Healthy Kitchens - Cooking Healthily and Eating Together Is Better
Healthy kitchens - are health issues arising from our lack of use of our kitchens?
The kitchen has from earliest times, been the hub or heart of the home.
It was where people came to cook, eat, sit and socialise. This is harder to do
now and researchers are finding that over the last 10-15 years, families
are so fragmented, that it is quite common for members of the same family
to have irregular mealtimes and to eat in separate places often, due to
many varying routines that are the norm in modern society.
A quick snack
before the next event or scheduled task often means the temptation to eat
as we're going out of the door or in the car!
Today's time schedule doesn't
help the health issues we currently face, even when parents would like the family to eat at least one meal together in a 'healthy kitchen'.
There are many advantages to socialising in the kitchen;
you can direct
and guide your family's eating habits, and at times this has meant warding
off some of our modern lifestyle diseases and health issues such as bulimia, anorexia, diabetes
and obesity.
It is far harder for teenagers to conceal their eating habits
when they eat regular meals together as a family in the kitchen.
Research findings...
There is some recent research supporting the theory that families who eat and cook together are less prone to these sorts of health issues and modern chronic illnesses.
The suggestion is that if families eat together when a meal has been cooked in the healthy kitchen, that meal is more likely to have been prepared in a healthy way and to consist of more healthy ingredients than if family members are 'snacking' on the run between activities.
Trophy Kitchens?
It is quite a paradox in a way, that we now have the biggest and most complex kitchens than at any other time in history - in fact, some would call them 'trophy kitchens', while we are using these spaces to cook in less than at any other time in history!
Many nutritionists say...
that if we can reinstitute the 'family meal' at least a few times a week, on days when everyone can gather together, we will greatly increase the chance to direct our children's eating habits and to demonstrate the great benefits of eating wholesome, simply grown, home-cooked food.
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