooking is definitely the activity that will help me get rid of the tension or the stress built up. When you cook, you need to get your hands dirty, you do something more physical, which really helps you to break up the routine of your day and kick your mental exhaustion.
This is indeed an activity that will require your whole attention. When you weigh the butter or sugar, or when you whisk the eggs, you get calmer. I would even say cooking can have that meditative or soothing quality because you get to slow down and focus.
I can guarantee you that at the end, when you get your end product (for me it was mostly breads, cakes etc..) you feel much more serene and relaxed. And the good thing is that you can then enjoy the food you prepared with your family or friends.
Benefit 2: It Can Make You a Happier Person
In fact, this goes beyond your stress issue. Studies have shown that cooking can really be a therapeutical activity. Even just baking cupcakes or something simple has shown to improve an individual’s mindset.
The reason is simple: when you cook, you stimulate your senses. The feel of the new flour you bought at the market, the smell of those fresh strawberries, the sound of the whisk beating, all those things can stimulate your senses, which contributes to get more endorphins, those feel good hormones that put a smile on your face.
The other reason is that when you focus on the present moment, on your ingredients, you cannot ruminate over your problems; you have to leave them aside (even if for a few minutes). This really helps you be more emotionally stronger and as a result, happier in general.
Benefit 3: It can boost your confidence
Besides, if you think of it, you spend hours baking a cake, getting the measurements of each ingredient exactly right, and preparing your icing to decorate it.
Once it’s baked and cooled down, you start icing your cake and decorate it exactly as you want to. In the end, you feel a strong sense of accomplishment and when you finally cut into the cake to share it with your family, you can be proud that you were the one who made it.
That is a bit like when your get that surge of confidence everytime you finish a project and you show the results to others.
This simple accomplishement can boost your self esteem and build up your confidence to try new things in life especially if you were not a good cook to start with because you know that with a little effort, you can do things you were not good at to begin with.
Benefit 4 : It can help with depression and other mental issues.
On a more serious level, the previous benefits of cooking are so powerful that cooking is also used, in many mental health clinics, as part of the treatment for a bunch of mental conditions such as anxiety, depression and addiction.
When cooking, patients can really focus their mind on something more positive. This whole process helps to curb negative thinking and boost their confidence.
Benefit 5 : It can help your couple
Cooking is definitely an activity that could also benefit your couple especially if you cook together. It can indeed build a stronger connection between you two.
You get to spend more time together and this also encourages communication and cooperation.
Of course, there are obviously other activities or experiences that you can share with your beloved one like watching TV together but cooking is far more superior as you get
- to discuss and agree on what you want to prepare, which is a good way to learn to compromise especially if you don’t have the same food preferences. (handy if you need to deal with a crisis)
- to share the preparation of the meal which enhances your cooperation skills
- to sit down and enjoy together what you cooked.
Cooking is in my opinion, part of the recipe for a healthy relationship
Benefit 6 : It Brings Your Family Together
Regardless of how close your family are, cooking is a fantastic way to get the whole family in one place and enjoying a delicious meal. Envision it for a moment; your whole family are visiting for the evening, some of them are watching TV together, the children are playing in your backyard, and a few of them are in the kitchen sharing gossip and helping you prepare. This is the epitome of bringing a family together.
Some of the benefits of cooking for your family are:
- good food is a fantastic way to motivate people to get together and socialise.
- when you create a cultural dish, you can discover different flavours and give your family a chance to experience different types of food that they otherwise would have never tasted.
- the more that you cook dinner for your family, the more often they get together, and the closer that they become.
All in all, cooking can bring your family together while at the same time, making sure that everyone gets fed a healthy and nutritious meal.
Benefit 7 : It’s Fun to mess with Different Ingredients
Imagine: you’re walking around a new store and come across some ingredients that you’ve never heard of before. Without thinking, buy them.
This might sound like an odd thing to do but if you purchase ingredients that you’re not familiar with, you can cook up a dish that you’ve never made before and have a fun time in doing so.
