How To Conserve Energy: Kitchen Edition #8 (meal prep)

I'm including meal prep as an energy conservation method but it's a bit of a double edged sword. It's very helpful in the long run. You come home from work or you've been at a sporting event for your kids and you're starving! You grab a container of frozen chili and pop it into the microwave. You managed to avoid eating out and it's ready more quickly than if you had gotten into a car, driven to a restaurant, got seated and eventually received your food! Meal prep in the moment can be taxing though. Let's talk about how to make this a simpler, less exhausting process.

TIP #1: Be prepared.

Make a list of everything that you need beforehand so you don't have to run out for missed ingredients. Or if you have an old house like mine the only place available for a pantry is downstairs so this saves me trips running up and down the stairs trying to retrieve forgotten items.

TIP #2: Break up the steps.

As someone who likes to complete a task from start to finish, this is a difficult one for me. Trying to get everything done in one day can lead to a flare up of symptoms for days to come. Divide and conquer. Do the groceries on day one. Do all of the chopping the next day. Then on the third do your cooking and packaging (the most energy zapping of the steps). Have other people help you with the clean up. What's the expression, "Rome wasn't built in a day"?

TIP #3: Use tools.

I feel like I'm always including this one. Occupational therapists, like the wonderful ones I had at Constance Lethbridge, are always preaching the helpfulness of a good tool! Tools like food processors, immersion blenders and mandolins can be useful tools especially when you have large quantities of food to prepare.

By doing meal prep you're preparing for tomorrow. Even with all the best tools in the book chronic pain can flare up and you will have good days as well as more challenging ones. Having that food around means assurance that there's nutrition at your fingertips.

TIP #4: K.I.S.S.

Keep it simple! Choose recipes that you are familiar with or ones that have few ingredients. It doesn't have to be fancy to be filling, healthy or delicious! Every month my husband cooks a batch of spaghetti meat sauce. There's nothing fancy about it but my kids love it and it gives us nourishment when we really need that break from cooking.

TIP #5: Use similar ingredients.

If you're batch cooking more than one type of meal at a time than picking recipes that have similar ingredients can really simplify your life. For instance a spaghetti sauce and chili have similar ingredients. Tomato products, ground beef and onions being the main ones depending on your recipe. Using a food processor to whiz up your onions and then dividing them into two batches; one for spaghetti and one for chili, makes less work for you. Also if you're trying to use up a lot of fresh ingredients like a specific kind of meat or maybe a large bag of peppers, cooking recipes with similar ingredients just makes sense.

I used to do a lot of batch cooking and definitely do less than I used to. Whenever I get back into it I find I'm so thankful for the energy that already prepared food saves me on a bad pain day.