Originally Published August 11,
2003 -- Your Wellness Guide
Reduce Weeknight
Mealtime Stress
——————————————————————
|
You
just get home after work or from picking up the kids at school and
you hear the unavoidable question “What’s for dinner?” Panic sets
in.
Even
with a stocked refrigerator and pantry, fixing a healthy meal on a
short time schedule can be stressful. Not only do you need to
figure out what to make but you also need the time to make it. |
Unfortunately, eating out or eating things that are not as healthy are
often recurring solutions – with results that may not only be gained
weight and other health problems but also, as noted in recent news
reports, child obesity.
There are,
however, healthy solutions, which include skills and habits that we can
develop and easily put into motion to reduce weeknight mealtime stress
without sacrificing our health. As the sharks chanted in the movie
Finding Nemo, “Fish are our friends,” so we should also be able to
recite “Food is our friend.” Food and cooking shouldn’t be seen as our
enemy.
|
To get
a positive perspective, I consulted with Jacqueline Keller, founding
director of NutriFit (www.nutrifitonline.com)
in Santa Monica, California, who is also the resident nutrition
expert for many busy Hollywood celebrities and NBC’s television
program The Other Half.
“Many
people find themselves caught in the mealtime rush hour. But, if
you invest a few minutes in meal planning, you’ll reap tremendous
nutritional benefits and cost savings,” says Jacqueline, a healthy
lifestyle and culinary educator who believes it is possible to make
healthy meals in little time with some basic planning. |
Photo: Wellington Media
You can save preparation time by
buying food
already prepared, like bottled minced garlic, baby washed carrots,
and cut washed broccoli heads. |
Her tips
include:
·
Write
It Down:
Make up a form with 14 boxes. Fill in a favorite entrée in each box for
each day that you plan to eat at home. Add veggies and/or fruits, and
whole-grain starches to each entrée.
·
Create A Shopping List:
From your entrée choices, make a shopping list. Keep your list in a place
where other family members can add items as well. By bringing your list
with you to the store, your shopping will go faster and help you avoid
unhealthy, impulse-buying choices.
·
Save
Preparation Time:
It may be a few cents more but buying food in the form you intend to use
it will save you time. For example, choose cheese already shredded or
sliced, washed baby carrots, cut up cleaned broccoli heads, cleaned and
packaged spinach, bottled minced garlic, or stir-fry cut chicken.
·
Plan
On Leftovers: Leftovers can be great timesavers, so plan to cook more and eat
leftovers as part of your meal plan. You can also freeze leftovers for
longer storage. Soups and one-dish meals are great freezer choices.
Cook Once, Eat for a Week
Author Jyl Steinback, “America’s Healthiest Mom”
www.americashealthiestmom.com, gave me some additional helpful tips.
“On Sunday night, my family and I go through the cookbooks and put sticky
notes on recipes we like. We make copies of the recipes, do a shopping
list, and go out and do all the grocery shopping.”
Her
family cooks many of the week’s meals on Saturday and Sunday, freezing or
refrigerating prepared meals for the upcoming days. Because Jyl is a
morning person, she also sometimes prepares evening meals in the morning.
She
recommends that families make a requirement to only choose recipes that 1)
take 15 minutes to make 2) are healthy, and 3) delicious. If her kids
don’t like a recipe, she doesn’t make it.
Jyl
also recommends creating a shopping list based on aisle shopping. “It
takes a fourth of the time to shop this way,” says Jyl, whose cookbook
segments out the shopping list into such categories as produce, dairy,
baking, fish, packaged/canned, spices, condiments, frozen, beverages, and
bread.
To
sum it all up, to save yourself mealtime stress and make more time for
your family, you’ll need to regularly create a habit of some 1) quick
planning, 2) a shopping list template (which you could easily do in your
computer), and perhaps 3) cooking ahead. These three suggestions will
help you eat better, enjoy life, and validate that “Food is our friend.”
Terra
Wellington
is a
national authority on creating a wellness lifestyle.
www.terrawellington.com
© Copyright Terra
Wellington