When it comes to meal planning, it doesn't matter if you're cooking just for yourself or an entire family, the struggle is real! Let's face it, some evenings it just might seem easier to resort to takeout or hire a cook (and we know that's not going to happen any time soon).
How do people do it? You may have asked yourself that question many times! How do they always ensure a home-cooked meal with healthy, fresh ingredients without burning out? How do they fit it all into their busy schedule? How can you plan and prep meals without losing so much time, energy, and even money?
Well, we are going to begin another series of articles on Meal Planning and Prepping to answer those questions and many more. We'll break it all down step by step.
Of course, these guides are flexible, general recommendations to help master the art of meal planning and prepping. They do not replace individualized diet plans with specific nutrient targets and goals (i.e. weight loss, weight gain, digestive issues, etc) or specific dietary needs (such as dairy-free, nut-free, gluten-free, etc).
>Most importantly, they are nutrient-dense. That is, they are rich with nutrients that contribute to great health.
As an intro to our series of guides, we'll start with several principles that guided the development of our meal planning guide.
+ Prepare your own food as much as possible.
+ Eat organic as much as possible. Stay up to date on ewg.org for the annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists. Did you know the dirty dozen list actually comes from a longer "Pesticides in Produce" list? In fact, the 2020 guide had 47 different fruits and vegetales on the list. Annually visit the Environmental Working Group's site to stay updated.
+ Emphasize lean protein, raw healthy fats and oils, non-starchy vegetables, and pure water as much as possible.
+ Speaking of pure water, drink plenty of pure, filtered water all throughout your day. Pale yellow to clear urine is the goal!
+ Choose grass-fed animal proteins or wild-caught fish as much as possible. Limit farm-raised as much as possible. This also applies to dairy. Opt for dairy from grass-fed cows.
+ Eat a varied diet. Repeating foods or recipes too often reduces enthusiasm and, worse, limits the variety of nutrients you can get from your diet.
+ Include omega-3 rich sources, including salmon, flax seeds, chia seeds, or walnuts as just a few examples.
+ Avoid artificial anything - flavors, colors, sweeteners, preservatives, or trans fats.
+ Avoid refined sugars to help reduce inflammation.
+ Avoid overcooking food, especially veggies, to preserve the heat-sensitive nutrients (such as vitamin C or the amino acid lysine) and enzymes that aid in digestion. Even overcooking protein can make it more resistant to digestive enzymes. Some meal-planning friendly strategies include healthy food prep methods including slow cooker recipes (which can help preserve many nutrients since no high-heat is used but, rather, slow and low cooking).
So, these are just a few of the lifestyle principles that meal planning needs to have as a foundation or that meal planning may help you achieve!
Still, meal planning can be difficult. You can't become a meal planning master overnight. It takes a while to truly master these skills. Part Two will go into depth on some common pitfalls and how to overcome them or prevent them in the first place.
Most, if not all, of these mistakes have likely been experienced by even the most seasoned of meal planners. Therefore, don't give up. Learn as you go. You'll get better at it in time. We hope the following series will prove useful for you and your new endeavor.
References
Lee, S., Choi, Y., Jeong, H. S., Lee, J., & Sung, J. (2017). Effect of different cooking methods on the content of vitamins and true retention in selected vegetables. Food science and biotechnology, 27(2), 333–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-017-0281-1