Home cooking has been lost in the busy lives that everyone leads today. Between work, running the kids to where they need to go, housework and everything else on the daily to do list, there isn’t time in the schedule to sit down for a meal, much less cook. The lack of families being able to find the time to spend together even to share a meal is a danger to the family unit.Childhood and adulthood obesity has been, in some part, blamed on the ease and cost of fast food and that may be a part of it. A bigger part of the problem is the lack of wholesome home cooked meals that kids and adults eat today. It is easier to control the amounts of fats and sugars people consume if the meals are prepared at home instead of in deep fryers and fat soaked grills. A part of the problem could also be the disconnection that everyone feels in the family and that could lead to emotional and binge eating when someone is seeking comfort that they can’t find in within the family.It wasn’t so long ago that the standard was to eat meals at home and going out to eat was reserved for special occasions. Even families that had clubs and sports of an evening would go home to eat then go on from there. There is some debate about what caused the change but now it seems to be the norm to grab something to eat out and then go on to the evening’s events. Home cooked meals are saved for holidays and special occasions when there still isn’t time for normal day to day conversation.When families do find time to eat together, there are still poor food choices being made in ingredients and preparation. Frozen meals that just require heating do not constitute home cooking and are not healthy choices for the family. Premade and prepackaged foods are not as nutritious as meals made from fresh ingredients without too much salt, fat, and preservatives. Time and expense are usually listed as the reason for the heat and eat meals. Neither of these reasons would have to be true if meals were prepared and organized.The financial expense is not the main problem with the loss of home cooked meals; the loss of connection to family is a much greater cost in the long run. Lives should not be so busy that there can’t be two hours a day that everyone can sit down together and share a meal. It’s not about the food as much as it is turning off cell phones, computers, televisions and just finding out about each other’s lives.In order for families to remain successful they have to be able to come together and communicate. Home cooking and sharing meals is about more than just nutrition and controlling fat and sugar intake; it’s about family connections and spending time together. It’s not too late to go back to old traditions and make the evening meal a time to get to know each other again.