Healthy Eating Made Easy: Pre-Planned Meals for Busy Lives

Meal Prep Guide

Who hasn’t found themselves leaving work late, stomach rumbling, and just too tired to hit the grocery store or incorporate up a meal? People often go for quick takeout meals because they have such busy schedules, but those meals can be packed with calories and might lead to some unwanted weight gain.

Picture this: you walk through the door, and just a few minutes later, you've got a tasty home-cooked dinner ready to go, plus maybe even some lunch packed up for tomorrow. How great would that be?  With our busy weekday schedules, meal prep or planning can really help us stay on track with healthy eating.  

Meal prep definitely needs some planning, but there’s really no single right way to do it. It all depends on what you like to eat, how skilled you are in the kitchen, your schedule, and what you’re aiming for personally.  GetCookt is ready to help you with your meal planning and deliver quality food right to your door, all without the hassle of extra calories. 

• If you find yourself grabbing fast food or takeout a few nights each week, maybe you want to pick a day to sit down, make a shopping list, and head to the grocery store.
• If you’re already hitting the grocery store once a week and have some basic cooking skills, maybe you want to pick one day each week to do most of your cooking or give a new recipe a shot.
• If you’re already creating up some weekday meals for your family, you might want to think about making a schedule. That way, you won’t be scrambling at the last minute to figure out what to cook, and you can make sure you have all the ingredients you need ready to go.
  

Benefits of Meal Prep

Here are a few perks of meal prep:

• It can really help you save a few dollars.
• You can save time in the long run, and it can also help you manage your weight since you get to choose the ingredients and portion sizes.
• It can help make your diet more balanced and nutritious.
• You can cut down on stress by steering clear of those last-minute choices about what to eat or the frantic rush of getting things ready. 

Prepping for Meal Prep

• Have a chat with your family about the kinds of foods and favourite meals they enjoy eating.
• Why not kick off a monthly calendar or spreadsheet to jot down your meal ideas, favourite recipe websites, and shopping lists? It could be super helpful!
• Gather some tasty healthy recipes. Gather recipes from magazines and newspapers by clipping them and storing them in a binder, or you can just copy the links of your favourite recipes into an online spreadsheet.
• Think about what meals or foods you might want to have on different days of the week. Do you remember when Wednesday was known as Prince Spaghetti Day? Some families really like having a routine because it makes meal planning a lot easier and more predictable. How about some fun ideas like Meatless Mondays, Whole Grain Wednesdays, or Stir-Fry Fridays?
  
• Begin with something manageable: Try to make up enough dinners to last you for 2-3 days during the week. 
  

What Happens When You’ll Skip Meal Planning?

Usually, skipping the meal planning process makes life more difficult. Here's how:

• You'll be in the grocery store for a lot longer, browsing the aisles and attempting to think of meals on the spot.
• Since you initially didn't know what to do with the food you brought home, you're probably going to throw it away.
• You'll most likely eat more takeaway or cereal bowls for supper, which is fantastic if you can afford it or if you enjoy eating cereal every day (don't judge!). However, for the majority of us, that is not the case.
• Additionally, on top of everything else we have to worry about, you will always need to think of new food ideas every day, which requires a lot of mental energy.

For this reason, meal preparation is a kind of self-care even though it's not attractive. By avoiding the burden of figuring out what to buy, cook, and eat every day, you're taking care of your future self. In the process, you're also cutting down on food waste and saving money! 

Storage

If you are only making enough food for the next week, meal prep can help you save time and money. A crucial part of effective meal planning is freezing and refrigeration. However, food waste can result from forgotten food, such as vegetables that is hidden in a drawer or stew that is kept in an opaque container on the back shelf for an extended period of time. To keep track of when to use each prepared item, mark it with a date. Keep the oldest meals and goods at the front of the store by rotating the items. To help you remember to utilise them, keep highly perishable products like chopped fruits, herbs, and greens in the front and at eye level.

Certain foods are more suited for freezing than others. Cooked foods usually freeze well when stored in sealed containers. It is not advisable to eat foods that have a lot of moisture, such watermelon, tomatoes, or salad greens, as they may get mushy over time. Before freezing, blanch vegetables for a few minutes. However, frozen foods can still be used in cooked meals like soups and stews if their texture changes after thawing. 

For the finest flavours, most nutrients, and food safety, the following timings are advised for different cooked foods.

• Refrigeration for one to two days at 40°F or lower: cooked ground beef or poultry
• 3–4 days: Prepared fish, poultry, and whole meats; stews and soups
• Five days: hummus and cooked beans
• One week: chopped veggies if kept in an airtight container; hard-boiled eggs
• Two weeks: Opened, soft cheese
• 5–6 weeks: Opened hard cheese 

Get Pre-Planned Halal Meals:

Ready to get started? Above  are a few tips that work well for larger quantities, and remember that the GetCookt can be an asset for menu planning. Therefore, preparing a nutritious supper seems to be the last thing you want to do when you finally get home at the end of the day. Thus, get wholesome, nutrient-dense halal meals from GetCookt and have them delivered straight to your door. 

Happy Eating a nutritious diet!