{"id":6850,"date":"2018-01-19T15:21:07","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T23:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=6850"},"modified":"2018-01-19T16:48:22","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T00:48:22","slug":"meal-prepping-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/meal-prepping-made-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Meal-prepping made easy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caity Healy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Caity Healy | Lifestyle Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

A new and increasingly more common trend amongst many, especially those who are health-conscious or ones on a budget, is food prepping. Cooking the meals that you will eat throughout the week and storing them in containers offers a simple way to keep you prepared, and can lead to more discipline in what you choose to eat if you\u2019re focusing on your health.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem that many people can run into when eating healthy is that it\u2019s not cheap. Purchasing fresh produce and high-protein meals can tend to get expensive. This is especially true when you purchase more than you can actually use, and it goes bad before you even have the chance to use it. However, with some proper meal planning, this can be easily avoided. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before shopping, know what you want your meals to be. To do that, try to think of what meals would most closely reflect the diet that you\u2019re trying to consume. Make sure that whatever you choose is of the right amount of calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat and whatever other nutrients you\u2019re trying to reach. Once you map out your meals for the allotted time that you\u2019re prepping for, you can compile a grocery list that you\u2019ll stick to once you head to the store.<\/span><\/p>\n

While shopping, it\u2019s a good idea to buy things in bulk, as you\u2019ll typically use most of it while prepping everything and it\u2019ll offer you the cheapest option. For example, if you\u2019re planning for chicken breasts to be part of your prep, your best bet would be to purchase a bag of frozen chicken breasts as it costs far less than unfrozen and can go further. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing to think about when shopping is if you\u2019re trying to stick to a budget, are there cheaper things that you can replace items with? Certain meats are equally as high in protein but cost far less; some vegetables last longer and therefore will be cheaper in the long run as you won\u2019t have to throw anything out.<\/span><\/p>\n

When cooking, cook all of one item at a time. Cook any meats together all at once, all vegetables together and so on. Then, once everything is done, you can separate everything you\u2019ve cooked based on how long you\u2019re prepping for. Be reasonable; only prep for the days where you know you won\u2019t be cooking. <\/span><\/p>\n

When everything is all prepped and put into containers, you\u2019re ready to go. Just make sure that you don\u2019t prep things too far ahead of time. For instance, cooked chicken only lasts about four days in the fridge. Make sure that what you\u2019re choosing to cook will stay fresh.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at chealy16@wou.edu<\/span><\/i>IMG_3729<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caity Healy | Lifestyle Editor A new and increasingly more common trend amongst many, especially those who are health-conscious or ones on a budget, is food prepping. Cooking the meals that you will eat throughout the week and storing them in containers offers a simple way to keep you prepared, and can lead to more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":6904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}