I don't have time ...
 

So many times I see people saying they don't have time to fix food for themselves - to eat healthy, to break their reliance on non-packaged foods. So I decided to try an experiment tonight after I got home from the grocery store. to see how long I spend on food prep onthe weekends. After I put everything away, I set my kitchen timer for 60 mins and began my weekend routine of getting food ready.

Here's what I did, in order:

Mixed up oats, eggs, yogurt, chopped dates (from a can), and peanuts and put in a 9x9 dish in the toaster oven for oat bars (the other thread made me crave them! :)). While they are baking ...

Began making cabbage mushroom soup for lunches next week: sliced onions and garlic, put onions in the pot with some olive oil over low heat. While that was cooking ...

Sliced 1/2 a cabbage, mushrooms, and shredded carrots to add to the soup. Set that aside.

Sliced the rest of the cabbage very very thin and put in a gallon zipper bag with a tiny squeeze of lemon juice to keep it from browning. I'll use this for fish tacos and cole slaw next week.

Put on 6 eggs to boil.

Added the cabbage, etc. to the pot, poured in 2 cups of chicken broth and topped off with water. Added a couple of dried chili peppers. Set to simmer and covered.

Preheated the oven to 425.

Turned off the heat under the eggs, and covered to let cook hard.

Peeled and diced a butternut squash (also for soup). Tossed with olive oil, salt, and paprika, and put in the oven.

Cleaned up some, wiped down the counters.

While squash is roasting, pulled out 5 pieces of whole grain bread and cut them in half. Measured out 32g of peanut butter on 5 of the halves, made pb sandwiches, put them in snack sized baggies, and put them back in the fridge (breakfast and/or lunch for next week).

Measured out 28g of baby carrots into 5 snack-sized baggies and put them in the fridge.

Put 1.25 cups of steel cut oats and 5 cups water into the slow cooker for breakfast/snacks next week.

Opened 2 Fage yogurts and squirted in ~1t of honey and put the lids back on. These will go with breakfast - whether it's oats or one of the pb sandwiches.

Portioned out 1/2 cup servings of cottage cheese into 3 of the 1/2 cup sized Glad reusable containers and put those in the fridge.

Rinsed and chilled the eggs, cracked the shells, and put them in a baggie in the fridge.

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At this point there are still 15 mins left on the timer, but I'm done until the soup is done cooking and can be put in a container in the fridge and the butternut squash is done roasting, in which case, I'll set aside about 1.5 cups of it to have with chicken tonight just roasted and I'll put the rest on for soup.

Fixing the rest of the butternut squash soup will be a matter of simmering it in chicken stock and water for about 45 mins.

Oh and I have to let the oat bars cool and slice them and package them in zipper bags.

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All in all, I will spend another 30-40 mins prepping food and I'll have my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks ready for next week. In the bag I take to my office every day I'll take one of the soups or the other, throw in an apple, a can of V8, and a boiled egg. And this week I'll have oat bars as well. :)

Usually I'll eat my oats for breakfast before I leave the house, or I'll eat my 1/2 pb sandwich in the car on the way in. Yogurt at my desk when I get there.

So really that's it - for about 90 mins worth of work on Sunday evening, I have everything ready for next week. Now all I have to worry about is dinner when I get home.

Obviously this works for me because I tend to eat the same things for breakfast/lunch over the course of a week.

But I did think it was an interesting experiment to see exactly how long I spend preparing for the week.

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And having everything ready will keep you out of the vending machine at work or having to stop at MacDonald's. Good Planning Pays Off!!!

Exactly!!! ;)

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"Mixed up oats, eggs, yogurt, chopped dates (from a can), and peanuts and put in a 9x9 dish in the toaster oven for oat bars (the other thread made me crave them! ). While they are baking"

Ok, You have my attention what the recipe for these exactly and how many calories per bar do ya figure you have in em? after I read this post I read the oat bar part to my wife and she asked that I ask you for the exact recipe because she has been looking for something like this and it sounds just about perfect for her, thanks.

As Ever
Me

totally off topic but where can you buy these steel oats, I looked at walmart today and all they had was quaker. I so badly wanted to do that crock pot recipe :( But you are right planning is KEY to making this work, and really it takes so little effort and is sooo worth it in the long run even if it does take effort.

Heheh. No problem. It's based on a "baked oatmeal" recipe that I got online somewhere ... I can't remember where.

3 cups rolled oats
1 container Fage 2% yogurt (one of the single serving sizes)
2 eggs
1/2 cup (loosely packed) brown sugar
about 3/4 cup of chopped dates (I didn't really measure, just threw them in)
about 1/2 cup of plain roasted peanuts (note that these don't stay crunchy - they get a little soft - if that texture is a problem, I'd skip them.)

You can also throw in a bit of cinnamon if you want that flavor.

