Preventing Type 2 Diabetes with Home Cooking: Current Evidence and Future Potential

Abstract

Consumption of home-cooked food is linked to healthier nutrition and decreased risk of diabetes. Further, home cooking interventions have a short-term positive impact on nutritional intake of both children and adults, and on diabetes prevention. Well-designed randomized controlled studies are needed to rigorously evaluate the long-term impact of home cooking interventions on cooking behavior, dietary intake, diabetes, and healthcare costs. Culinary education is an emerging field that aims to change nutrition education paradigms. Clinicians can empower patients to adopt home cooking by role modeling home cooking themselves, including home cooking content in their medical encounters, and through comprehensive lifestyle medicine interventions.

The Impact of a Culinary Coaching Telemedicine Program on Home Cooking and Emotional Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The interest in home cooking as a potential health behavior to improve nutrition is emerging [ 36 , 37 ]. In this study, participants in both the intervention and control groups reported changes in their eating habits.…”

Home Meal Preparation: A Powerful Medical Intervention

“…Home cooking is associated with numerous health benefits, including a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and other chronic diseases. 1,2 People who cook at home eat higher quality food, consume less calories, spend less money on food, and have less weight gain over time than those who dine out and eat prepared foods on a regular basis. 3 Conversely, consuming prepared, ultraprocessed foods has been linked to increased rates of cardiometabolic diseases and overall cancer risk as well as breast cancer risk.…”

Culinary Medicine: Paving the Way to Health Through Our Forks

“…In addition to improved nutrition, home cooking is also linked to health benefits. 14 For example, analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study (121 700 female registered nurses aged 30-55 years) 15 and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (51 529 male health professionals aged 40-75 years) 16 data found that people who ate 11 to 14 home-cooked lunches and dinners per week had a 14% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate only 6 or fewer home-cooked lunches and dinners per week 17 and that this association was partly attributed to less weight gain linked with this dining behavior. Furthermore, recent articles showed that the opposite behavior, consuming ultraprocessed food, was attributable to cardiometabolic diseases, 18 overall cancer risk, and breast cancer risk.…”