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"Who has time for cooking?" You've certainly heard someone (perhaps you?) say that at one time or another. You may be surprised to know you can get nutritious, satisfying, and memorable meals that take 30 minutes or less to prepare.
Cooking dinner at home provides three major benefits:
- You eat a more healthful variety of foods.
- You spend more time with other members of your household, roommates, or friends; or gain quiet time for yourself that doesn't involve breathing exhaust fumes on your way to the nearest fast-food joint and reading menu boards after you arrive.
Save time by avoiding the drive-thru
The food service industry tries to send the message that it's faster to drive to a fast-food restaurant window than to prepare and sit down for dinner. Fast-food commercials ask, "Why cook when you can cruise to your nearby burger joint and pick up a family's worth of burgers or fried chicken?"
 | One answer to the "Why not fast food?" question is that you don't really save time with that option. Plus, cooking at home is more convenient and less stressful than fighting evening traffic to get to a fast-food place. And after you make it to your local Burger-In-A-Box, you still have to face the energy-sapping aggravation and wasted time of waiting in line and getting home. |
Time it from the moment you leave your home until you return with dinner. The whole process takes at least 20 minutes, unless you live under two big, yellow arches. Carryout meals offer no advantage either. Standing in line at 6 p.m. at a rotisserie chicken store isn't as speedy as making a quick pasta or soup in your kitchen.
For example, you can get the following dishes to the table in ten minutes flat:
- Chicken soup: Heat a couple of cans of chicken soup with leftover or precooked chicken breast meat and a package of frozen peas. Add a dash of hot red pepper sauce and a squirt of lime juice.
- Open-face pizza sub: For each sandwich, slather pizza sauce on half a sub or hero roll. Layer on slices of mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, bell peppers, and onion rings. Microwave on high for 30 seconds or warm in a preheated 350-degree oven for 5 minutes.
- Tortellini au gratin: This dish consists of the small, stuffed pasta topped with grated cheese or buttered breadcrumbs — or both. Cook a package of fresh tortellini and drain well. Spoon the pasta into a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with a little grated Parmesan cheese. If you have breadcrumbs, add a handful, and dot with butter. Run the dish under the broiler for 30 seconds or until the cheese melts and the breadcrumbs are toasted.
Home cooking for the health of it
Compared to eating in many restaurants, cooking dinner at home is an easy way to eat healthier foods. It's no secret that fast food and carryout dinners are loaded with fat and calories. A burger with cheese and a medium order of fries alone have almost 900 calories and 45 grams of fat, and that doesn't include a beverage. Dining at home means that you're getting the wholesome foods that you want.
When you cook at home, you're mindful of the ingredients and the quantities of the foods you eat, so you're bound to eat healthier meals. You can make your favorite foods at home quickly — even the items that you love to order in fast-food restaurants — with significantly fewer calories. Your homemade hamburgers made from lean ground beef have fewer calories and less fat than their fast-food counterparts. And a serving of frozen, oven-heated fries has 150 to 200 calories, half of what you get in a restaurant order.
When you get behind the wheel in the mealtime driver seat, you benefit because you
 | - Cook healthier food. You serve more fresh fruits and vegetables than you can order in fast-food restaurants.
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- Eliminate "super size" from your vocabulary and from your hips. You control the portions of the foods that you serve. At home, no one is pushing you to eat the Super-Giant size of fattening foods for just 15 cents more.
- Serve what you want to eat. The selection of dinnertime foods that you get to choose from becomes almost limitless. Plus, you can add additional low-calorie, low-fat salads and vegetable side dishes, both of which are in limited supply in many fast-food restaurants.
- Get veto rights on foods that you don't want to serve. Try the I'm-not-running-a-restaurant line on the family.
Knowing what's in the foods that you serve means that you can make adjustments, cutting back on sodium, fat, and calories. The beauty is that you get to choose. For example, as an alternative to adding more salt, squeeze a little lemon juice over a dish. It makes all the flavors livelier. You can't ask the folks behind the counter of the Chicken Machine to do that for you.
Cooking helps people connect
If you're cooking for more than one, and especially if you're cooking for children, the extra effort to prepare dinner at home pays off. Children who eat dinner at home with their parents eat more servings of fruits and vegetables and eat fewer fried foods and drink fewer soft drinks, say researchers. When you cook, you're giving your family the message that cooking is an enjoyable experience. You get to spend time with and talk to other people. You're also raising a generation that can feed itself. Or as one teenager said, "At least I won't have to live on ramen noodles."
Creating a recipe that becomes your family's favorite is important. This is the dish that everyone asks for as a reward for hard work or good grades. This doesn't have to be a fancy dish as long as it's delicious.
Cooking is also a great excuse to spend time with friends. Having friends in for a home-cooked meal is a great way to connect without the noise of a restaurant interrupting your conversations. If your friends enjoy cooking as well as eating, have everyone help prepare the meal.
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