{"id":6735,"date":"2020-05-06T12:11:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T11:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=6735"},"modified":"2020-05-06T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T11:11:56","slug":"home-cooking-means-healthier-eating-theres-an-opportunity-to-change-food-habits-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/home-cooking-means-healthier-eating-theres-an-opportunity-to-change-food-habits-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Home cooking means healthier eating \u2013 there\u2019s an opportunity to change food habits for good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the last month there has been a dramatic transformation in our access to and the availability of food<\/a> \u2013 along with where we eat and with who. At the same time, personal<\/a>, family and societal health has never been more on the nation\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closure of cafes, restaurants, fast food outlets, schools and workplace canteens has contributed to more people eating at home<\/a>. It seems that lockdown has encouraged many people to rediscover the joys of home cooking \u2013 with more people cooking more from scratch<\/a> and throwing away less food. There has also been a 93% growth in flour sales<\/a> as many people have gone back to basics and started baking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research<\/a> shows that more frequent cooking in general and cooking from scratch is associated with a healthier diet. So could it be that lockdown may mark the start of a healthier relationship with food for many people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing shopping habits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the pandemic, UK dietary data from 2019<\/a> showed that average fruit, vegetable and fibre intakes were below recommended levels, while average sugar<\/a> intakes were above recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent shopping data<\/a> shows that people in recent weeks have been buying more frozen food and long-lasting foods such as cans and food with a long shelf life. But although many people associate healthy eating with fresh produce, recent purchasing patterns<\/a> shouldn\u2019t prevent dietary recommendations from being met \u2013 frozen and canned choices still count towards these recommendations, are cheaper than fresh alternatives and last longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tinned fruit on breakfast cereal or porridge, for example; or a tin of chickpeas in a curry; dried fruit in natural yoghurt or canned lentils in a soup \u2013 all of these will count towards your the five recommended portions of fruit or veg a day. All fresh, frozen, dried and canned varieties count, with fruit juice also contributing to a maximum of one portion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To continue reading, please click here. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article originally appeared in The Conversation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The featured image<\/a><\/em> has been used courtesy of a <\/em>Creative Commons license. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lockdown may mark the start of a healthier relationship with food for many people says Dr Danielle McCarthy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2587,"featured_media":6737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[918,587,955],"class_list":["post-6735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellbeing","tag-covid-19","tag-food","tag-nutrition"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2020\/05\/Fresh-veg.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}