What is meal prep? – Here’s how to make eating on the go a walk in the park
Would you like to eat healthily during your lunch breaks despite your stressful everyday life, but the canteen facilities make this difficult? Have you come across the term “meal prepping” and are asking yourself: “What exactly is meal prep?” Read on to find out what it’s all about and how to do it.
The key points
- Planning and preparation: good planning can save you time-consuming cooking in your stressful daily life.
- Healthier eating made easy: meal prep makes healthy eating possible despite time constraints.
- Avoiding food waste: meal prep helps to avoid food waste.
- Practice makes perfect! With a little practice, meal prep will soon be very easy for you.
What does meal prep mean? – list of contents
Meal prep – what exactly is it?
In our stressful everyday lives, having a balanced and healthy diet often gets neglected. When we’re short of time, we occasionally reach for ready-made products. It’s well worth planning and preparing your shopping and meals. A French study by the University of Paris involving 40,000 participants was able to determine the positive impact which meal planning had on the health of the respondents: if you finish up all of the prepared meals, then meal planning even scores well environmentally. By shopping carefully and cooking large quantities, less food is wasted and energy is saved as the cooker is only used once.
What is meal prep and how do I do it properly?
At the start of your meal prep, you should think about what is suitable. Plan your meals carefully in advance. Question what meal prep means for you and what you and your family like to eat. What do you fancy having next week? In addition to personal preferences, you should also consider which foods are in season and which you can buy regionally. You should plan exactly how much food you need and think about how long the meal prep components will keep. What needs to go in the freezer? What can you store in the fridge? Liebherr appliances’ VarioSpace option allows you to accommodate many different dishes for the whole week and for your whole family. It’s best to store your menu components in individual glass or plastic containers so that their full flavour is preserved. Here’s a little tip: the best way to keep your components fresh is to store sauces or dips in separate containers.
Meal prepping will now be much quicker thanks to your planning. In some cases, it may make more sense to pre-cook the food bit by bit or just individual components. For example, you can prepare rice in advance and pack some of it in the chest freezer for the end of the week, while it’s better to prepare pasta fresh. Otherwise it will be too soft. If you start your week with pre-cooked ingredients, you’ll be able to prepare your meals quickly. Simply combine your individual ingredients and produce a delicious main course in just a few minutes.
What you should consider and avoid when meal prepping
Of course, meal prep novices also face challenges. For example, the motivation to eat more healthily can quickly diminish if you end up with a bland choice of food. Our habits and everyday life sometimes make it difficult to meal prep. Spontaneous dinner invitations or “I think I’d prefer something different today” are difficult things to predict. Customised planning can help here. It’s also worth preparing meals just one or two days in advance. Why not give it a try?
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