Whether you are cooking in your first apartment or dorm it is important to establish a system for one of the most important aspects of your life – food!!!! Depending on your personality you might find it convenient or even easier to use the new system of meal prep. Cooking a couple big meals to last the week can make getting your nutrients really easy, but deciding if it is the right plan for you depends on you. Here are some pros and cons to meal prep to help you make your decision a little easier.
Pros:
-
Convenient!!!!!! Meal prep really makes your life extremely easy throughout the week. Whether you had a day full of classes or are just not in the mood to cook you will have a fridge full of ready-made meals to enjoy.
-
Taste good!!!!! Who better to know your taste than yourself? You can cook all the foods you like and how you like them. You can even learn to cook new things you never knew you would enjoy. Here’s a link to a video that shows you some fantastic meal prep recipe ideas.
-
Affordable!!!!! Unlike eating out everyday cooking your own meals is super inexpensive. Depending on how you budget your groceries your meals can range from as low as 2-4 dollars a meal. Being in college can allot a lot of unexpected expenses, so having a low price tag for one of your essentials is always great. (photo by Daria-Yakovleva on Pixabay)
Cons:
-
Commitment!!!!! You will have to allot a big part of your week to cooking all the food for meal prep. Whether that be on a weekend or weekday, you will have to commit a decent portion of a day to cook all the food for the week. It could be easy to become discouraged but determining if this is the right system for you will help with the motivation to get cooking.
-
Boring!!!!! Sometimes you might not want to eat the meals you cooked ahead of time. And while you could go out now and then having consistent diversity in your meal plan could be a serious factor for you. Even if you change up your menu every week you might just be the type of person that needs to cook more regularly than once a week to be satisfied. If that’s the case traditional meal prep just might not be for you.
-
Can’t cook????? It may be hard to believe but not everyone can cook, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of other ways to get affordable and healthy food without the hassle of cooking. However, when it comes to meal prep being able to cook is a huge factor. You don’t want to have cooked a week’s worth of inedible food. But don’t worry all hope isn’t lost, if you like the idea of meal prep but don’t have the necessary skills here’s an article that should help with some more options.
(photo by WokandaPix on Pixabay)
With all that being said hopefully, this list helps your decision of using meal prep or not. It is a great system but not every great system works for everyone. Take each tip in consideration, and remember it never hurts to try – you might just like meal prep.