Meal Prep Fundamentals

THE BASICS

Whether you’re a beginner in meal prep or you’re intermediate and looking to take it to the next level, this article is for you. I’ll be going over the fundamentals of meal prep and how to ramp up to be a meal prep master. (These fundamentals are more about understanding why we meal prep. Practical steps to take will be in a future article)

Meal prep is about the following principles:

• Save time
• Save money
• Achieve health, fitness, and/or diet goals

If you’re taking the time to meal prep, but it’s not helping you save time, money, or achieve your goals, then why are you doing it? It should at least hit ONE of those bullet points, otherwise you need to reevaluate how and why you’re doing meal prep.

SAVE TIME

Cooking 1- 4 meals in one night comes with a large overhead of setup time, prep time, and clean up time. Cooking 10-100 meals should scale efficiently where the ratio of overhead time to cooking time scales down. The more meals you cook at once, the less time you waste on overhead work.

I’d prefer to sacrifice one Sat/Sun a month of back-to-back 10 hour cooking days rather than spending 1-2 hours every other night cooking just 1-4 meals. I free up much more time this way. Time is a precious resource you can never get back in life. Save time and spend it on the things you care most about.

Meal prep initially is not a time saver. You will find your first few meal preps to be clumsy and inefficient. It takes time to efficiently mass produce 10-100 meals in one sitting. There are many unique bottlenecks in cooking that only happen when meal prepping.

Just like any skill you have mastered, it takes time to get there. You will eventually master the skills of time management and kitchen management as you practice meal prepping. After you master a recipe, you should be feeling MUCH more efficient than your first few attempts (it takes me 2-4 attempts to master a recipe). When you are feeling efficient, then you should be saving time.

$AVE MONEY

(PICTURE: I chose to stay at the stunning Ashford Castle for one night on my Ireland vacation. It’s an experience I’ll never forget.)

Buying anything in bulk should be saving money. The more you buy at once the more you should be saving. This is an advantage of meal prep. Normal cooking might yield 2 meals at $5/meal. Meal prepping 10-100 meals at once could yield $1-$2/meal. This is a significant money saver.

Let’s use another example for the cost savings benefit of meal prepping. Let’s say every day you ate out once a day for lunch. Sometimes it’s cheap. Sometimes it’s expensive. Let’s assume the average meal is $12/meal for lunch. If you replace that meal with a $2 meal prep, then that is $10 saved per day.

Assume you ate like this ALMOST every day in the year. Let’s say you eat like this for 50 weeks in a year. 50 weeks x 7 days x $10 saved = $3500 of free money every year. What would you do if you had $3500 of extra money saved? Would you pay your bills? Would you invest in better gym or PC equipment? Would you take a nice vacation full of wonderful memories?

I chose to take a wonderful vacation to Ireland in 2016 with the money saved. I will never forget the experiences I had there. Eating a mediocre $12/lunch at a restaurant is a forgettable experience. Saving that money for something greater is worth it to me. When you sit back and think about the money saved, you can see the importance of meal prepping.

I do not have a lot of money. I cannot afford to eat out every day. Many people cannot afford to eat out every day. Meal prepping will save you money. Money is a precious resource that can and should be used on more important things in life than mediocre lunches.

ACHIEVE HEALTH GOALS

What is your ideal picture of better health? Losing fat? Building muscle? Eating a nutritious diet? Overcoming a chronic condition you have? Meal prep can help you in every situation.

Meal prep is about control. Reaching your health goals is about control over your life. You control your food. Your food does not control you.

Through meal prep, we can control our food plans and produce custom products that will help us reach our goals.

Trying to lose weight? Make controlled portions that help you reduce your caloric intake.

Trying to gain weight? Make controlled portions that help you increase your caloric intake.

Trying to eat a nutritious diet? Plan to choose foods that lead to a balanced diet instead of last minute unplanned food choices.

PRACTICAL BEGINNER TIPS

I’ll spend more time on this in a more detailed article in the future. For now, you can walk away with these basic tips:

• Set aside a large chunk of time for your first meal prep. Choose something easy that is tasty to you. Triple check the recipe/ingredients before shopping and starting your meal prep.
• Start small with only producing 10-20 meals at a time. Scale up as you get more proficient.
• Test out a few meals to see how well they freeze. Freezable meals is the ultimate form of meal prep since you can stockpile multiple recipes at once and avoid food fatigue.
• Choose recipes/ingredients that scale well and can be purchased in bulk.
• Do not assume you must have fruits, vegetables, and a starch put in each meal prep container. You can quickly make fresh fruits/veggies on the side daily. You can also easily boil pasta or cook rice fresh to go with a meal prep.
• Consider getting more meal prep cookware and equipment here.

MEAL PREP LIFESTYLE

Meal prep is a life style that works for almost everyone; you just need to make it work for your life. If you find yourself needing more time and money while trying to reach health goals, then meal prep is for you.

Perhaps you enjoy the entire art of cooking. Perhaps you enjoy prep, cooking, and cleaning. Perhaps you enjoy cooking frequently throughout the week. It is fine to cook often if it is something you enjoy. If it’s a hobby you enjoy, you’re not wasting time; you are investing time in something that brings you joy. Continue to do it.

If you’re like me though, I enjoy cooking, but I enjoy spending my time elsewhere. I do not meal prep every single meal, but I do use it for the majority of my meals because it saves me time, money, and helps me reach my goals. This is how I make meal prep work for my life. Meal prep is just one tool in your arsenal of life. Master this tool and learn when to apply it in your life.