One benefit of cooking daily that I see is being with your kitchen doctors. Now you may not have read about this before. Please read it once.
Some facts:
1) All Indian spices used in traditional cooking are Ayurvedic herbs.
2) These spices herbs carry unique medicinal property.
3) When you use them in Fire, air and water based cooking, their nano-particles are present in air.
4) Unknowingly, cook inhales it and essential herbs reach to body cells via shortest pathway i.e. inhale -> Blood stream, unlike normal way i.e. Eat -> Digestive track -> Blood stream.
5) We also use Ghee and Oil in cooking. They act as anti-oxidants and reduces body’s oxidative stress i.e. slows down ageing
Two caveats here is:
1) Temperature
High temperature cooking breaks essential vitamins and fatty acids. Not good. What is optimum temperature? Well, you will find all detail by googling but my yardstick is to compare it with Cow-dung burner.
Avoid microwave and oven cooking.
2) Purity of Ghee and Oil
If ghee is not pure (Procured from Gau shala where it is produced by manual churning of milk procured from mother Gau using all ethical ways or if oil is refined, it will have less long chain fatty acids and more short chain fatty acids.) At high temperature, they become free radicals and instead of helping us, it can accelerate oxidation of body and makes aging rapid.
Pure Ghee and unrefined oil has long chain fatty acids. Enough to work as nano-particle medicine.
Despite two caveats (which can be taken care), it is better than eating processed food.
So if family cooks together daily, they all get benefited by above mentioned benefits.
Do not ask proofs from me. Experience yourself. Experience is best proof. What is shared here is based on common sense.