In an era of smartphones it’s hard to stay healthy by eating home-cooked meals. Why? Well, the take-out and delivery apps are likely to blame. The other way to look at it would be our addiction to fast foods. To some degree, we have all adopted sedentary lifestyles. It is becoming harder and harder to get up and head to the kitchen to cook up something. After all, there’s always the option to hit the gym now and then in order to get in shape. Indeed, it is this kind of thinking that got us into this current rut. Getting out is the hard part.

Many people consider themselves as not being culinary savvy. The translated meaning is that we don’t like cooking. After long days at the office and school, who can blame us? Don’t we deserve a treat every now and then by embracing the magic of take-outs?

Truthfully, take-outs serve an incredible role in society. Restaurants have gained mass appeal through the years. Much so that a recent study estimated that on average, at least 6% of Americans are eating take out for one meal or another. Most orders are delivered on apps, from websites or a phone call to the local food joint. Deliveries are casual occurrences that we seem to have embraced.

The Hidden Dangers

Recent statistics suggest that 60% of Americans order take-out food at least once a week

Eating out every now and then is a sure way to leave a dent in our wallets. Take-outs are costlier than simply just eating in due to the numerous services we pay for all at once. With take-outs, we fact in the delivery costs, location, cooking effort and the occasional tip. Cooking for ourselves would only cost us the amounts we part with buying up the groceries and other ingredients.

Generally, take-outs are much more time-consuming than eating at home. There’s was a lot of time wasted in waiting for the delivery to be made, travel times, bill payments and pauses in between courses.

Eating in is of course much healthier than ordering take-out. Restaurants use poorer meat cuts that are likely to have large amount of fat plus massive amounts of unhealthy flavourings. There’s also the fact that most foods feature lots of salt and sugar that slows down the digestive process. Continued consumption of take-out foods can have detrimental effects on our health.

Can we avoid ordering take-out foods?

Plan

As a rule of thumb, we should always have a plan of what we’d like to munch whenever meal times come. Planning entails the purchase of ingredients and groceries before meals. When we have a clue on what exactly we want to partake, we’re much more likely to welcome the idea of cooking right at home.

It is important to note that the temptation to order takeout never really disappears. Even when we make the most elaborate of plans. The trick to beat this urge is to simply ignore the impulse for about 10 minutes and start cooking up whatever we’d initially planned to make.

Eat Out

Well, perhaps the main motivator to order take out entails the setting of the meal. To overcome this temptation, we can simply make the food at home and head out for a picnic-like presentation.

Expand Your Menu

Leaning how to cook your favorite foods is a great way to keep yourself away from ordering take-out

Sometimes, the thing that entices us the most with take-outs are the foods on offer. Thus, should we discover we have a weakness for some Thai, Chinese or any food in particular; wouldn’t it make sense to learn how to make homemade servings of the same?

Use Disposables

Not feeling up to the task of cooking then wash the dishes later on? Well, a good solution lies in stocking up on some disposable paper plates. It’s not recommended to use such plates on every meal, of course. However, such small measures can go a long way in making sure that we get to adapt eating right at home. There are also many positive ramifications like time saved, cash saved and the comfort 0f eating at home.

Unite

Even though there might be a lot of advice available on how to start eating healthy, it can sometimes feel like a real challenge to achieve that. But, with time, everyone can learn how to not only like but also enjoy healthy food options on a daily basis

Teamwork makes the dream work. In order to go on this hard journey against take-outs, we need to voice out our concerns about the reasons why we’re against these foods in a family setting.

That way, we can get to talk about why each of us prefers take-out to conventional home-cooked meals. The next step would involve making arrangements and compromises in order to enjoy healthier foods in the end. When we do this, none of the family members will feel left out and as if culinary choices were being decreed upon them.

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