Many of you have the will toeat healthier, more balanced, to make your own meals ... But in practice, you come home late from work, you still have to stop by for a quick errand, you're starving, tired and ... you crave for fast food, a ready-made industrial dish or pasta!!

At lunchtime, you say to yourself: "I'm not going to go for a sandwich today! "You head to the store nearest your work. And then the temptations begin...

The "Meal Prep" or "the art of preparing your meals in advance" is a concept that comes to us straight from the United States and aims to make up for these cravings.

A "new concept? Again! "you might say. It is new in the sense that it is a global method, a philosophy, a way of thinking, with codes and a large diffusion thanks to social networks. But many of you have been doing it for years!

And yes! Who hasn't doubled or even tripled their Bolognese sauce recipe to freeze part of it and only have to defrost it on the big day?

That's Meal Prep!

What is Meal Prep?

When you have some time, you give a few hours to prepare your meals, lunches and snacks for the days ahead. You then store them in the fridge or freezer depending on the type of preparation and your desires.

On the day, just open the box or defrost/reheat in the oven.

This allows you to eat a variety,balanced every day while saving time. And the icing on the cake, you save money because shopping on a day-to-day basis or while hungry makes you spend more.

Meal Prep in practice

On days when you have a little time, allow 1-3 hours to cook larger quantities which you then divide into individual portions.

Always make sure to keep your portions balanced. The ideal is to respect the following proportions: 50% vegetables (preferably fresh to have a maximum of fibers and vitamins), 30% proteins (animal and/or vegetable) and 20% starchy foods.

Don't make recipes too complicated or too long and try to vary as much as possible.

To avoid waste, limit waste when shopping and limit expenses, consider :

• Make a race list and stick to it.
• Buy seasonal products. They will taste better, be richer in nutrients and be less expensive.
• Buy certain foods, such as meat in larger quantities. You will have the leisure to decline them under several forms in your receipts.

Meal prep: time-saving tips

• Steaming is a healthy cooking method that allows you to cook multiple foods at the same time without needing to monitor them.
• Feel free to use the same ingredients in multiple forms for your different recipes. For example, the same vegetable can be found raw in your lunch box, cooked in your evening meal and also in one of your soups.
• Consider using glass dishes to store your meals. Less harmful to health than plastic, they are easy to put in the oven to reheat your preparations, thus avoiding you to transfer your food in another dish.
• For your soups, chop up all the vegetables and put them in a box in the freezer. When it's time to make your soup, just pour the contents of the can into your pot and you're done!
• You can do the same with the ingredients of your smoothies. This saves you time and avoids waste.
• Do you like to put lemon in your water? Consider squeezing all your lemons at once and put the juice in an ice cube tray. Add one or two lemon ice cubes to your tea or water bottle to taste.

Need some inspiration to get started?

For your lunches, get inspired by the concept of the Buddha Bowl. The concept is pretty simple, just put together a large bowl or plate with an item from each of these families:

• Fresh vegetables in season
• A complete cereal
• A protein (preferably vegetable)
• Oilseeds (walnuts, almonds, cashews, seeds, ...)
• A sauce (e.g. tahini dressing: tahini + cider vinegar + paprika)
• As an extra, you can add a fresh fruit, dried fruit or superfoods (e.g. goji berries)
• It is possible to make an infinite number of variations around this theme!
• Keep in mind that the more colorful your plate is, the more vitamins and minerals your body will take in!
• You will find on this blog some ideas to get started

You now have all the keys in hand to become a Meal Prep pro!

All you have to do is let your imagination run wild...