Sunny Side Up Nutrition

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Meal Prep: Without a Side of Diet Culture

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By: Jessica Long, Nutrition Masters Student

Guest Post Writer

As a graduate student, my days are spent reading, writing, and working on my research, and my nights are spent in class or catching up on an ever growing to-do list. As you can imagine, finding time to shop, cook, and prepare meals is a challenge, and I’m certainly not alone in that struggle. Whether a student, young professional, or a parent, we all face difficulties in balancing our schedules and giving our bodies the fuel they need to keep up with everything on our plates (pun intended!).

Meal Prep and Diet Culture

It should come as no surprise that the hashtag ‘mealprep’ has nearly 10 million tags on Instagram. However, one peek into the photos associated with #mealprep and my mind begins to spin. Sure, some of the photos are beautiful, but many of the captions and recommendations are brimming with diet culture. For instance, lots of “eat this, not that,” low carb meal prep guides, and calorie counts next to Tupperware filled with grilled chicken, broccoli, and cauliflower rice. Although it might seem that diet culture has a tight grip on meal prep, there are many reasons to plan and prepare your meals that have nothing to do with weight or weight loss…

  • Save time.
  • Save money.
  • Satisfy hunger.

For many with busy schedules (myself included!), spending copious amounts of time in the kitchen might not be a top priority, and that’s perfectly OKAY! My focus is on simple, quick meals that are both nourishing and satisfying.

Here are my #mealprep tips, without the side of diet culture:

  • Make a master list of your favorite easy meals (Look for a Part 2 post for my “go-to” meals). Anna and Elizabeth wrote about their “go-to” meals at each of their houses: here and here.
  • Take an inventory of your fridge, freezer, and pantry to see what you have on hand.
  • Sit down and make a grocery list. There are lots of free templates out there to choose from!
  • Leftovers are your friend. I rarely purchase food solely for lunches, and I try to use leftovers from one meal as the base for another meal.
  • The freezer section is also your friend; I try to keep my freezer stocked with pizza dough, ice cream, and frozen fruits and vegetables. Check out Elizabeth’s guest post on The Benefits of Adding Frozen Foods to Your Meal and Snack Line Up.
  • If you have the opportunity, take an hour or two to prep items for the week.

Here are some of my “go-to’s” when I have an hour or two to spare…

  • Hard boil half a dozen eggs for an on-the-go snack, to top a salad, or to make an open-faced sandwich.
  • Make a grain to keep around; I suggest farro or quinoa in a time crunch or brown rice when you have more than 30 minutes!
  • Wash and cut up produce. I recently bought several 32 oz. deli containers and I use them to store fruit for snacks and vegetables for recipes during the week.
  • Make a batch of granola. Not only is it cheaper, but you can tailor it to your liking! I’m known by my classmates for bringing a tupperware with granola, yogurt, berries, and nuts.
  • If the recipe allows, brown any meat ahead of time. I like to cook sausage to add to eggs at breakfast and to top pizza.

I’ll share with you my “go-to” meals in a future post!

Jessica Long is a graduate student at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC. She is an avid reader of research, and her interests include eating disorders, intuitive eating, and approaching medical nutrition therapy (MNT) from a weight-neutral lens. She is especially intrigued by the intersection of diabetes and weight neutral care, having experience working with patients with diabetes in a primary care setting. She is currently spearheading a research project investigating intuitive eating in minority undergraduate populations. Jessica can be reached via email at jlong@email.meredith.edu or on Instagram at @jessicalongrd.  

“Go To Meals” – Your Plan B

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Each year on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, my family takes a 9 hour car trip home to North Carolina from Ohio through the mountains of West Virginia. While the kids are watching movies in the back of the minivan, my husband and I usually talk about the coming weeks, months and year. It’s a moment of calm after the months of busyness leading up to the holidays. We review our calendars, work plans, childcare arrangements and often our conversation turns to what we want to be doing differently or better. This always seems to include the topic of food and cooking, something we both value but have to work hard at doing well. This year, as we were rounding the curves of the mountains, Dan suggested that we make a list of all of the dinners we like to make, because we tend to get in a rut. We make the same 4-5 meals over and over again, and forget about certain meals we used to enjoy. We thought if we could keep our list handy, right inside our pantry, then we could refer to it when we are meal planning and grocery shopping. (Get our simple meal planning template at the top of our home page.)

So, we pulled out my little anchor journal I have in my work bag and found that we made a similar list 365 days ago. It’s beginning to be a tradition, this time of year, to feel like we could be doing better with meal planning, but we keep working at it and haven’t given up yet.  The kids paused their movie, and we brainstormed all of the meals we like to make for dinner.

We divided the list into 4 categories:

  • Go-to Meals – Meals that we typically have the ingredients for and can make without planning and quickly
  • Make Ahead/Slow Cooker Meals – Meals we can make on the weekend to have during the week or put in the slow cooker on a weekday morning if we know there’s a busy evening
  • Standard Meals – Meals that require some planning and cooking, but I usually keep meals to 30 – 40 minutes tops
  • Special Occasion Meals – Meals that we like but we’d never make during the work week.
Pizza

In future posts, I’ll expand on each of these categories. To start, though, I think it’s important to have a list of “go to meals” that we usually have the ingredients for and are easy to get on the table in 15-20 minutes.  We are all so busy and juggling work, activities, trying to keep the house clean, school and appointments. It’s easy to fall into black and white thinking about dinners. Sometimes it feels like there are 2 options — either cook something with a recipe or we don’t have time, or haven’t planned, so we order take out. There’s a lot of gray area between these two examples. Having a list of “go to meals” can help you have an easy plan for busy nights, but also are great to turn to when your plan isn’t going to work for whatever reason. They are your Plan B. These aren’t gourmet meals, but meals that are nourishing and you can make at any moment and know you’ve put together a nourishing meal for you and/or your family.

black beans and rice

This is our list of  “Go To Meals:”

  • Tacos (with fruit and bagged kale slaw or veggies and dip)
  • Spaghetti and Frozen Meatballs (with a salad or broccoli)
  • Spaghetti Carbonara (with fruit or a salad)
  • TJs Mandarin Chicken (with broccoli and rice)
  • Boxed or stove top Mac and Cheese (with broccoli or fruit)
  • Pizza – We keep premade pizza shells in the pantry (add a salad or fruit)
  • Black Beans and Rice (add avocado if the stars align)
  • Frozen eggplant parmigiana (with salad or veggies and dip and pasta)
  • “Brinner” – toast or waffles, eggs and/or bacon/sausage, fruit
  • Ravioli (kept in the freezer) (with fruit or salad)
  • Quesadilla (with salsa and fruit)
  • Tomato Soup and grilled cheese (apple slices)
  • Nachos – We make ours with tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, black beans, and leftover meat and avocado, if available

When I’m headed in the door at 5:30 pm with hungry kids and I’ve forgotten to put the food in the slow cooker, or I just don’t have the energy to make the meal that I planned, these are meals I can pull together quickly.  I think it’s helpful for anyone to have their list of “go to meals” so that we know we have a back up. Just knowing we have a Plan B can be reassuring. What are your family’s “go to meals?” Your list will be different than ours. Would it help to make a list so you know you have several nutritious meals to “go to” in a pinch?

Tomato Soup