5 Benefits of Meal Prepping

We are a society of individuals that are extremely busy. On top holding down the fort at home and work we have extra curricular commitments. Although these commitments often bring us joy in the moment there is stress leading up to actually getting there. Our food choices are one of the major things that suffer when we get extremely busy. Instead of going home and preparing dinner it's often much easier to run through the drive through before an event.

There are great resources out there to help us with easier week night meals like Epicure, Thrive, and Hello Fresh. Personally, I like the old fashioned go to the grocery store, pick up my ingredients, and prep them to create meals I want to eat. For our family we find that the benefits of meal prepping include.


  1. Saving Time: An hour or two once a week to wash, cut, and store all my veggies/fruit often ends up saving me 20-30 minutes on the actual night that I'm cooking a meal. If we're having a simple piece of meat and salad instead of it taking 30-40 minutes to prep and cook I can assemble the salad in under 5 minutes and then it's just cooking the meat! 
  2. Better Choices: We aren't perfect, but we try to always ensure that we're picking food that will fuel our body and not provide us with a crash feeling. Having our fridge stocked with pre washed/cut items helps us to ensure that this is happening. 
  3. Less Waste: Once I've spent the time washing/cutting/storing our veggies/fruit/meat in containers the last thing I want to do is waste that food! I make sure that we're eating it instead of having to throw it out since I put effort into it! 
  4. More Affordable: An average dinner at a fast food restaurant for two people can run you around $20. That same $20 often purchases over half our vegetables for the entire week! 
  5. Pre-Made Lunches: Meal prepping allows us to have our fruit/trail mix divided out for the entire week. Whatever we have for dinner is often our lunch the next day. Instead of running to a restaurant or not knowing what to eat for lunch we just have to place our containers of fruit and leftovers from supper in our lunch bags and we're set! 
Meal planning and prepping has been one of the biggest things I've missed this pregnancy. In the beginning I didn't have the energy, and then I was in so much pain I couldn't physically do it. I've been back on track with meal planning and prepping since starting maternity leave, always adding a little something to the freezer for those first few weeks when little man arrives! 

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