Wednesday 25 December, 2024

Eating in takeaways is as healthy as eating in restaurants, according to this study

Home cooking is the real way to go, though.

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FOR THOSE THAT think eating in restaurants simply must be better for you than fast food places, this might cause a rethink.

According to a study of over 18,000 Americans, the amount of calories consumed in fast food compared to restaurants was almost identical.

When both were compared to home cooking, both fast food and restaurants produced extremely similar results:

Compared to participants who ate food prepared at home, those who visited fast food restaurants consumed an average of 190 more calories per day.

Participants who dined at full-service restaurants consumed about 187 more calories per day.

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It wasn’t just calories that the study looked at – all forms of food-related health were examined compared to home cooking, and fast foods and restaurants stacked up once again.

So, fast food compared to home cooking with:

11 grams more fat, 3.5 g more saturated fat, 10 mg extra cholesterol and 300 mg additional sodium.

While restaurants were similar across the board:

10 more grams of fat, 2.5 g more saturated fat, almost 60 mg more cholesterol and over 400 mg more sodium.

The study was carried out for the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, but since the participants were American (presumably eating in American restaurants), the results might not quite apply to Ireland in the same way.

But, really, the study highlights why home cooking is preferable to eating out when it comes to health - as you can control all the ingredients that go into your meal.

So now.