How to stay healthy and live better

Cooking from scratch is not difficult, and there are many reasons why you should cook from scratch. Home cooking is often much healthier as you know exactly which ingredients go into a dish. When you buy ready made food from a super market you might also be buying a lot of extra ingredients which you don't really want. Ask yourself if you really want to pay for all of those E numbers, and other artificial ingredients such as monosodium glutamate. When you cook from scratch, you don't need to worry about artificial ingredients. Another problem with ready made food is that it is very high in salt. Salt can cause high blood pressure but when you cook at home you can add a suitable amount of salt.

Food cooked from scratch also tastes much better. Scratch cooking with fresher ingredients means that the nutritional value of the food is retained. Ready made from the supermarket is normally low in vitamin B but fresh home cooked food retains the vitamin B. Also the food is only cooked once, ready made meals are normally already cooked once when you buy them in the supermarket and heated up at home. This means that even more of the nutritional value is destroyed, and water soluble vitamins such as B and C are lost. Both vitamin B and C are crucial for better health, and in today's modern world of ready made food, many people suffer vitamin deficiencies. Home made food will also boost your health, and you will soon notice that you have more energy.

Another reason is of course taste. Cooking from scratch does not have to be complicated, and you can also use your favorite spices. If you have ever watch a cooking show on TV, you would have noticed that most famous chefs do not use a lot of complicated ingredients. Instead they focus on some good quality base ingredients complimented with two or three spices to make up a dish. Making food less complicated is an art in itself but there are some excellent cook books available. Once you get started you will notice how simple home cooking can be made. Try to find a couple of recipes that you really like the look of and experiment with difference ingredients. Excellent starter recipes are pasta and rice dishes as it is easy to add different ingredients and flavors.

You will also find that home cooking will save you money. Ready made food can be quite expensive to buy. Once you have stocked up on your base ingredients such as pasta, rice, potatoes and spices, you can look out for special offers in the supermarket. Vegetables are often on special offers but rather buying lots of one particular offer focus on buying little and often. You will be surprised at the difference in taste, and how much more enjoyable a meal becomes once you start adding more fresh ingredients to your cooking. Also look out for special offers on meat, and cheese. Meat is great to buy when it is on special offer as you can always freeze it, and get it out of the freezer when you need it. Cheese is another useful product to always have at hand. A cheese like mascarpone can be used in both savory and sweet dishes. It is excellent when making cheese cakes but it is also useful when it comes to making pasta sauces. A lot of people presume carbonara is a complicated pasta sauce to make but it can be made from mascarpone cheese, mushrooms and bacon.  You can also add mascarpone cheese to tuna bakes, or a peppercorn sauce for steak.

Perhaps the way to look at scratch cooking and home cooking is as an exciting opportunity to learn something new. Who knows, you might even be the next super chef.