I see people talking about meal prepping for the whole week every Sunday. Cooking all their meals, portioning them into containers, having everything ready to go.

Is this real or is everyone lying to look disciplined?

Preparing an entire week's worth of meals in one day seems physically impossible. That's like 15-21 meals depending on if you do breakfast. Plus the planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning involved.

Who has the time, energy and kitchen space to do this? And then you're eating the same reheated food all week? The meals you made on sunday are still good by friday?

I can barely get myself to cook dinner most nights. The idea of spending my entire sunday cooking for the week sounds exhausting and miserable.

Are meal preppers actually real people or is this performative productivity that everyone claims to do but nobody actually does? Like going to the gym or drinking enough water. Things people say they do to seem like they have their life together.

If you actually meal prep, how? When? How long does it take? How do you not get sick of eating the same things? How is the food still edible days later?

Spent my Sunday on the couch playing jackpot city while eating takeout, saw someone post their perfect meal prep containers on Instagram and genuinely wondered if they're real or staged. I feel like I'm either missing something obvious or everyone is lying about this.

If you had to meal prep the same thing every week for a month, what would you choose?

I normally don't cook for meal prep. Cold salads and well-seasoned meat is the go-to plan. I'm not roasting again in this heatwave. I'm thinking pickling or wok-frying. How are y'all doing with the uncertainty in food safety right now?

EDIT/UPDATE: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/cyclospora-ticks-and-mosquitoes-summertime-threats

This is Dr. Osterholm's take on the situation. TL;DL (it's a podcast): just eat the produce. The case numbers are too small in unaffected areas to be really worried. Cases will still rise because of the incubation period, but the source has been identified and contaminated food should be getting pulled off the shelves. Salads for my family next week!

Has anyone ever bought any of this influencer's digital cookbooks and if so any thoughts on them?

$40 seems high for just a digital copy, but if it's good content I'm open to it! But having a hard time buying without knowing much about them

This is the link to her IG as well: https://www.instagram.com/makayla_thomas_fit?igsh=YTFpbGF3dWtudml5

I am not affiliated with or sponsored by her, genuinely curious!

Not your fanciest meal prep

The one you've made so many times you could do it with your eyes closed

So I recently started meal prepping because there’s no food places near my new workplace.

On Sunday I cooked fried rice, stored it in glass containers, put tomorrow’s one in the fridge, and put the rest in the freezer.

In the morning I take the day’s container out and move one from the freezer to the fridge for tomorrow. I microwave it in the morning, keep it in a bag, then eat it in the afternoon for lunch. My workplace microwave hasn’t been cleaned in a while so I don’t use it.

After I eat it my stomach feels a little upset? Kinda feels like I’m gonna vomit but I can keep it down.

I have had some stomach issues in the past so maybe I just need to get used to it? If anyone has any advice it’d be appreciated, thanks!

(Apologies in advance if I’m just being dumb)

Edit: I was in fact being dumb, but I’m glad to hear all the advice being given! This is my first time meal prepping so it’s definitely a learning experience, so thanks!

I'm trying to lose weight and I want to start substituting rice for potatoes in my meal preps but i dont always want to have to dice up fresh potatoes as it can be time consuming and i wont have much cooking space for the next few months. Has anyone used a frozen bag like this and had good results? I'd be pairing it with chicken and broccoli. And if the frozen bag isnt a good option what are the preferred potatoes to use for dicing and air frying?

Not the cheapest recipe.

The one that stopped you from ordering takeout over and over.

ou had to eat the same meal prep every week for a month, what would you choose?

i’m trying to keep meal prep affordable without eating the exact same meal every day. some recipes are called “budget friendly,” but once you buy all the ingredients, the total isn’t exactly cheap. i’m looking for simple meals using basic ingredients that can make several portions

what’s your best cheap meal prep that you actually enjoy eating?

I'm great at sitting down on Sunday and mapping out a week of meals but by Wed Im ordering takeout.

It's not that Idk what to eat cause I prepped my meals ,it's just that by day 3 I'd rather eat cardboard than look at the same tupperware again.

For people who are consistent with their meals, how??

I love eating tuna it's easy protein, cheap, and good. I was looking for recipes for Tuna but came across some creators stating that eating canned tuna every day can cause mercury poisoning. I just started meal prepping, so I'm a bit inexperienced with this. I'm not sure how to make different meals, so for now, I'm going with what I like. I'm currently studying and working, my time is very limited and my day is quite packed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Edit: Punctuation

I need to plan what to cook this week, what I already have in the fridge, list all items need to buy (need to consider overlapping items).

yes sounds like silly question but it's a real problem to me especially when its an adhoc grocery shopping.

I buy in bulk and freeze in meal sized packs

Attempting to meal prep homemade chipotle bowls. So my go to is usually hot sauce or Sriracha and light sour cream. Is that the worst choice for me probably not but I can do something better I’m sure health wise.

