Burn them before you eat them!

fallenangelloves

I think alot of people are missing out on an added benefit of cooking from scratch. Of course we all know that eating as clean as possible is best for you. We know preservatives are bad. But do you realize how many calories it takes to prepare and cook your food from scratch? Plus then there is the clean up! Even if you figure in "Rachel Ray's" 30 minute meals, plus a 30 minute clean up... (yes I clean up my mess afterwards) that's roughly an hour for 150 calories!

Now I don't usually count this as cardio (unless I have spent a day in the kitchen for a special event) but I do keep it in my mind at least if I've misjudged some measurement it's not so bad.

So if any of you are looking at pro's vs con's on preparing your food from scratch, add this to your pro's side!!!

Also check out my group "Foodies Unite" and see all our great food and share some of yours! We are always looking for new ideas!!!

healthybabs

You are absolutely right! I was tracking my calories burned per minute today when I had a cooking/baking marathon and I was burning 5 cals/minute as opposed to my normal resting rate of 1.5 cals. Let's see, that is 90/hr vs 300/hr............I will cook from scratch and take the 300 !!!

Ange_

Many times i've joked that it would almost be possible to create a workout around labor intensive foods. I'm thinking kneading bread or pizza dough, shelling nuts etc. Kneed yourself fit!
Unfortunately most of these labour intensive foods tend be be quite high in calories, so they are hardly balanced out.
I cook from scratch almost every single day, including making many things people would usually just buy like condiments, yoghurt etc. So as that is my regular daily activity i'd never log it as exercise.

fallenangelloves

Yea it's amazing how much you burn cooking vs putting something in the microwave! I usually never include the calories, unless as all the cardio I got that day!

pixlamarque

Absolutely agreed. I don't normally log cooking, cleaning, etc, because I consider it part of my normal routine. Sometimes I log cleaning for other activities around the house that I don't normally do (like our kitchen reno, floor tiling, etc). I know it comes out low, but I would rather over estimate calories and under-estimate exercise. I know when I spend a whole Saturday in the kitchen baking that I am tired at the end of the day and my back and legs feel it. I don't log the calories but I don't worry on those days if I go over a bit.