Recipe River website exposes relationship between cooking and obesity

With research showing that obesity occurs less often among people who cook most of their meals, Recipe River, the newest reference website from Falbe Publishing of Chico, California, seeks to encourage people to start cooking. Featuring a growing directory of recipes, the website also includes helpful articles about safe food handling, cooking for single people, and research explaining the links between cooking and obesity.

The publisher, Tracy Falbe, had intuitively known that home cooking instead of eating out constantly was generally healthier than depending on take out food and restaurants. "When I started researching cooking from the angle of obesity, my opinions turned out to be quite valid," said Falbe, who is an avid cook herself.

For example, the Keystone Forum from the FDA reported a clear association between frequently eating out and being overweight or even obese. Although many factors contribute to obesity, an obvious source of weight gain for many people is over reliance on take out and restaurant food that comes in oversized portions and is usually high in fat and sugar.

Recipe River also addresses why people have been cooking less, which is because they feel they do not have time to cook. People live more hectic lives than a couple decades ago, especially as commute times have increased, but cooking does not have to necessarily take up a lot of time. Many recipes can be completed in half an hour and even those that require more time can yield meals or snacks for two or three days. Additionally, the time spent cooking can become a rewarding experience and leads to a healthier lifestyle.

In difficult economic times, cooking represents a more efficient use of people's food dollars as well. Eating out all the time easily gets expensive, and if that money was spent on groceries, as long as processed and packaged foods were limited, the money spent would gain more food or much more nutritional value.

Recipe River presents itself as a friendly resource meant to encourage novice cooks to take more control of their food supply. Experienced cooks can also find new recipes at the website as well, especially as it grows. The publisher plans monthly updates for the website and hopes to build a substantial resource for cooks.

The motto of Recipe River states that "a good life flows from cooking food" and people are invited to learn about the benefits of cooking.