The surprising benefits of cooking as a life skill

a post by Matt Davis for the Big Think blog

There's few domains in life that aren't improved by learning how to cook.

• It's easy to outsource our cooking to professionals, but in so doing, we lose a fundamental skill, control over our nutrition, and an exercise that promotes out physical and mental health.
• Even if you've never cooked anything beyond grilled cheese, improving your cooking skills can seriously improve your quality of life.
• Learn about the benefits of learning to cook as well as some resources to help you along the way.

Few things are as difficult to categorize as cooking. What else can be called a skill, an art form, a science, and a survival tool at the same time? It's an activity that brings people together over the dinner table, but the act of cooking can also be a very private experience. It's a human adaptation, a clever trick that evolution gradually baked into our brains to conjure up more calories out of raw food to power the large brains that could, with any luck, come up with more clever tricks. It's something so fundamental that everyone knows how to do it to some degree, but only a few can master the practice after years of training. It's a life skill that can save you money, improve your mental and physical health, and attract the envy of your peers all at once. Here's why.

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