Is meal prepping a fad? Meal prepping involves preparing your meals for the next 7 days in bulk and dividing the portions to be frozen or refrigerated. It certainly makes way too much sense to be a fad. If you agree, check out these most important rules of meal prepping.
1. Have a Plan
There’s a reason why it’s called meal prepping – you have to prep or plan your meals. Although the original concept is to plan your meals for the next 7 days, there’s no law to stop you from planning for 3 or 4 days, or how many days you feel comfortable.
Your plan might look something like a cafeteria meal schedule. You will then be able to create a shopping list of everything you need. If you live in a city, online grocery shopping is an option. If you’re someone who likes to pick out the best-looking vegetables or cuts of meat on display, rest assured that trained shopping assistants would do just that for you.
2. Don’t Neglect Your Breakfasts
One of the most important rules of meal prepping is to plan 3 meals a day and don’t neglect your breakfasts. Your body will be so devoid of nutrients in the morning that you don’t have to worry about sugar and grease for breakfast. A good breakfast will curb cravings throughout the day. One of the top attractions of meal prepping is saving money, so you don’t want to have to shell out extra on snacks.
If you have to cut corners, do so with the lunches. For example, you can plan alternate days of salads and hummus for lunch for the whole week.
3. Invest in a Set of High Quality Food Containers
The hot meals that you prepared are kept in the freezer. To reheat, you’d have to stick the container in the microwave for quite a few minutes. No microwave-safe plastic containers can take this kind of abuse for long. They’d soon be stained and full of minor pits. You’re much better off investing in a set of Pyrex containers. Pyrex doesn’t stain and you can even use it in the conventional oven. The initial higher investment will turn out much cheaper in the long run.
