Health Benefits of Cooking from Scratch

We all know that cooking from scratch is better for us – it gives us control over what we eat.

By making our own food and not relying on takeaways and pre-packaged convenience food we are controlling our portions, using fresher produce full of vital nutrients, not digesting nasty hidden ingredients and consuming better quality meat and fish.

Increasing obesity and health issues

Increasing calorie consumption through our pile it high sell it cheap attitude towards food has resulted in a well documented obesity epidemic. A generation of children brought up on convenience food stuffed with preservatives, sugar and trans-fats means long term health problems including diabetes, heart disease and cancer are on the rise. Currently more than a quarter of all teenagers are obese while nearly a quarter of all adults are also obese – this is rising all the time.

Chefs such as Jamie Oliver have recently tried to tackle this head on with projects such as the School Dinners initiative which saw the Government pledge £280 million over three years to tackle the issue of poor eating in junior and secondary schools. In 2008 the government pledged further funds to subsidise ingredients for healthy meals, to set up a regional network of training kitchens for dinner ladies, to build kitchens in schools that currently have no facilities and to enable secondary school children to learn to cook at school.

Poor nutrient intake

We are all aware we need a variety of vitamins and minerals to remain healthy. Much of what we buy and consume today has a low nutrient to calorie ratio. This means we are purchasing high calorie foods that have little or no nutritional value. Mass produced and highly processed foods by their very nature tend to have low nutritional value and the little value they did have can be lost as they proceed along the production line.

In contrast fresh, natural ingredients that are in season are bursting with the vitamins and minerals we require. They are untainted by lengthy processing procedures which strip foods of their goodness and add in unnecessary ingredients, the time between harvesting, picking, fishing etc and arriving on your plate is far shorter so the food has retained its maximum nutritional value and you can control what you add and how you cook basic ingredients to make sure you keep the goodness in.

Hidden Nasties

Recent years have seen increasing concern about the affect modern farming methods and food production are having on the nation’s health. The number of pollutants in our food is on the up, growth hormone and antibiotics are commonly found in our meat and dairy products, pesticides and herbicides are found in our grains, fruit and vegetables and artificial additives and preservatives are common in supermarket processed foods. These hidden nasties are starting to have long term consequences including fertility problems, a dramatic rise in the cases of allergies, damaged immune systems and even behavioral problems.

Being aware of these three key issues when shopping and eating can make a dramatic improvement on our health and of the quality of food we consume. A shift in the mindset is appearing which sees people buying less but spending more on quality food that is ethically produced and has all its health credentials intact.

Farm, Park & Wild understand these issues and as you might imagine, we activley promote healthy eating. Our meat boxes, Christmas turkeys and other fresh foods not only taste amazing but will help you cut out trans-fats and other nasty chemicals.