Meal prep: More than those trendy kitchen selfies in yoga pants
What the meal prep trend is really about
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Meal prep is more than a trendy excuse to wear yoga pants on camera in your kitchen. For regular people eating real food every day, or trying to, meal prep is a modern survival strategy. And it says a hell of a lot about the world we’ve built for ourselves.
Early man saw the potential of our then-unspoiled planet, and decided to invent microplastics, lip injections and credit scores.🤣
The term “meal prep” sounds vaguely post-industrial itself. But behind the rows of matching Tupperware and macro-counting influencers, there's something real, raw, and revealing about how we live these days.
Here’s what meal prep means to me, minus all the food influencer mouthful happy-dance moneyshot Reels.👇🏻
Ownership
1️⃣ People are reclaiming control of how they eat.
Meal prep done right is much more than just portion control. It’s about knowing what’s in your food and not leaving your diet up to whatever’s fastest, cheapest or most convenient in the moment.
In a world of unpronounceable mystery ingredients, bloated delivery fees and foodlike concoctions designed to make you overfed but undernourished, meal prep is about reclaiming power over what you put in your body.
Meal prep is your shot at time-efficiency, cost-efficiency and fuel-efficiency. With even minimal planning for menu rotation and groceries, meal prep is your golden ticket for the easiest path to Fit/Healthy/Delicious Living.
Your life is your life
2️⃣ Modern society is a time-thief.
Between work, family, the absolute tyranny of the grind, the hustles, and the swiping, people just don't have the time (or patience) to cook every night like some 1960s housewife.
Nobody I know has time to cook a fresh dinner from scratch every night. Not the chefs, not the bartenders, not the athletes, parents or gym regulars. What that leaves is impulse buys, last-minute choices and a lot of less healthy options.
Meal prep is the life-hack to help you steal your time back and still eat your Plan A. It's a way around all of life's BS to at least have your meal plan on your terms.
Cost control
3️⃣ Meal prep saves you real money.
Not avocado toast money. Not “skip your latte” money. Legit, pay-your-bills money.
Delivery fees, inflation, and restaurants asking $20+ for a sandwich or the butt end of an iceberg lettuce, it all puts meal prep ahead on cost-effectiveness.
Meal prep puts you in charge of your food budget and meal plan without sacrificing quality.
Grocery store chicken, vegetables and grains will beat DoorDash on your bank statement every single time. Meal after meal, day after day, month after month.
Better choices
4️⃣ Eating on-plan, not on impulse.
With any effective meal plan, you’re not standing at the fridge at 8:30 p.m. wondering if mustard and string cheese counts as dinner. You already handled it. Like a grown-up.
Meal prep makes eating deliberate, part of a planned, sustainable lifestyle.
It changes the question from "what's still open?" to “this is what I’m eating this week”.
Takeout and frozen dinners are still there if that's really your jam. Meal prep just offers the option of homemade, whole-food ingredients on your own terms.
Cook once, eat for days
5️⃣ Cook 3-4 things, eat for the week.
Make a big weekend pot of something. Roast a tray of something else. Execute your meal plan on your day off. One less thing to worry about on work nights.
Meal prep means you can eat homemade, healthy meals most of the week by cooking once or twice. Time-efficient, cost-efficient and just smart.
Better left-over
6️⃣ Some foods are just better the next day.
Controversial opinion: Umami can be a verb.
Chili, curry, lasagna, stew, tomato pasta — Some food’s just better the next day.
Slow cooker meals, sheet pan broils, stock pot big batches, these are the Meal Prep All Stars. They'll add time to your work nights, and they'll take your arteries back from fast food and preservatives.
Why you? Why NOT you?
At first glance, a handful of ring-light legends all do their sloppy best to persuade you that meal prep starts and ends on their channel. That your place in all of this is watching their smug, heavy-filtered face chewing on camera. That the only role for you is coming back to watch the next day's food influencer mouthful happy-dance moneyshot Reels.
But one core truth is: Real cooking puts the food first and lives in the quiet satisfaction of feeding yourself like you give a damn.
Another core truth is, what keeps meal prep trending is pure economics. What keeps meal prep trending is how much money and time it saves regular people every week.
It’s more cost-effective, it’s more time-efficient, and making your own food is an act of self-care that pays off every meal, every day, for life.
You. Are. Worth it.
The bottom line
Forget 27-step recipes, impulse eating and overpriced food delivery. Meal prep belongs to working folks, single moms, gym rats, grad students, and busy people making it happen with better meals than some dollar-menu grease bomb.
For me, the goals of my meal prep are simple:
Time efficient + fuel efficient.
Cook once, eat for days. Cook 3-4 things, eat for the week.
Rotate meals to cravings within my meal plan, to avoid burnout on eating or cooking.
Around here, we keep it simple: Real food. Real filling. Real recipes.
(No spamming your feed with selfies of me chewing. 🤣 )
When the world feels loud, messy, and rushed, making a damn good meal for yourself (even batch-prepped in advance) is a small, defiant act of dignity.
Around here, you’re the meal prep legend in the only way that matters. You’re the star of your meal plan and the food is your sidekick.
Happy cooking! 🥗🍝🍱
Premium subscribers get step-by-step tutorials and FLEX recipe mods:
Veg(an), Mass-builder, Hard-gainer
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