What’s the method to use to ensure balanced meals?
Batch cooking, or meal prep, allows you to prepare meals for the entire week. This type of meal organisation avoids eating repetitive dishes, allowing you to eat a balanced diet in the process. Each day, you will eat healthy and varied meals and if you can lose weight in the process, why not?
What is batch cooking?
This technique is best organised on the weekends, or when you have a little free time – it takes just a couple hours to prepare each meal for the coming week. Although some people choose to eat the same meal four times in a row, we are not of this opinion: to eat with pleasure means enjoying varied and colourful meals! The frustration of always eating the same thing only risks you ‘cracking’ and then gaining weight.
This is why we offer nutritional monitoring by qualified dietitian nutritionists who can organise weekly menus for you, the whole family or according to a specific diet (gluten-free, vegetarian, etc.). Using our advice for batch cooking will save you time which you can then spend on sport, an artistic activity or simply to relax.
To be constantly thinking about what to buy and what to cook can be stressful, so free yourself of the burden. Batch cooking allows you to come straight in from work, reheat your prepared dish and to eat high quality meals. So, if you are lacking ideas for healthy and delicious recipes for the family, we will supply you with them, leaving you with the relatively easy task of doing the cooking! Take a look at our Family program which can be adapted to make delicious personalised menus. In addition, if you have any questions in between consultations, your coach will be on hand to answer them for you!
Why is batch cooking better than the prepared dishes bought in the supermarket?
Ready-made dishes are far from having an irreproachable composition. They are often too salty, contain very few vegetables and have a lot of additives to improve textures, colour and taste. Some additives can simply be fats for texture or sugar as a flavour enhancer. Not all prepared dishes are of poor quality, but take the time to carefully read and compare labels. Even with the correct composition, the origin of the meat or the quality of the fruit and vegetables remains unknown.
So you have hopefully understood: cooking yourself is the best way to eat a balanced, seasonal meal, and to control the composition of your plate. There are no chemical additives when you buy raw products!
How do we meal prep properly?
Ideally, you should use airtight containers in order to store your prepared meals in the fridge or freezer. Using the list of ingredients provided by your dietitian nutritionist, do the shopping on a full stomach. When it comes to cooking, you can invite the children to participate – cooking as a family is always a special moment.
Once you get used to it, you will soon see that you will no longer lack the time to cook and you will even have the satisfaction of eating a balanced diet, just as you have always wanted!