"Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation." — Zig Ziglar

We all know the feeling of dread when Sunday comes to a close and we are faced with the challenges of a new week. But you can make that week a little easier by preparing in advance. At EatLove, we know that having time to cook a meal everyday isn’t always possible. That’s why we love the leftovers engine on our platform. Even with leftovers, though, there are other ways to make cooking even easier, like prepping your foods in advance.

Sundays are our food prep days. The family is home and it’s a great time to do something together. Plus, it gets you ready for the rest of the week.

Benefits of Advanced Food Prep

Time & Money

By prepping some of your foods in advance, you can reduce food prep time during the week, giving you more time to spend with your kids or on your responsibilities. Plus, food prep forces you to dedicate yourself to specific recipes. You will need to buy the ingredients in advance, which can help you save money at the grocery store. And because you’ve planned in advance, you can avoid repeat trips to the store to pick up miscellaneous items throughout the week.

Sanity

Food prep can often help reduce stress too because it will be one less thing on your to-do list. We understand how busy the week can get. And when that happens, it’s easy to turn to restaurants or frozen dinners because they are quick and easy. But you can make your own meals quick and easy too! Food prepping in advance can literally save your sanity on busy nights and help you stick with your health goals.

Investment

But that’s not all. When you dedicate a specific amount of time to meal prepping, you are also investing in your system for reaching health goals. (Remember when we talked about goals vs systems?) Systems are the processes by which you can accomplish your goals.

In a professional setting, you are likely surrounded by efficient systems to help you get your work done and for the company to move forward. But at home, there are usually fewer productivity gains. Food prepping in advance can be a small investment in your system to help you increase your productivity at home.

Say you have a goal to prepare 3 dinners at home each week. Your system to achieve the goal could be to use the EatLove platform to plan meals and then to prep your ingredients for those meals each Sunday. This system could help you feel more prepared and help you avoid excuses you might have throughout the week that could cause you to avoid preparing a healthy dinner.

Food Waste

The final benefit of food prep that we will mention is reducing food waste. Part of food prep involves planning ahead. If you are preparing only the amounts needed for the week, you won’t have any leftover scraps that would go bad. Often, if there isn’t a plan to use produce, it can sit in the fridge and go bad. Food prep helps give your foods a purpose, so nothing goes to waste. EatLove is designed to help you reduce food waste, too.

Tips to Effective Food Prep

  • Pick a dedicated time: We love the idea of doing food prep on Sunday because it’s the first day of the week, and most people have the weekend off. You can get started on the right foot and create a positive and productive tone for the rest of the week. However, you should note that you can do your weekly food prep on any night of the week. Setting aside a specific time can also help you avoid schedule conflicts or excuses that could keep you from your advanced prep.
  • Keep it short: You don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen. That could deter anyone from food prep! Instead, we recommend keeping your prep time down to an hour or 90 minutes, so you can get a lot done without taking up the whole day.
  • Break it down: When you are prepping foods, try to group tasks together across recipes. For example, you can chop up all of the onions you need for the week. Likewise, you could pre-roast vegetables for upcoming meals.
  • Involve the family: You don’t have to be the only one in the kitchen! Involve the family in your food preparation tasks and assign everyone an age-specific job. Not only will their involvement help you complete your tasks more quickly, but you can also teach your family valuable cooking skills.

ASK YOURSELF THIS:

What would it mean to you to get back more time on a weekday thanks to advanced meal prep?

TRY THIS:

Plan at least 2 meals on EatLove. Pick one day this week to prep foods for those upcoming meals and stick to your food prep schedule!