Lifestyle

3 Health Benefits of Cooking Outdoors

Published

2 years ago

January 18, 2023

Do you like cooking outside — perhaps even during the wintertime? It can be a pleasant experience cooking on your patio deck if you prefer to avoid feeling cooped up behind the four walls of your kitchen. But did you know there are also some health benefits of cooking outside?

Continue reading for three reasons why cooking outdoors can be good for your health.

Fresh Air

Your kitchen can get stuffy if you’re cooking up a storm. Are you used to having all four of your stove burners going as you make a multi-course meal for a family gathering? Depending on the menu, your kitchen could be filled with all sorts of aromas. Even the best-smelling cuisine can overwhelm you if the scents are confined to a small area. Opening a window can help, but you might still lack the fresh air you want. That’s why cooking outside makes sense.

Cooking out in the open air means you’ll be able to breathe in fresh air. According to one source, fresh air cleans your lungs, boosts your energy levels, reduces your heart rate, and improves your digestion.

So, the next time you use your flat top grill to cook up a storm on the patio deck, remember that you and yours will be healthier cooking and eating outdoors. It’s the right thing to do, and you and yours will enjoy gathering on the back deck for family time.

Vitamin D

Another reason to cook outside is that you can get exposure to the sun, which will get you some vitamin D. Vitamin D is a nutrient you can get through your diet and a hormone your body manufactures. The benefits of vitamin D are many. For instance, research suggests it can reduce cancer cell growth, lessen inflammation, and help fight infections. Vitamin D is also needed to help your body absorb phosphorus and calcium, which are required for bone building.

While you can get some vitamin D through your food, few foods naturally contain the essential vitamin. That’s why many people rely on supplements to get the vitamin D they want. But another way to get vitamin D is the sunshine. So, cooking outside will allow you to get your daily dose of vitamin D. Of course, too much of a good thing can be bad.

If you don’t have a patio cover providing some covering, you’ll want to wear a hat, use suntan lotion, or limit your direct exposure to the sun.

Mental Health

Spending time outside in green spaces can benefit your mental health. Do you have a garden in your backyard? Have you invested in creating a great outdoor living space? Cooking outside, where you can enjoy relaxing, can bring significant mental health benefits. For instance, it can improve your mood, lessen feelings of stress, and boost your connection to nature.

If you enjoy cooking in a kitchen, you’ll enjoy cooking out on the back deck even more. And knowing that being outside in a green space can help your mental health, you’ll enjoy it all the more. It’s also been shown that families that eat together can improve mental health. So, that’s all the more reason to cook outdoors and enjoy a meal as a family outside.

As you can see, there are various health reasons to cook outdoors rather than indoors. So, while that doesn’t mean you have to cook all your meals outside, doing so occasionally is a good idea. You and your family will be able to enjoy the health benefits of not only cooking outside, but also enjoying meals and family time in the great outdoors.

Lifestyle

Derik Fay: The Quiet Architect of Impact-First Entrepreneurship

Published

1 day ago

May 8, 2025

Michelle Langton

In an era where noise often overshadows results, Derik Fay is quietly shaping a different kind of legacy — one built not on showmanship, but on undeniable substance. For more than two decades, Fay has engineered the rise of over 30 companies across industries as diverse as real estate, technology, healthcare, and entertainment. Yet his name rarely leads headlines — not because he hasn’t earned it, but because he never needed it to validate his success.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Fay learned early that the world rarely hands out opportunity; it must be seized, created, and multiplied. While many of his peers pursued traditional paths, he took a risk that would define the rest of his life: at just 22, he founded 3F Management, a venture firm with an entirely different mission — to build companies that would outlast trends, outperform markets, and, most importantly, out-impact their competition.

Instead of obsessing over short-term wins, Fay approached entrepreneurship like a craftsman. Much like Henry Ford, who famously said, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business,” Fay built companies that weren’t just profitable — they were purposeful. Every venture was designed to create real, sustainable value, both for shareholders and for the communities they served.

Through his relentless focus on structure and leadership, Fay’s ecosystem of businesses now touches thousands of lives daily — from employees finding new opportunities to entrepreneurs gaining the mentorship they never had before. But unlike typical moguls who boast about headcounts, Fay views every job created as a ripple in a larger mission: empowering individuals to write better futures for themselves.

Where others have scaled fast and crashed harder, Fay’s model thrives on foundations few are patient enough to build anymore. His method is slower, smarter, and almost surgical: find what others overlook, fix what others fear, and grow what others abandoned too early. It’s this principle that led him to not just build companies — but to resurrect them, reimagine them, and sometimes even walk away if the mission no longer aligned with the impact he envisioned.

Fay’s philosophy extends far beyond boardrooms. Philanthropy isn’t a checkbox at the end of his success story — it’s embedded into the way he scales. His ventures are built with giving back written into their DNA, from local community initiatives to broader mentorship platforms that help emerging entrepreneurs get their first real shot at success. His life’s work is proof that wealth and generosity are not mutually exclusive — they are, in fact, essential partners.

Today, while newer generations of entrepreneurs hustle for likes and magazine covers, Fay’s name is whispered in rooms where real power moves. His reputation — built quietly but relentlessly — is that of a man who delivers, builds, and elevates without the need for public validation.

In a business world increasingly built on spectacle, Derik Fay reminds us that the most lasting legacies are forged not in the glare of the spotlight, but in the thousands of lives changed quietly along the way.

For more insights into Derik Fay’s ventures and philanthropic efforts, visit www.derikfay.com and follow him on Instagram @derikfay