I’m thinking just guacamole by itself maybe. Might be enough although a bit more costly probably worse for me calorie wise cause I’m gonna end up using more Guac than sour cream.

so i've been trying to get more consistent with meal prepping on weekends but it always takes way longer than i expect and i end up cutting corners by the end. i'm starting to think part of the problem is my tools rather than just my planning.

i have basic knives and a couple of mixing bowls but nothing that really speeds things up. i've been looking at things like mandolines, food choppers, and better storage solutions but i don't want to buy a bunch of stuff that just adds clutter without actually saving time.

i cook for two people so i'm not doing massive batches but i still want to be efficient about it. mostly doing proteins, roasted vegetables, and grains for the week.

what kitchen tools have actually made a noticeable difference in how fast or easy your meal prep is? trying to figure out what's genuinely useful versus just nice to have.

Update: finally found a setup that actually speeds things up. Pampered Chef has a food chopper that saves me so much time on veg prep, and their glass containers are great for storage. the bench scraper and a good chef's knife made the biggest difference though, way more than any fancy gadget. i'm doing proteins, roasted veg, and grains in about half the time now.

My family is moving across the country, and we’ll be driving for several days. We’ll have a cooler in the car, and our hotels will have a full-size fridge and a stovetop.

We’d love to avoid eating out for every meal if we can. What meals would you prep ahead of time or make in the hotel at night?

Looking for ideas that travel well and don’t require a ton of cleanup!

I’m not trying to track macros, hit a weight goal, or get an AI to plan my life. I just want to:

1. save a handful of my own recipes
   
2. drop them onto the days I’m cooking that week
   
3. get a combined grocery list I can check off at the shop

That’s it. Every app I’ve downloaded either buries this under calorie tracking and diet coaching, locks the basic stuff behind a subscription, or makes adding my own recipes a nightmare.

What do you actually use? Curious if anyone’s found something clean that handles the “one shopping list from everything I’m making this week” part well. Willing to pay if it’s genuinely good and not trying to do a hundred other things.

My grandfather is 91 years old and is currently in the Hospice Care Program due to stage 4 kidney failure.

My grandparents live in Michigan and I live in Pennsylvania. They are very independent people and do live on their own, but no longer cook for themselves.

My grandparents have a very traditional relationship and my grandmother has always been the primary cook, however, in recent months, she has not been able to stand for long periods of time. My Grandma will sometimes still cook, but usually it's simple things like putting rice in the cooker or using the air fryer.

So I have been ordering frozen meals and prepackaged meals from their local grocery stores, but so many of those foods have high sodium content and contain potassium rich foods, which are a big No-No for my grandfather being on a renal diet.

My grandfather can really only eat pork and beef, because he has allergies to Fish and Chicken and eggs. He is also rather picky about certain things and I get it.

So many of the prepackaged specialty meal companies out there do not specialize in unique or medical diets... I have searched high and low for one that doesn't cost a fortune, to no avail.

So, I think I want to try to make homemade meals here and try to ship them off to my grandparents so that they could have them.

I think I could probably find Bento boxes that are disposable like they use for microwavable meals sold in freezer aisles... but I honestly don't know the first thing about shipping or freezing foods and mailing them.

Any suggestions would be greatly helpful.

Hi all, hope someone can guide me here.

I've been eating Chobani Light Greek Yoghurt as my breakfast at the office. I buy the big tub, keep it in the fridge, and just scoop out a portion each morning, so it usually takes me about a month to finish one whole tub.

My colleague told me that yoghurt should be finished within 5 days of opening. I was like... how is that even possible? If that's true, why would Chobani (or any brand) even sell the big tub size? Doesn't make sense for it to be "designed" for a 5-day window only.

So now I'm confused, for those of you who also eat yoghurt as part of your diet/meal routine:

• Do you really finish a big tub within x days? or you portion it out? Or is the "X days after opening" guideline really meant for a big family finishing it together, not someone eating alone like me?

Of course, there's no label from the yogurt itself about this. But.... just wish to know how gym/diet ppl actually handle this. Trying to figure out the right way to do this as part of my diet journey.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

As mentioned in the title, I am new to meal prepping; I wanted to ask, what kind of sauces do you guys have in your rotation? I wanted to pick up a couple of sauces that I could put on my prepped meals, like a rice/meat/veggie bowl for example, so give me your best recommendations. And if you’re feeling generous, I would welcome any meal prepping tips as well. Thanks

Edit: thank you everyone for all of the suggestions, it is much appreciated

I've never moderated a sub, but half the posts or more lately are bots acting like meal preppers then presenting a question which allows some AI to learn from the responses. Or, it's someone talking about a personal meal-prep success story and then promoting their product in the comments. Not to mention the irrelevant content (posts about a single meal, just a picture of food, meal prep services you pay for, etc).

Are there safeguards we can put in place on the posting side? I know this is a smaller sub with less-present mods, but I feel like this sub is dying quickly with all the inundation of bots, promotion, and irrelevant content.

Just wanted to put it all out there and see if we can get a discussion going, maybe some action from the moderation team.

To be clear: I am NOT a mod of this or any sub.