Cross-sectional associations of home cooking with diet quality and food consumption by degree of processing in women from the Moli-sani Study

Home cooking has been associated with diet quality, but its relationship with food processing has been poorly explored. We examined the association of home cooking frequency with degree of processing (using the Nova classification) and diet quality (i.e., the Mediterranean Diet Score, MDS; adherence to a pro-vegetarian food pattern; and the dietary inflammation score) in a large sample of Italian women (n = 11,982) from the Moli-sani Study. Participants were asked how often they cooked at home ("never/rarely," "occasionally," "almost every time," and "every time"). Women with the highest (82.6%), compared to the lowest frequency of home cooking reported greater unprocessed/minimally processed foods consumption (beta = 0.12; 95%CI 0.02, 0.22), lower UPF intake (beta = -0.16; 95%CI -0.26, -0.07), and lower values of the dietary inflammation score (beta = -0.13; 95%CI -0.24, -0.03). No difference was observed for the MDS nor adherence to a pro-vegetarian food pattern. Home cooking may be an effective strategy to reduce UPFs and pro-inflammatory food consumption.