Homemade meals are not just healthy because a person knows what ingredients were used during cooking, but also because it can help reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a new study has found.
The study was conducted by researchers from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and the results of which were presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2015 event held in Orlando, Florida from Nov. 7 to 11.
Researchers found that home-cooked meals help shed off those excess pounds, which are a great risk factor for diabetes.
To arrive at their findings, researchers looked into over 41,000 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and 58,000 women from the Nurse's Health Study, Medical News Today noted.
These participants didn't have cancer, diabetes, and heart disease at the start of the study and were followed for 36 years starting from 1986 until 2012.
The study revealed that those participants who ate homemade meals daily — lunch and evening meals and about 11 to 14 meals per week — had a 13 percent lowered risk compared to those who consumed less than six home-cooked meals per week.
According to study author Geng Zong, those who chose home-cooked meals lost weight more than those who chose to eat out, and that's part of the reason the risk for diabetes was lowered, TIME reported.
Zong also noted that those who eat at home tend to avoid drinking sweet sodas that are usually served when eating out.
While the team can't give the exact number of homemade meals that a person should have in order to minimize the risk, Zong suggested that eating more of them would be better.
Most people in the United States are increasing their consumption of take-out meals or commercially prepared food served in local restaurants, Zong noted, and this trend continues to increase. Along with it come the increasing rates of type 2 diabetes.
The study suggests that eating homemade meals could be the first step in battling the disease. The meals usually do away with commercial ingredients and saturated fats that are commonly found in fast food chains and restaurants and are also contributing factors for diabetes and heart disease.
