Bet you’re feeling guilty for not getting on the meal prep bandwagon. All those Instagram stories, meal prep blogs and Tik Tok revelations got your juices flowing and made you think that meal prepping was the be-all-and-end-all to efficiency in the kitchen, right? Wrong.
Hey, whatever floats your boat. If you feel like giving meal prepping a go, try it and see if you like it. It’s a noble pursuit and that procession of glitzy, glammy photos in your socials will make it seem like it’s the most incredible thing ever. But for me, it makes my back ache and feet hurt just thinking about it. (And the cynic in me knows that all that over-the-top food styling is never going to be how my food looks.)
Anti-meal prepping argument #1: Do you really want to spend your weekend chopping vegetables?
Your Sunday counts for one-seventh of your week! Why would you spend one-seventh of your week future-proofing the other five-sevenths? Listen, meal prepping is no easy feat. At best, you’ll be hours on your feet, shopping at the supermarket or farmer’s markets, bringing it all home, chopping vegetables, stirring sauces and assembling dishes of ingredients. Then there’s the washing up, the cleaning and the organising. Oh lawd, do you not have better things to do with your time on your precious weekend?
Anti-meal prepping argument #2: Is a week really a good time span for cooked foods?
Some foods will easily last a week in the fridge, but others really don’t go the distance. Does that mean if you’re a fanatical meal prepper, you can’t include fish in your diet? While some foods are less than safe to eat by the end of the week, some dry out, others go slimy and yet others get smelly. And don’t forget that raw and cooked foods break down and become less nutritionally sound, the longer they sit there.
Anti-meal prepping argument #3: What if you feel like eating something other than what you’ve prepped?
You look in the fridge, see your elegantly stacked filing cabinet of prepped meals and think, “But I really just feel like pizza tonight.” Whaddyagonnado? Are you going to give yourself a major guilt trip for not pulling out one of your already-planned-for meals out and tucking in to that? Are you going to beat yourself up for ordering home-delivered pizza? Do you even have the ingredients for homemade pizza now that you’ve invested all that time, money and effort into what you needed for the prepped meals?
Honey, honey, honey, give yourself a break. You’re allowed to feel like eating whatever you please. Food is comfort as well as nutrition and sustenance. Ease back on the super-dooper planning and go with the flow.
Anti-meal prepping argument #4: What if you’re caught out away from home, miles from your very own fridge at mealtime?
Life’s unpredictable. You get stuck working back late at work and hunger calls. You get invited out for dinner on the spur of the moment and the idea of margaritas and tacos makes your mouth water. Or, life just happens and you end up at the hospital, at the mechanic’s or someone slips you some movie tickets that are expiring tonight and they can’t go.
Sometimes, interruptions to your usual programming happen more than once in a week. What a shame that you’ve done all that hard work on the weekend to meal prep those poke bowls and by the time you get to eat a couple of those meals, they’re smelling less than appetising.
Anti-meal prepping argument #5: Eating intuitively is better for you.
Right, there’s intuitive eating and there’s devil-may-care eating. What I’m talking about is listening to your body and choosing good, healthy foods that respond to what your body needs. I don’t mean going on a fridge or pantry rampage and smooshing your face into anything that looks good.
Intuitive eating refers to eating only when you feel hungry. Having that awesome prepped meal in the fridge is like a sign that says “eat me, eat me now”. Maybe you’re not hungry, but you eat it anyway because it’s there. And maybe you only have light hunger, the kind where you go, “I could eat” but you don’t need a full-on meal. I bet if you went in and grabbed your pre-prepped chilli, you’d eat the lot, because why put half a meal back in the fridge?
Embrace leftovers
Ever eaten curry leftovers and wondered why on earth they taste better the next day? The flavours get deeper with time! The same goes for lots of different meals. Aside from that, eating what you’ve cooked straight after you’ve cooked it sometimes falls a bit flat because you’ve been smelling it and tasting it as you go. But when you open a container from the fridge with leftovers, oh it all smells so new and inviting.
Some of the best meals for leftovers are pasta, fried rice, roast meats, soups, casseroles and stews (anything slow cooked), curries and satays. Make a bigger batch than you need for one sitting and either put the whole container in the fridge or separate it into meal-size portions. Refrigerate or freeze and voila! You have yourself a very decent meal with almost zero effort. Add a pack of microwave steamed vegies or some microwave rice to pad it out. Otherwise, get out your pie maker and turn a casserole into your best pie ever.
How to have the right stuff in the house
In order to have good foods ready for you to enjoy in the house when you need them, you do have to do some prepping. It’s called shopping. Keep a list of your go-to foods on your phone or wherever is convenient for you. If you’re a lazy cook, you’ll be able to put together a meal in a short space of time using what’s in the house. But don’t buy too much! If you can plan to do one main shop per week and top up once, maybe twice if it’s convenient, you’ll always have fresh foods you like, ready to go.
Shop for a protein per meal, three vegetables per meal and, if you don’t already have them at home, whatever carbs you typically use, such as pasta, rice or bread. And remember, you don’t have to buy three different vegies per different meal, obviously.
You do you, boo
Look, I’m not going to say that there’s no place in this world for meal prepping, but if you’ve tried it and hate it with a passion, let it go. Stop feeling the guilts just because ‘everyone else is doing it’. They’re not! Most of us have messy, unpredictable lives that can’t be controlled with a stack of lidded plastic containers.