Idiot Proof Diet Blog

As sort of a continuation of my post yesterday about cooking for better health, here are a few tips to help you avoid buying pre-packaged and pre-prepared food while at work or whenever you’re far from home.

People always say they lack time to cook and that’s why it’s just so much easier to buy pre-packaged unhealthy stuff. I have a full-time job too and I’ve managed to solve this dilemma by… cooking on weekends! I cook and cook and freeze the stuff. This way, I avoid buying unhealthy food for lunch while I’m at work and I avoid ordering take out food at night when I’m tired and have no desire to cook dinner whatsoever.

So here’s what I do.

Friday night or Saturday morning, after a FULL breakfast, go out and do your weekly grocery shopping. (Never do the groceries on an empty stomach or you’ll end up buying either too much food and/or you’ll keep reaching for sugary foods.) Beforehand, make a list of what you roughly want to eat throughout the week.

Buy your food ingredients and once you get home, plan the things you can cook already on Saturday or Sunday and that you can freeze. Here are a few of my personal favorites: home-made pasta sauce, chicken or beef stew, and blanched mixed vegetables.

I also ensure that I pre-cut my meats into reasonably-sized serving portions. For example, if just for myself, I’d get a chicken fillet, prepare a marinade, and put them together in the freezer. During the week, I’ll just take out this piece of chicken (and maybe some of the blanched veggies) and leave it in the refrigerator before I head out for work.

By the time I get home, the meat has nicely thawed AND marinated and I just put it on the grill for a few minutes while I further warm the vegetables in the microwave or on the stove top. Now, that’s a super healthy diner in LESS than 30 minutes! (Rachel Ray, eat your heart out! LOL.)

Another tip: I KNOW there will be days when I’ll be craving carbs so to prevent myself from choosing the wrong carbs, I mix some cooked brown rice and some blanched veggies and freeze them. Again, I just bring them out in the morning and heat them through at night.

For the whole family, I love making stews and freezing them. As they thaw during the day, the tastes really infuse into each other and I just cut up some brown bread and voila! a hearty, healthy dinner is served.

Home cooking is healthier and if you look at it, it’s more economically friendly. So why not make the obvious choice?

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