The thing about learning to cook is that you have to learn how to cook generic dishes that we’ve all come to know and love. Sure, doing this is a guaranteed crowd pleaser, but there’s no originality here. Cooking should be considered an art and in a way, whatever you’re cooking is the masterpiece that will “wow” your family.
With new ingredients, you can explore new areas of cooking and can surprise your family with a meal that they will have never seen coming.
Benefit 8 : It makes you more Creative
Cooking doesn’t have to be a “follow step-by-step” activity. In fact, you don’t even have to cook something straight out of a recipe book (or from a recipe website).
The thing is, after you’ve been cooking good food for a few months you’ll begin to get the hang of it, and you’ll have learnt a range of different cooking methods.
It’s at this point that you can start to explore cooking on your own and come up with your recipes and dishes and let your creativity juice going.
Eventually, you’ll be making dishes that have specific tastes that your family look forward to eating, and that only you are able to make. This will without a doubt keep your family coming back for more.
Benefit 9 : Cooking as a Group activity
After learning how to cook yourself, why not get some of your friends and family involved?
Cooking is a fantastic way for you to spend the afternoon with your kids while teaching them a life lesson or two at the same time. Teaching your kids the basics of cooking is important because remember, they’ll eventually move out of your house and have to cook their own dinner (even if that is years and years ahead of time!).
Below are some of the reasons that teaching your kids how to cook can be beneficial to their lives.
- It can bring you and your children closer together.
- As we mentioned above, it’s a life skill that they’ll use in the future.
- Learning to cook encourages your children to taste new (and hopefully healthy) foods.
- Studies have shown that by teaching them to cook, they are more likely to eat healthier.
- Cooking is a fun way to teach your children to learn measurements and basic math.
Perhaps your kids are staying at a friend’s house that night. Invite some of your own friends over and cook a meal together.
Benefit 10 : It Can Get You Out and socialize
Obviously, if you want to cook you need ingredients. You can, of course, buy online your groceries but when it comes to cooking, nothing beats going yourself to the local supermarket and choose the best tomatoes, or pick that specific meat or fresh fish that you will cook for tonight’s dinner.
But there is a better alternative ( if possible).
The best thing would be to go to a farmer’s market to stock up on freshly harvested vegetables and fruits. I love to go and buy directly from local farmers and producers.
I love going there to choose my ingredients because you really get the products at the peak of freshness with the maximum nutrients. Besides, you can talk to other people who loves to cook to and producers and farmers are often happy to share with you tips or new recipes that you have never thought of.
Benefit 11 : It makes you more popular
Being able to cook properly is very impressive, especially if it isn’t your career and it’s something that you do on the side either just for fun or as a way to expand your skillset.
But the other great thing about cooking is that it instantly makes you more desirable or attractive to anyone.
Why ? Simple.
We all love to eat good food whether it is that tasty pizza or that delicious dessert. Some people even consider the pleasure you get from eating the same as an orgasm. (I will let you be the judge haha)
So if you know how to cook, you definitely become more popular or attractive because people can already imagine the good food you can cook for them haha
Benefit 12 : Healthier Than Ordering Food or Eating Ready Meals
Sure, eating healthy sounds like a tedious and boring thing to do, but a healthy diet plays a key role in maintaining your body weight, taking care of yourself, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle in general. If you order food frequently or are living off of ready meals, you’re heading in the opposite direction. Don’t worry though – it’s not too late to change things!
Ready meals can be tasty, cheap, and aesthetically pleasing, but don’t let those few positive aspects suck you into buying them.
Before you buy a ready meal, look at the nutritional information that is written on the packaging. You’ll quickly realise that they’re incredibly unhealthy and to add to this, you have to cook them in the microwave (aside from the few that are oven cooked). Quickly eliminate these from your diet.
Similarly, ordering fast food can be a nice treat every once in a while, but they should stay as just that – a treat. If you eat fast food regularly, you’re setting yourself a bad diet and to make matters worse, you’ll no longer think of it as a treat. Unless you have a rare healthy meal delivery service in your town, you should only be eating fast food on occasion.
