Choosing Homemade Meals Over Street food

Lunchtime is here, and your stomach is rumbling. Will you prefer to unleash your inner chef and whip up a delicious homemade meal, or will you succumb to the convenience and ease of takeout? Now, for whatever choice you make, there's no wrong or right answer to it, but in this post, I will share my viewpoint, considering some factors.

Making your own food gives you total control over what goes into your mouth. If you are the type that values hygiene and healthy food, then you may prefer to always make your own food, unless there are some situations where you can't just do so, maybe due to a time factor or perhaps you are in the hospital and can't cook, then eating street food or from a restaurant becomes an alternative. As for me, there's this joy that accompanies cooking for my family and myself. Cooking for family satisfaction and well-being is a priority. There's this healthy lifestyle I always crave to achieve, and food is a major factor.

Some people see preparing their food as a chore, especially for some of our Nigerian food that looks hectic to prepare. The thought of such stress pushes some family members into ordering a big pot of soup and stew online while they have it preserved in the freezer for as long as it lasts. The thing is that if you want something nice, then effort is needed, and that effort for me is visiting the local market to purchase fresh food for me and my family. Get them stored at home, and it becomes easier to prepare freshly made food when needed.

I am not really a fan of takeout food; I succumb to it occasionally. Sometimes I just feel like reliving my kitchen duties and getting some nice treatment in a good restaurant; however, I feel so uncomfortable eating street food due to my past experience years ago and what people have to say again about it.
This afternoon, while I was at the barbershop with my kids, coincidentally, two other guys waiting for their turn were discussing this topic and their bad experience with street food. I believe ""not all street food vendors are non-hygienic", but there's another bad habit some of these food vendors engage in here in Nigeria, and that is adding sugar to meals so they can taste great. Can you imagine that? One of the guys called it food poisoning and shared his experience with the almost uncontrolled diarrhea he had after eating out at a particular vendor. I once had a bad experience too, and when I confronted the seller, she confessed adding potash to the food in order to help soften the grain.

Now, let's look at the economic aspect of homemade vs. takeout food. For someone with a large family like me, eating out means spending three times what I am supposed to spend on food alone. It's very economical to prepare your own food and more satisfying. Sometimes I don't get filled up with a huge amount of one serving from a restaurant. I guess they know how to make it lighter for a lot of profit.

Food is very important in human lives, and not just any food, but healthy food with good nutritional values. I found it fun to get creative in my kitchen while expressing my inner chef, as grandma taught me. As much as homemade food takes time and effort to prepare, you can't compare it with street food, as it's healthier for you and your family.

In conclusion, homemade food remains my preferred choice of food because it's healthier and less expensive; however, eating out occasionally isn't bad at all when I find myself in a situation where I can't prepare my own food or when I feel like staying out of the kitchen for some time, although it's rare.

Thank you for reading.❤❤

_{This post is inspired by the Hive Ghana's community and is also my entry to the #MarchInleo monthly topic about street food, local market and alternative economy . Please check out the announcement post to get involved}.