Are you tired of the hassle of preparing and cooking your meals every day? I’m sure it has been taking a lot of time and energy to do so. For that, I’ll provide you with the ultimate hacks to meal prepping working as a professional chef.
But the question is why meal prep? Simply, because it makes your life so much easier, and I ll tell you all about it in this article. According to a study, those who plan their meals are more likely to stick to enjoying well-balanced, healthy diet rich in a variety of nutrients.
The big 4 saves: why start meal prepping
Here is what I like to call The Big 4 Saves. All the benefits I got to experience once I decided to meal prep, which I guarantee you can benefit from too;
- Saves you a lot of time: Rather than repeating the process every day or two, it’s more effective to sit down once a week, browse through your pinned recipes or cookbooks, and create one grocery list for the week.
- Saves you from food waste: People waste over a quarter of the food and beverages they spend on each year due to spoiling, impulsive spending at the grocery store, a lack of preparation, and throwing away leftovers. Thanks to meal prepping, you can allocate your food supply sufficiently.
- Saves you money: When you throw away less food, you also reduce your spendings. Meal prepping has allowed me to be more aware of the weekly supermarket budget by prioritizing the exact items I need.
- Saves you the stress: It takes deliberate mental effort when deciding what you’re going to eat. After a long work day, picking up your kids or having a busy day. That’s why having a prepared meal conserves your energy and makes it all less stressful.
Meal prep to perfection:
- Create the plan: dedicate at least an hour every week to write down your shopping list and meals for the week.
- Keep pantry organized: keep track of the inventory and add to your shopping list whatever you are running out of to keep a consistent pantry supply.
- Vary your options: It’s important to have variety in your meals and rotate the menu whenever you feel like it will get boring soon.
- Avoid temptations: We all get tempted to buy unnecessary snacks that are out of our plan, so it’s best that you stick to your original shopping list.
- Stock up on containers: There’s nothing more user-friendly than those containers with compartments that will make it easy for you to proportion your meals.
Now that you know the Big 4 saves of meal prepping and have a solid background on how to start your journey, as a retired chef that has tried all types of meal prepping , I can definitely tell you that meal prepping in advance is truly efficient, energy saving and actually quite fun, once you get the hang of it. Who would resist that?
