Is Meal Prep A Healthier Way to Eat?
By: Lindsay Hodgson, MSN
Over the past few years, meal prepping has swept social media feeds and conversations about food and nutrition.
While people may conceptualize the idea of “meal prep” differently, it often involves planning the week’s meals ahead of time (say, Sunday), purchasing the groceries, and batch-making the meals or preparing the ingredients. Everyone loves a good life hack, and for some people meal prep has become a way to save time, money, and build balanced meals into their days.
But for a lot of people, meal prep can feel overwhelming and unrealistic.
Perfectly plated dishes and colorful salads and veggies in jars are common images that come to mind when thinking about meal prep. Often “meal prep” is seen as a kind of healthy aspiration or ideal because of how prevalent it is in wellness spaces. Meal prep may go hand in hand with a mindset of “I will make food that looks this beautiful” or, “when I meal prep, I know I will eat healthfully.”
For this reason, meal prep can be associated with the feeling of having things in your life “together.” And while there is nothing inherently wrong with meal prep, and it is great to feel like you have helpful strategies to feed yourself throughout the week, it is also important to critically consider the ways in which meal prep may align with diet culture if you are working on healing your relationship with food.
How do meal prep and diet culture overlap? Depending on the meal prep method…
Meal prep may promote a lifestyle of perfectionism and striving for an ideal. The pressure to meal prep may be seen as something you “should” or “have” to do. For some people it may be steps they take towards getting their diet “right,” which is often the same kind of thinking that people might have when starting a new diet, such as being on or off “the wagon.”
Meal prep may encourage a rigid eating pattern where every meal is planned. In some cases, people like the structure of meal prep because it takes some guesswork out of knowing what meal is coming next. Sometimes it helps maximize a grocery budget too. At the same time, this structure of meal prep may be too rigid for some people by reducing spontaneity with food and making it more difficult to listen to what their bodies actually want at mealtimes.
Meal prep may encourage restriction through portion control. Similarly, meal prep can promote rigid thinking around not only what but how much you should eat. When meals are prepared ahead of time with serving sizes in mind, what happens if you’re still hungry after eating? This can lead to things like ignoring hunger or creating situations in which you feel guilty for not being satisfied with the portion that you pre-made.
Meal prep may encourage too much headspace devoted to food. The reality is that meal prepping for a whole week is unrealistic for the vast majority of people because of the time, energy, and headspace it takes focusing on food. This may be a source of stress, anxiety, and would not serve a person’s relationship with food if this is the case.
With all of these potential negative outcomes of meal prepping, you might be wondering, is meal prep every helpful? And could I benefit from meal prepping?
Here are some questions to consider when getting curious about meal prep:
When it comes to meal prep, what are your expectations? How flexible do you feel with your planning? Are you OK if your week does not go according to plan?
If you are meal prepping, what thoughts and feelings are you experiencing? Do you feel it is a source of obligation? Stress? Comfort? Pride?
What foods or recipes are you meal prepping? Are they “healthy/good” foods? What would it be like to challenge that tendency and prepare a dish you deem “bad/unhealthy”?
Upon reflection you may find that meal prepping is a source of the disordered eating, as is common for many. It is completely understandable that diligent meal prep was or is a way of seeking control through food, when other things in your life feel chaotic. Becoming more curious about the intention behind meal prepping and any thoughts and feelings may help you uncover ways in which it may benefit you or be an obstacle in your recovery.
As you ask yourself those questions to find out if meal prepping would be helpful or harmful for you, here are some things to consider:
You are under no obligation to meal prep. In fact, especially in the process of connecting more deeply to your body’s cues, having spontaneity with what foods you're eating can be a better fit and be something that you are working toward. If there was a lot of rigidity with the disordered eating/eating disorder, spontaneity will be important to practice.
Different methods will resonate better with some folks than others. Again, there is no need to demonize meal prep itself, but rather challenge any disordered thoughts and behaviors associated with meal prep. If you have a meal prep routine that works well for you and your relationship with food, great!
You do not need to make all your meals from scratch. Just as foods themselves shouldn’t be viewed as good nor bad, neither should the means of acquiring food. This is radical to say despite the messages you might witness from diet culture. Meeting your need for nourishment comes first. You’re allowed to rely on meal deliveries, take out, frozen meals, fast or convenience foods, and other methods for your meals.
Having structure can be beneficial, such as when it encourages a consistent eating pattern in recovery or helps you think about food less. You can “meal prep” flexibly, as intuitive eating and meal prep are not mutually exclusive. Planning ahead a little bit can be helpful, as going into the week without groceries or any plan for having satisfying meals when you need them will likely make your relationship with food suffer too. Flexible meal prep may look like picking one or two dishes or recipes you’d want to make for the week, buying ingredients, and making them the day you want them. Or, cooking a few foods or sides ahead of time that you can enjoy with various meals throughout the week paired with different foods.
The bottom line: Meal prep and diet culture have some similarities, so meal prep is not helpful when it is detrimental to your relationship with food. Experimenting with finding a balance between flexibility with some structure when it comes to meal planning meals can be an important part of developing basic self-care practices that serve you in your anti-diet journey.
Remember that there is no “right” way of meal prepping. You can mix and match and find what suits you best. Meal prep doesn’t not need to be photo worthy or beautiful-the intent is to make your life, and thus mealtime and eating, easier.
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Do you feel ashamed because you can’t seem to make meals, meal prep or get things “right” with food?
After years of dieting or just existing in this culture, food can start to get very confusing. It’s hard to know how to eat, what to buy and if meal prep would be helpful or harmful to you. At Bravespace Nutrition we work with clients virtually helping people who are struggling with food and body image. It’s possible to change your relationship with food and your body, free up headspace, and live your life with more presence, abundance and peace. Learn more about Bravespace Nutrition, our philosophy, and the services we offer.