Cooking At Home May Lower Risk For Type 2 Diabetes

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/home-cookin ... etes-risk/

Haha. Yes.
Not a surprise, these findings, but nice to have statistical confirmation.

Less salt (which in huge excess will affect your blood pressure, causes you to suck down more Coke, and acts as an appetite stimulant-- and that's BEFORE we start discussing monosodium glutamate).

Less sugar. Restaurants add it to darn near everything. So do producers of convenience foods. Why?? Because it tastes good and makes you want more!

Control over whether you're eating whole grains or processed ones. The American palette is still more accustomed to processed grains, so unless you go out of your way to find whole ones, that's what restaurants are going to serve.

More veggies. I don't know about every other cook out there, but when I go to the store, I think a lot more about the cost of what ends up in my cart. I don't shop frequently, and there are 6 of us. It can cost me upwards of $400 to fill the monthly grocery cart at WalMart. Meat and convenience food are expensive. Veggies and staples I can use to go home and make empanadas instead of buying Hot Pockets are cheap by comparison.

Less FOOD. You are not paying $8.99 for that chicken dinner. There is no way in the nine hells there's $9 worth of chicken, starch, and veggies on that plate. Not even $4.50. You're paying $8.99 for the service, and to cover the overhead.

The server and the kitchen staff make minimum wage regardless of how much you eat. So it's in the restaurant's best interests to make sure you eat more, and to serve enormous portions so you don't feel like you're getting ripped off paying $8.99 for $2.50 worth of actual food.

You're not getting ripped off, of course-- you're getting exactly what you're paying for. Service. You don't have to cook, you don't have to wash the dishes, you don't have to agree on a meal or eat what someone else wanted (which all my kids would tell you is priceless). Buy service isn't tangible. You can't put a service in a sack and take it home. So people forget about it, and get angry if the portions aren't heaping huge.

Plus the moving around involved in getting, storing, and preparing your own food and cleaning up the mess.

Don't put salt in it.

Don't put refined sugar in it.

Use fresh, unprocessed produce.

Here' my staple meal for carbs, proteins and vitamins perfect for folks who exercise, or anyone for that matter:

I boil some rice and mix that with kidney beans. I like to then put it in the frying pan on high temperature for a while to get some crisp on that rice. Add to that crushed tomatoes with oven baked chili peppers and garlic and I have veggie chili-casserole with no added salt, sugar or preservatives!

It doesn't taste intense like the ones with all the additives. I like to add agave honey for natural sweetening. Non-refined sugars in their natural state are fine by me. I like to have honey and fruits, and I allow myself that because I almost never consume refined sugar anymore

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but I try to limit my meat consumption. Sometimes I will add meat to the casserole, but it stands well on its own feet.

To curb the dessert cravings, I have some dried dates and figs. I get them organical without preservatives

So if you put your mind into it, or even better: develop an obsession around it like I have, then you can come up with some delicious dishes that are surprisingly clean nutritionally so to speak.