Why Meal Prep?

In the hustle and bustle of modern life, finding time to cook the meals you would like to eat can be a challenge–we hear it all of the time!!! However, there’s a solution that can save you time, money, and stress while helping you stay on track and it’s called meal prep. Whether you’re a busy professional, a parent juggling multiple responsibilities, or simply someone looking to streamline their eating habits, leveling up your meal prep can be a game-changer. In this blog post, we’ll explore what meal prep is, its benefits, and provide you with three easy actionable items to kickstart your meal prep journey.

What is Meal Prep?

Meal prep involves preparing meals or meal components in advance, typically to eat in the upcoming days or week. This can include cooking entire meals, prepping ingredients, or assembling a few ready-to-eat snacks. By dedicating a block of time to meal prep each week, you can save time during busy weekdays, avoid the temptation of typically less nutritious convenience options, and ensure that you’re fueling your body with the foods you truly want to eat..

Benefits of Meal Prep:

• Time-Saving: With meals already prepared, you’ll spend less time cooking during the week and more time enjoying your meals or engaging in other activities.
• Cost-Effective: By buying ingredients in bulk and cooking in batches, meal prep can help you save money on groceries and reduce food waste.
• Healthier Choices: When you have healthy meals readily available, you’re less likely to reach for convenient but less nutritious options like fast food or processed snacks.

Three Easy Actionable Items for Meal Prep:

• Plan Your Meals: Take some time at the beginning of each week to decide on the easy meal prep ideas that you want to bring to life. Start with one or two recipes. Choose recipes that are simple to prepare, incorporate a variety of nutrients, and align with your dietary goals. Make a shopping list based on your meal plan to ensure you have all the necessary ingredients on hand.  Believe it or not, I shop with an old school chicken scratch on paper list 99 percent of the time!  Otherwise, the grocery store for me is like “squirrel…..squirrel”
• Batch Cooking: Dedicate a couple hours on a weekend or your day off to batch cook your meals for the week OR, if you know you like, say, chicken, if you are cooking 2 chicken breast for a recipe on a Tuesday; cook 4 and you will have some for another meal. 
• Cook a pot of grains; roast some vegetables (as long as you are firing that oven, why not roast 2 pans?) and chop a favorite herb or slice green onions. All can be easily mixed and matched to create different meals. Store individual portions in containers for quick grab-and-go lunches or dinners.
• Prep Ahead Snacks: Don’t forget about snacks! I don’t usually Chop up fruits and vegetables or portion out nuts or seeds (but some people swear by this!)  but I do prepare protein balls and quick breads to have on hand when hunger strikes between meals. I also stock simple fiber-forward foods that I love to munch on–popcorn, apples, dark chocolate, carrots and individual cans of mussels, oysters and sardines (I know, I know, you either love or hate the latter LOL).  Having healthy snacks readily available can help you resist the temptation to take a deep dive into an entire pint of ice cream. 

Meal prep is a simple yet powerful tool for mostly sticking to the diet that you want to eat. By dedicating a little time and effort each week to plan and prepare your meals, you can save time, money, and stress, so give meal prep a try

Happy prepping!