Homemade meals lower diabetes risk

Channelling your inner Jamie Oliver may be a simple – and cheap – way to prevent diabetes.

New research from the US has revealed that cooking meals at home is an effective way to combat obesity and type-2 diabetes. During the study, researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health examined data of over 99,000 men and women about their lunch and dinner habits spanning over more than three decades.

Those who ate an average of two or more meals at home per day had a 13 per cent lower risk of getting diabetes compared to those who had fewer than six homemade meals per week.

According to Geng Zong, lead study author, eating at home means avoiding many processed ingredients and unhealthy fats that many restaurants and fast food chains include in their meals.

Zong said, “the trend for eating commercial meals in restaurants or as take-out in the United States has increased significantly over the last 50 years. At the same time, type-2 diabetes rates have also increased.”
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It’s no surprise that eating a balanced, home-cooked meal is the healthier choice, and this latest study also demonstrated that cooking at home was also associated with less weight gain over an eight-year period.

Study authors suspect that people eating at home drank fewer sugar-sweetened sodas with their meals. Sweetened soft drinks have previously been associated with insulin resistance and diabetes. While researchers couldn’t exactly state how many home-cooked meals we should eat each week, Zong said, “more could be better.”

While the study indicates eating at home is the first step in lowering your diabetes risk, Zong admits that home-cooking isn’t always possible. If that’s the case, “try not to choose fast food,” and even when you’re eating at home, “be careful to balance your energy intake.”

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