Start a Meal Prep Routine
Pre-making meals can seem daunting when you start out. Mountains of fruits and vegetables to be washed and cut; proteins need to be cooked; carbohydrates are waiting to be arranged in a stack of meal containers.
Who has time for that?!
In the beginning, you don’t have time for that. The first hurdle is trying to rearrange the habitual schedule to fit in something new. You might have the desire to make a change in meal preparation when you find yourself rushing through the week. Actually making the change is easier said than done.
If you’ve never meal prepped, knowing where to start can be a challenge. The many advice blogs you can find on the internet might show you how to meal prep, but those twenty-seven easy steps seem just too much (that was sarcasm).
This blog is going to take a different approach and whittle that down into two steps:
Pick out a pre-cut vegetable
Put a handful or two into individual containers or bags
Your pre-cut vegetable might start out as a bag of baby carrots, pre-washed and trimmed broccoli pieces, or a prepared vegetable tray.
Choose an individual container that works for you, preferably one you already use. These can be individual plastic containers (I recommend one with a 1 – 1 ½ cups volume) or sandwich bags. Put 1 – 2 handfuls of the vegetable into each container and close them up.
Voila!!
You have done your first meal prep.
The purpose of this exercise is not to transform into a meal prepping professional in one day. The purpose is to start making space in your weekly schedule as easily as possible. Using a pre-cut vegetable is a low-effort way to get started and provides a chance for younger helpers to get involved!
