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OCTOBER 7, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Health & F tness
The Marvelous Merits of Meal Prep By Aliza Beer MS, RD, CDN
W
ith busy schedules and a host of obligations, maintaining a well-balanced diet can be difficult. Meal preparation is a great way to be in control of the foods you are eating, and it will help make feeding you and your family much easier. The best part about it is that there is no one-way approach. Instead, meal prep allows you the flexibility to prepare meals in a way that works for you and your schedule. Meal prep can range from making your lunch the night before, cooking certain foods in batches, or pre-cooking all your food and portioning out for the week. Some people either prepare the different components of their meals, others prepare the entire meal and even prepare the week’s meals in advance. There are so many benefits of meal prep; incorporating it into your life will have a significant impact on the quality of meals you are consuming.
The Benefits of Meal Prep 1. You will save time: If you’re cooking once or twice a week, you’ll save a lot of time than if you cooked dinner every night. If you set aside an hour or two to prepare and cook foods at the beginning of the week, you’ll only have to spend minutes (as opposed to hours) either reheating the food or using it to make a quick dish. When you don’t have to spend a half-hour or hour making dinner each night, you will have more time to enjoy doing the things you love. 2. You will save money: Today, Americans are spending much more money at restaurants than they are at groceries. When you meal prep, you can buy foods in bulk, freeze extra food for later, and spend less money
eating out. It also becomes easier to price out your food in advance when you cook once or twice a week because you aren’t buying foods here and there. Oftentimes, the grocery store can get overwhelming, and you walk out with food you may not end up using. When preparing meals in advance, approach the supermarket shop with a list, buy only what you need for the week and what fits in your weekly or monthly plan. This will save a lot of money because you won’t be throwing out spoiled foods or buying foods you won’t use. You’ll also avoid making impulse food buying throughout the week, which can be very expensive. 3. You’ll eat healthier: When preparing meals ahead of time, you learn to eat when it is time to eat instead of making poor, hunger-based decisions. Eating home-cooked meals is usually much healthier than eating foods from a restaurant where meals are filled with added sugar, oil, and calories. You know exactly what is
in your food, and you’ll avoid added chemicals and processed foods. 4. Self-control: It can be very difficult to have self-control when there is a fast-food meal that can be picked up in five minutes or there’s a bag of chips you can grab. It is difficult to start cooking a well-balanced meal when there are quicker, easier, and usually unhealthier alternatives around. However, when you prepare food and meals in advance, it will become much easier to make the healthier choice. If all you have to do is reheat the meal sitting in your fridge, you will save many internal battles with yourself whether or not to just order in or eat a snack. You’ll be more in control of your food choices and notice how much easier it will be to make the healthier choice. 5. Less stress: How many times do we come home from a long day of work and feel the stress associated with making dinner? With meal prep, you’ll come home knowing you have food that either just needs to be
reheated or needs to be turned into a dish in under 5 minutes. You won’t have to try to figure out what to make for dinner each night. You’ll also have a lot fewer pots and pans to clean than if you were cooking every night. During the week, you’ll only have to wash the storage containers and some eating utensils. 6. Eat more variety: If you spend some time planning out your meal prep, you’ll notice how much variety you can have. Instead of putting chicken and vegetables in the oven every night after a long day of work, you can make multiple dishes out of the foods you prepared at the beginning of the week. It will become simple to choose from different food categories and you will be able to incorporate different spices, grains, vegetables, and forms of protein. For example, if you make a big batch of assorted roasted vegetables at the beginning of the week, make a power bowl for dinner one night and use it to make a stir fry the next night. 7. Portion control: If you have trouble managing portion sizes, then food prep your meals in pre-portioned containers – you will be less likely to overeat. Portion control helps people maintain a healthy weight or lose a few pounds. Meal prep doesn’t have to be boring. You can always add different flavors each night to the foods you prepared. There are many different ways to use meal prep to ensure you are eating a well-balanced diet. Batch cooking can be one way to prepare foods all at once, pre-portion them, and eat them throughout the week or month. You can prepare vegetable soups by cooking them one day when you
