Cooking at Home is Cheaper and Healthier, Finds US Study

15 Mar 2017 --- People who cook at home more often are more likely to eat a healthier overall diet, according to researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health. “Cooking at home: A strategy to comply with US dietary guidelines at no extra cost,” was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and furthers the notion that home cooking is the best way to get adequate nutrition.

“By cooking more often at home, you have a better diet at no significant cost increase, while if you go out more, you have a less healthy diet at a higher cost,” said Adam Drewnowski, director of the UW's Center for Public Health Nutrition and senior author of the study.

The measurement used to define a healthy diet is called the Healthy Eating Index. It gauges whether a person's diet is giving them the right combination of fruits, vegetables and other elements.

As part of the Seattle Obesity Study, researchers interviewed 437 King County adults, who were asked to remember their last week of eating in and eating out. Researchers supervised the adults answering a questionnaire, with detailed sections on what they ate and where.

The study found that home-cooked dinners were associated with a “greater dietary compliance,” meaning the overall weekly diet met more of the federal guidelines for a healthy diet. Households who cooked at home about three times per week showed a score of about 67 on the Healthy Eating Index.

Those who cooked at home about six times per week had a score of about 74.

“The differences were significant, even with a relatively small study sample, “said Drewnowski, also a professor of epidemiology.

The message of healthier-doesn't-cost-more ties in with a recent UK study which found that healthier options are mostly cheaper than less healthy alternatives, contradicting the claims made by some health campaigners that it is more expensive to buy healthy and nutritious food than it is to buy processed  “junk food “.

Drewnowski comments on what epidemiologists call  “time poverty”, which results in roughly half of all food dollars in the United States being spent outside the home. This suggests that cooking at home may not be feasible for a large chunk of the population.

Public health nutritionists suggest that efforts to promote cooking at home should be balanced with efforts to encourage retailers and restaurants to offer healthy, less expensive prepared foods for easy purchase outside of the home.

Other measures of food consumption use calories instead of dollars. The contribution of away-from-home food to total calories rose from 18 percent in the 1970s to 32 percent by the late 1990s, according to the study. Only one in five U.S. residents meets the dietary guidelines set by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. What was surprising to Drewnowski was that the study showed there was no increase in costs for eating a healthier diet.

Home cooked meals were associated with diets lower in calories, sugar and fat, but not with higher monthly expenses for food.

One other message of the study was that some common assumptions are wrong about income and education. The study showed no association between income or education and eating at home or eating out.

The 437 people chosen for the study were a stratified random sample.

“People have the preconception that a lower income leads to eating more fast foods, but that was not true in our study,” Drewnowski said.