Why bother with buying groceries, cooking, and cleaning? Step out of the house and you find an abundance of fast food chains, diners, deli food, pre-packaged food, take-out places, and the likes of Delarosa.

Cooking for yourself gives you freedom and control. Freedom to choose exactly what you want to eat, the way you want it. When cooking for yourself, you have ultimate control over each ingredient and can maintain portion control. Choosing high quality ingredients will make any dish taste good without the use of excess butter/oil, sweeteners, sodium, condiments, and artificial flavorings. Thus, it is much healthier for you to cook your own meals. With the right ingredients, cooking at home will put you on the track of gaining your health back. In most restaurants, you can never be too sure of health sanitation or the source of the produce, meats, spices, sauces, etc. Even when you think you are eating a healthy burrito or salad at a restaurant, you may just end up consuming more calories, fats, sugars with processed, manufactured ingredients and preservatives. Also, it’s just faster to dine in. Investing some time in the beginning to well stock your kitchen, you can whip a quick, nourishing meal in no time. It would take you longer to get to the restaurant, wait in line, order, wait for your food, pay, and then go back home. Another bonus, you save a lot of money by dining in. You can eat leftovers the next day or use the same ingredients to make something different.

After cooking at home for some time, dining out becomes more pleasurable and special. With all of the money saved by dining in, you can really splurge at a nice restaurant. Eating in restaurants can be an inspiration for you to cook something new at home or a chance to enjoy food that you wouldn’t ever consider making yourself. Also, appreciation for the chefs and staff increases.  Considering that dining in is healthier,* you will not feel guilty about eating creme/butter based foods or dessert at restaurants. Therefore, save up your money  and indulgence calories by cooking more often and allow yourself to dine out on occasion.

*It’s important to choose high quality ingredients and minimize the use of sweeteners/condiments/fats in order to achieve better health.