A Case for Cooking at Home: Eating Out Can Make You Sick

Who doesn’t love the convenience of dining out instead of dirtying up the kitchen? But after reading this, you might want to cook your own dinner more often!

A new report finds that eating a meal in a restaurant may double your chances of contracting a food borne illness. Researchers from the Center for Science in the Public Interest analyzed 10 years of data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding more than 10,000 foodborne-illness outbreaks. They found that restaurants are the most frequent locations for outbreaks and are responsible for twice as many outbreaks as private homes.

Cooking at home with the right safety precautions is the best way to avoid restaurant-derived food borne illnesses. Think about it: preparing your own meal instead of dining out could just save your life! This is one thing that real food expert Michael Pollan encourages as the easiest path to good health. In his talk, “How Cooking Can Change You Life,” Pollan discusses the major differences between food when cooked by a corporation versus when cooked by “a human being.”

Try a challenge: replace a standard night where you’d food from a restaurant with a night of preparing a new recipe. Try roasted beet burger patties, vegan buffalo tempeh meatballs, lentil meat balls, creamy potato and cauliflower soup or spicy butternut squash pie.