By cooking your own meals, you know exactly what’s going into your cooking and can be assured that you’re eating healthily.
Benefit 13 : Cheaper Than Eating Out
Eating out is a good treat every once in a while, but it’s an expensive treat. Sure, there are the cheaper places to eat out (like McDonald’s or Subway), but if you are eating from cheap establishments regularly then you are living an unhealthy lifestyle and it’s time to make a change to your life.
Studies have shown that since 2015, the price of groceries has dropped by approximately 0.5% which believe it or not, is incredibly unusual due to the fact that grocery prices usually rise by 2.5% annually. Alternatively, the same study showed that restaurant prices have risen a whopping 2.7% since 2015. It’s clear that if you want to save yourself money, eating at home is the way to go.
It can be tempting to eat out (especially considering that you don’t have to cook the meal), but when you eat out you’re paying for more than just the food. Restaurants are made to make a profit so when they price their food, they take into account their staff costs, ingredients, cooking, and general restaurant costs.
On the other hand, when you’re at home cooking, all you have to consider is the price of your ingredients and with the money that you save, you can afford to cook a gourmet meal every once in a while, such as with caviar or lobster haha.
Benefit 14 : Make Yourself Some Quick Cash
If you really get into cooking and enjoy doing it in your spare time, you could turn it into a side-job and make some money from what you consider a hobby. After just a few weeks of learning some basic cooking skills, you’ll become better than most people ever are.
In the event that you choose to sell some of your cooking, here are some ideas for you to kick start this side-project.
Set up a Basic Website. With a basic website on your side, you can take pictures of your cooking and show them off to the world. Not only is a website good for this, but it can remind you of how far you’ve come with your cooking skills and how you’ve bettered your skill set.
Use Social Media. Similar to having a website, use your social media profiles to show your friends and family pictures of the food that you’ve cooked. If you want to take things a step further, write them a list of ingredients so that they can make your meals themselves.
Create YouTube Videos. Creating YouTube videos is a fantastic way to show off your cooking skills (or any skillset for that matter) and will also show potential customers that you know what you’re doing.
Once you’ve started selling your cooking, who knows, perhaps you’ll decide to step into the culinary industry and become a professional chef!
Benefit 15 : Open a Restaurant
If you really like cooking you could even do it for a living. Who knows ? there are many sucessful chefs who started from scratch. You may want to own your own restaurant. Words can’t describe how amazing of an accomplishment that would be and on top of that, it’s a fun dream to have that can flair your creativity.
If you learn to cook, you can build up the knowledge that is needed for you to run a kitchen and thus, run a restaurant. If it’s a dream that you have, or have had, then learning to cook is the stepping stone that you need to start making your dream come true.
Learning to Cook
Before we wrap up the article about the benefits of cooking, we’re going to quickly list some of the best ways that you can learn to cook. If one of the reasons that we’ve listed above has caught your eye and you want to give cooking a try, it’s time to get learning!
YouTube. YouTube is probably one of the best sources for learning to cook online. There are a lot of popular channels (even Gordan Ramsay’s channel) who will feature different meals and will show you a step-by-step guide on how to cook them.
AllRecipes.com. AllRecipes.com is a popular recipes website. On this website, you can view a wide range of dishes that you can cook (chicken dishes, low-calorie dishes, quick-to-cook dishes, you name it!). When you find a recipe that you like, you are provided with an ingredients list along with the method for creating the dish. Some recipes even have a video attached to show you how. One of the best features of this site is that you can search the recipes based on a specific set of ingredients.
Take a Class. Night classes are back in style and one of the most popular night classes – cooking. Do some quick searching and you’ll be sure to find a local cooking class that you can attend a few times each week. For a real hands-on experience, this is the best thing to do.
Now that you know all the benefits of cooking, there is virtually no reason for you not to get more interested in cooking. It can be fun, it is a skill worth learning, and you can even get the whole family involved in one way or another. Whether it’s making cupcakes or cooking a Sunday roast, start cooking and you’ll realise how great of a skill it is to know.
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