Planning the weekly menu is the best way to control what you eat, how you eat it and the way you do it. That is, it is the perfect way to make sure your diet is varied, balanced and healthy. But in addition to this, there are many other benefits of planning meals for the week. Because eating well is not at odds with having a very busy life.
Time is a scarce commodity and therefore it is essential to know how to enjoy it in the best possible way. Wasting minutes every day thinking about what to cook is something that makes you lose the opportunity to invest your time in more fun things. Therefore, there is nothing more comfortable and efficient than dedicate one day a week to planning the weekly menu.
What is the "meal prep"?
Planning meals for the week is quite common, but somewhere in the world (specifically in the United States) someone thought that cooking, or semi-cooking meals, could help save time in the kitchen each day. And that's how the term "meal prep" came into our lives, which literally means to prepare food. Specific, it is a method of planning and preparing part-time meals for the whole week.
So that you can save a lot of time in the kitchen, as well as money in the weekly groceries and avoid excess food waste that is not consumed. But the concept of "meal prep" goes further, as it is not just about designing a menu or leaving some dishes cooked. It is a whole method that involves the following steps:
- Plan the weekly menu in advance, taking into account each meal of the day as well as snacks.
- Buy exactly the food you need, avoiding the waste of products. In addition to making a single general purchase for the whole week, where you buy everything you need for all meals.
- Dedicate a specific time each week to cook, with 2 or 3 hours will be enough with a good organization.
- Prepare certain add-ons for food such as greens and vegetables that must be present at every meal. That is, chopping vegetables in quantity to have availability at all times.
- Distribute the portions in appropriate containers, with the right size to complete meals with the necessary nutrients.
- Store correctly in the fridge during the week.
Benefits of planning and cooking one day a week
There is nothing more demoralizing than coming home after a long day at work and having to prepare food. This is basically what you are going to avoid with the "meal prep" because you can open the refrigerator and find the semi-prepared food at all times. Also, by having the portions evenly separated, you will take the necessary ration and avoid overeating.
If you are still not entirely convinced of the many benefits of planning your weekly menu meal, take note of all the benefits of the meal prep.
- You save money. Because you make a single purchase where you acquire everything you need. It has been proven that making several small purchases is much more expensive, because always they take more things than necessary.
- You also save time. In a single day you will have the whole week's food semi-prepared and divided into containers ready to serve.
- You know what you eat at all times. If you have your food prepared in the fridge, it will cost you much more to fall into the temptation to order fast food.
- You eat healthy. Complementing the previous point, having your food prepared with natural products you eat better and healthier.
- Less food is wasted. Something that must be controlled in each house, because the food waste This is alarming considering that many people are food deprived in all parts of the world. Resources are limited and food should under no circumstances be wasted.
You have already seen the many benefits of planning the meals on the weekly menu, so you just have to grab a nice sheet of paper, your favorite pen and start planning. You will soon discover the pleasure of having organized food at every moment and even, your body will notice and appreciate it.