Cook more, be healthier (and stress less on T-day)
This week, millions of us will perform a ritual that involves roasting some poultry, cooking some vegetables and serving it all at a table.
For many people, it won't be easy – as evidenced by the 100,000 calls and several million e-mails, tweets and other pleas for help expected this season at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.
Maybe we wouldn't need so much help if more of us engaged in another traditional ritual: cooking dinner most nights. We also might be a lot healthier.
"The more you cook, the healthier you are going to be, even if you are not trying," says Julia Wolfson, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore.
Wolfson's conclusion might surprise people who associate home cooking with indulgent holiday meals. But it is based on research, including a new study that found adults in households where someone cooked dinner most nights consumed 137 fewer calories each day than other adults, even if they were not trying to lose weight. They also ate less sugar, less fat, less fast food and fewer frozen dinners, Wolfson and colleagues reported in Public Health Nutrition and at a meeting of the American Public Health Association.
Roughly half of adults in the study cooked or were cooked for at home at least six nights a week. That's in line with other research. In one study published in 2013, just over half of adults told researchers they cooked on any given day. The same study showed women cooking less often and for less time than in the past – and showed that increased cooking by men has not taken up the slack.
Neither have restaurants, for better or worse. The percentage of meals ordered from restaurants declined during the recession and continues to fall, according to a consumer survey from the research firm NPD Group. NPD says 8 out of 10 meals now come from home. But those meals increasingly involve something straight out of a package (such as yogurt or a granola bar) or in need of minimal preparation (such as frozen pizzas and pancakes), says NPD's Harry Balzer.
Balzer says the convenience mind-set is here to stay: "I think people asking us to cook more just don't understand human behavior."
Research based directly on supermarket scanners shows a somewhat different picture, with sales of ready-to-eat foods leveling off, says Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. But sales of ready-to-heat foods, such as frozen dinners, are increasing, he says.
"Most of these are processed, packaged foods" that pack excess salt, sugar and fat, he says.
Convenience foods can and should be made healthier, he says. But teaching more people to shop for and cook fresh food – in a way that fits their budgets and schedules – is not a lost cause, he says.
Programs such as the national Cooking Matters initiative, which reaches out to low-income families, have had some success, he says. So have children's cooking classes. A recent study, published in Preventing Chronic Disease, found children ate more fruits and vegetables and tried more foods after taking classes.
Of course, the Web is full of easy recipes and advice on how to cook more. The federal government's ChooseMyPlate.gov site, for example, suggests starting by adding just one cooking night each week. Another tip: cook big on weekends to have leftovers for the week ahead.
Wolfson says her study – which did not ask people what they cooked – shows the effort is worthwhile.
"You don't need to cook like a chef at home," she says. "You don't need to spend a lot of time cooking. You just have to cook."
About that turkey
"Just cook" sounds like simple advice. But what if you need to cook a big frozen turkey in the very near future – and you don't know how?
That's where the Butterball talk line, 1-800-BUTTERBALL (1-800-288-8372), comes in. The most common questions are about how to thaw the big bird and how to make sure it's done, says talk line co-director Sue Smith.
Smith, a registered dietitian, says there are two good ways to thaw a turkey:
• In the refrigerator for one day for every four pounds (meaning a 20-pounder should already be out of the freezer).
• Covered in cold water, changed every 30 minutes, for about 30 minutes a pound (10 hours for 20 pounds).
A turkey is properly cooked when the temperature, taken with a meat thermometer, reaches 180 degrees Fahrenheit in the thigh and 170 degrees F in the breast, Smith says. Any stuffing inside needs to reach 165 degrees F, she says. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture says 165 degrees F is a safe minimum for the whole turkey.)