everything you need to know about meal prep

let's talk meal prep mondays.

while Tupperware was born way back in 1946, Google searches for the term 'meal prep' date back to 2013. where better to share your freshly cooked, portioned, and organized meals for the week - aesthetically stacked and poorly lit - than instagram? you know, for 'accountability' or whatever it's called. do you remember 2013 instagram? while we were using atrocious editing filters for grid posts, there was a growing presence of "health" influencers. health in quotations because it was a lot of bikini competitions and paleo recipes. if you came to know 'meal prep' or 'meal prep mondays' via this avenue, you may have some feelings about it. understandably! for many of us, meal prep became a socially appropriate way to restrict our food intake. we were complimented for it: so organized! so adult! so disciplined! so healthy! i remember being 22 years old, living on my own in durham, NC, and making very, very little money as a first year teacher. invested in thinness disguised as health, i meal prepped 21 meals a week. every sunday, hours in the kitchen, inspired by Tone It Up and Beachbody influencers... and yes -- everything tasted like refrigerator. the daughter of a chef? oh, the sadness. ten years later, i'm meal prepping again, and boy does it look different. it can be hard to rekindle the relationship with a practice that felt inherently restrictive and boring. it took me a while to reframe my mindset! today, i'm sharing 10 meal prep reframes to help support your pursuit of nourishment because let's be real: thoughtful leftovers can be a real game changer on a busy day! 1. you can meal prep with a mindset of abundance, not restriction. what would it look like to have more than enough available for yourself instead of just what you're 'allowed'? 2. leftovers are the OG meal prep. it doesn't have to be a new dish! 3. you can prep snacks, beverages, and desserts for yourself -- not just the mains. 4. it's not all or nothing! you can pack a few meals and make space in your week for date night, takeout, and random dishes you want to cook in the moment. 5. meal prep can also be ingredient prep: cleaning, chopping, organizing, marinating, etc. 6. you can batch cook a meal and freeze leftovers for way in the future, on a night you really don't want to cook. 7. what about recipe prep? instead of focusing all of your time into food preparation, you can spend 10 minutes recipe hunting so you have some go-to choices for the week ahead. 8. burritos. you can meal prep burritos. especially breakfast ones - YUM! 9. somebody needs to hear this: the containers don't have to match or be cute. 10. meal prep can be a form of taking care of yourself. a gift that Present You prepares for Future You. which meal prep reframe stands out to you the most?