Eating healthy can sometimes feel like a mammoth task.
You have a million-billion-trillion other things to do! You're tired and struggling to even muster up the energy to think what you can do with this food to make it at least palatable.
Cooking up that bag of skinless chicken breasts (yay, how bland) after a long day at work is almost like asking you to ride a unicycle up Mount Everest, using only one foot (...ooo curve ball...) carrying a sack of potatoes, through the rain in under 5 minutes. BUT, with your kitchen kitted out prepping can be easier, more exciting and a less time consuming.
Really, if you think about it prepping actually saves time in the long run. Rather than cooking before each individual meal - or going to the shop/cafe/fast food chain every time you get hungry you can set aside some free time once or twice a week to prep as much as possible. This doesn't mean that you can only eat the food you have prepped - that cold soggy broccoli and dried out chicken you cooked two days ago... instead it covers you for almost all your meals allowing you to fill in the gaps with foods you fancy at the time like a big hearty breakfast of salty grilled bacon and runny eggs on a Sunday morning or that lunch date with the cute guy from 2nd floor.
Still not convinced?
Top reasons prepping is for the coolest of kids
1) Prepping saves you time in the long run
2) It's hard to make good choices when hungry - ever gone to the supermarket with your belly rumbling with hunger like you're giving birth to a baby Godzilla? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about! With prepped foods already within your reach means you don't need to look for other choices and be tempted.
3) Portion control. Cooking your food in bulk and storing it in portions limits your food intake. If I put a small pot of nuts in front of you - once they're gone they're gone but if I gave you a whole bag of nuts whilst your hungry, how long will it be till you have devoured that whole bag?
4) It saves money. Taking your lunch or own snacks stops you from frivolously spending on those granola bars and salad boxes round the corner. Instead buy the fresh ingredients yourself to prepare and make triple the portions for even less.
Convinced? GOOD!
Now it's time to set your kitchen up to make prepping easy peasy lemon squeezy. You don't have to have all these gadgets but you can pick the ones you feel will help you the most. With almost every option you can get the high-end fancy pants version or the basic bitch cheap version. At the end of the day they both produce similar results.
SLOW COOKER
Set it and forget it! With very little effort you can easily make enough meals for the next few days using a slow cooker. Prep and pop all your ingredients in and the slow cooker does the rest. With a set time you can leave your food without worrying if it will burn or over cook.
STEAMER
Steamers allow you to cook your foods without loosing their nutrients but they're also handy time savers. Much like a slow cooker you can set the timer and leave the food to cook. Invest in a multilayer steamer to steam foods in bulk. You can use your steamer for nearly everything; vegetables, fish, eggs, rice... Choose between the ultimate fancy Intellisteam which has different timers for each compartment allowing you to cook fresh ingredients at different times and better yet it keeps your food warm for another 40 mins or go basic with a silicone steamer basket to sit on top of your sauce pan. JOB DONE!
BLENDER
Blenders are perfect for busy bees. Whip up quick super shakes, sauces, soups...the skies the limit. Nutribullets are no.1 but with so many on the market now you can pick up a reasonable priced powerful one at a better cost.
FOOD PROCESSOR
In the past I spent so long without a food processor attempting to make energy balls in a blender...it doesn't work, by the way... blenders are for liquid and food processors are, well, for food! Food processors are a clean eaters best friend! Make your own energy balls, protein bars, humous, NUT BUTTER, nice cream and pestos... Go high-end Vitamix or a simple trusty Kendwood for 10x less.
GOOD COOKWARE
Invest in decent cookware - frying pan, sauce pans etc.
A QUALITY KNIFE
Healthy eating is about eating whole foods so you're gonna need a good knife to chop 'em all up! This probably seems very obvious but investing in at least one decent knife will make cooking much easier.
MEASURING CUPS AND SPOONS
Measuring cups and spoons are such a simple way to portion your food whether it's adding a cup of vegetables to your plate or that 1 tbsp (yes, 1 TABLESPOON) of peanut butter or your toast.
SCALES
If you need to count calories then scales are a must for tracking your intake otherwise you're just guessing how much you're eating.
GRILL
You can get Mr Foreman in your kitchen for as little as £ 14.00 now. Use this to cook up meat and fish in half the time or add some BQQ zing to some vegetables and fruit. TIP: cover your grill in foil with a little oil on top so you don't even need to clean it afterwards, just discard the used foil.
CUTTERS/GRATERS
Food choppers, spiralizers, graters, peelers can make food preparation painless and a little more fun. Grate some courgettes into your oats for an Instagram worthy bowl of zoats or sprizalize some veg to cut the carbs and add more nutrients to a bowl of pasta.
CONTAINERS
Whether you buy some brightly coloured salad pots with a fork compartment and shiny hipster jam jars or you save that tupperware from your Chinese takeaway and jar from the pickled onions you've had since Crimbo - you need a place to store all this awesome food you have prepped! Go for air tight containers if possible to pro-long the shelf life and keep your food fresh for long as possible. Also no one likes a salad dressing/ soup leak in your fave handbag!
DISHWASHER
Cooking isn't that bad - it's the cleaning that makes it so long-winded! Or, maybe you don't mind cleaning but hate cooking. Not everyone can buy a dish washer or has room for one so a highly recommend making a deal with whoever you live with to split the load - whether that means you cook one night and they clean or vice versa. If you live on your own then go get yourself some fabulous gloves that look good while you clean - because it's so much better doing things when you have some great gear right? Like when your new trainers arrive and you want to go to the gym to show everyone you're new kicks... also refillable dish brushes are a god send.
This may sound like LOADS though, as mentioned you don't need to have everything. If a slow cooker isn't an option, a sauce pan will do just fine, if you haven't got any room for George on your counter then your oven will do... you get the gist! Pick some essentials now and you can build up your kitchen stock slowly. Ikea date?
