Healthy Meal Planning is a Question of Time
May 28 2012
“We never seem to have enough time.”
At least that’s what most people say. I always think that it’s one of the few things I’ve got lots of. (HA!)
But when I am pressed for time, I look for things that will make my life easier. For example, recently my wife had an engagement she had to attend and therefore wouldn’t be home for dinner. So it was up to me to collect our little one from daycare and then make dinner before someone has a “meltdown” (that would be my daughter, not me). In anticipation of needing to make dinner as fast as possible, I planned on spaghetti for the night. The sauce is defrosted, the water is in a pot and on the stove, the colander is in the sink and the pasta is measured out.
This may seem like small potatoes but now when I get home and NEED to have dinner ready in 10 minutes, I can do it. It took me a whole 5 minutes that morning to organize things for dinner and now all I have to do is turn on the stove and wait for the pasta to cook as I am reheating the sauce. Toddler tantrum avoided!
This just shows the importance of healthy meal planning.
On another evening we had pork chops with white beans. I like to use dried beans rather than canned so I must plan ahead if I want the family to eat at a decent hour. Hence, I soaked the beans the previous Sunday night and then on Monday morning before heading to work, while showering, getting our daughter ready, I had time to cook the beans. I drained them, let them cool and then placed them in the refrigerator.
Once I got home the next evening, all I had to do was turn the oven on, sauté the pork chops and then reheat the beans. As the pork chops cooked, I had plenty of time to add whatever vegetables I wanted to as the beans reheated. I had some leftover roasted carrots and beets from Sunday’s meal which I chopped up and added to the beans as well as some wonderful fresh spinach one of the local farmers gave me…dinner in 20 minutes!
How? Because I planned ahead. Planning ahead can save time on every type of meal plans, including diabetic or gluten free meal plans. (It is especially important to plan for the latter because it is very important that gluten free meal plans are truly gluten free.)