Yes, my actual elementary school.  Thank you, Google. — Yes, my actual elementary school. Thank you, Google.

In my elementary school, secrets were against the law. Well, maybe not of the misdemeanor kind, but more of the "sit in the hallway until the teacher forgets about you, while you try to see how many times your can tie your shoelaces in a minute" variety. (Not that I would know....after all, I like to believe I was an angel.)

Fast forward to real life, and secrets STILL are for losers. As such, I wanted to share the secret so many people ignore that could instantly improve their overall health: learning how to cook.

Before I get there, I want to point out that food is often relegated to one of two prevailing notions in today's culture: sustenance or pleasure. Yet, it's almost never thought about as medicine. Why can't it be all three?

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and being 20 pounds overweight are not the causes of bad health. They are merely the symptoms and the messengers that something else is wrong. Yes, you could take medicine to help lower your blood pressure, cholesterol, and even try to lose a few pounds.....but you're addressing the symptoms and not the problem. You wouldn't mop up a wet floor after a rain storm and assume the problem is solved right? Yet often enough, people don't think to "check the roof" of their own health.

Whether or not we like to believe it, diet is often the biggest predictor of our health. Thus, when you start to cook your own food, you can start to take control of what you're putting in your body and your overall health. While it may be easy to order in or pop in a frozen meal, you're placing your health in the hands of someone else.

Furthermore, when you start to cook and make your own real food, your less likely to rely on processed products - which are high in sugar, high in calories, and low in nutrients. Yes, the phrase "you are what you eat" still rings true, even in today's world.

It's time to stop treating food as a one night stand - not knowing where it came from, and not caring what it may do to you over the long term. Invest your time in learning how to cook, and think of it as investing in yourself. After all, you can either pay that time forward now, or lose it later on.