Mix it all together well. To be honest, I wash my hands and then mush everything around by hand. It's easier and faster than using a spoon.

Spray a 9x9 pan with Pam and put the mix in. Press it down firmly with your hand. Really pack it down.

Bake in 350 oven for about 40 mins. It won't really brown at all, or maybe just a little around the edges. It just firms up.

Take out of the oven and cut immediately while still hot. Then let cool.

1" x 1" squares gives you 9 squares per pan. Each square is about 260 cals, 7g fat, 10g protein, 5g fiber.

They're pretty filling and not terribly sweet. One of my big problems with most commercial bars is that they're too sweet. I have, in the past had these for breakfast with a little vanilla yogurt. And they make a GREAT post-workout snack because of the protein in them.

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I buy my steel cut oats at Whole Foods, but Kroger also carries them here.

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I have tons of small Glad containers and zipperlock baggies I should put into good use. I thought about putting together my breakfasts & lunches Sunday before the week begins by packing sandwiches and stuff, but never put it into effect. This seems easy and totally throws away the "I don't have time".

our walmart has them near the quaker but way on the top shelf, maybe ask someone

I don't do food prep on the weekends, but I do spend a few minutes each evening planning for the next day. It really does not take that long, regardless of when you do the work!

Great job on the food prep!

I think the reason many people say they don't have time is a matter of priorities. My best friends says she doesn't have time to eat healthy (or at home even), but she can't miss Dancing With the Stars... it's all about priorities! Which in fine, I'm just not big on whining about it.

Photochick - that recipe sounds yummy! I have one question - when cutting them in the pan, do you mean the bars are cut into 3"x3" squares? If cut into 1"x1", that'll get you a whole lot more than 9 bars! And at 260 calories per 1 inch square...

What's funny to me is how long these same people will spend in fast food drive-in lines and what have you. Really, it's the same if not much more time to prep your food whether its one night for the whole week, or each evening.
Good thread Photo!

Oh argh. :) Yes, 3x3 squares - 9 per pan.

Math was never my strong point. :)

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I think if you are good at and used to cooking and baking and prepping food, then taking the time needed to plan your week's food is easy peasy. But if you're not a cook or if it's new then it can seem daunting. Also, prepping for on a Sunday afternoon for the week takes a good-bit of multi-tasking (prepping several things at once) and some folks just aren't capable of that so it would take them longer. Even prepping non-cooked foods can seem like a lot of work if you aren't used to doing it. For someone new to the game, those 90 minutes probably seem loooonnngggg and just grabbing a lean cuisine or whatever is alot easier.

I think - especially for people just starting out or people who don't have confidence in their cooking abilities or who just don't like to cook - that pre-packaged foods are fine. They are a great place to learn portion control and are excellent for learning how to calorie count. Not saying that cooking and food-prep and planning and making your own can't be learned; of course they can. Just that if you're not used to it, planning a week's worth of food might seem overwhelming and I think pre-package foods have their place.

You know, that's so true. Even if you don't go through fast food lines - even if you eat packaged food at home. My husband doesn't follow my same eating plan and on nights I make something he doesn't like, he fixes frozen pizza. By the time he preheats the oven, cooks the pizza, takes the pizza out, cuts it up, lets it cool ... I've fixed a full healthy meal and eaten it.

Now, granted, he can put the pizza in to cook and go back and watch TV for 45 mins, so I guess if that's a consideration ... :)

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Well now - that there is a perfectly good reason to purchase a little tv to have on your kitchen counter ;)

Great post!

I am still learning a lot about cooking so my lunches are still pretty simple. But I often cook up 4oz cuts of chicken breast on Sunday for lunches all week. Cut/measure the meat, season, and throw in the oven for 45 mins. I also will steam up my veggie of choice for the week.

When it's all done I have baked chicken and steamed veggies for lunch at work. Add on a piece of fruit and maybe a string cheese and I'm good to go!

It's so worth the effort. When I don't plan it's just too easy to make poor choices.

I agree that it can seem daunting and yes, I know my way around a kitchen, so it might be a little easier for me. But it's not impossible to learn and you don't have to multitask the way I did.

Even something as simple as making the 5 pb sandwiches, putting carrots in a baggie, and boiling some eggs ahead of time - takes less than 10 mins.

Or taking it one step further, baking or grilling 5 chicken breasts on Sunday afternoon.

Something that simple that takes less than 15 minutes total can make a huge difference in success or failure for eating healthy over the week.

I know for me, if I am hungry during the day and don't have something already fixed, the temptation to eat a handful of crackers or grab something from a candy machine instead is pretty high. But knowing that I have a fridge full of already prepared, snack sized items that I can reach into the fridge and grab really helps.

And knowing that I have things prepped for meals the rest of the week also helps. When I come home from the gym after a long day and don't *want* to cook, it's easier to take a pre-grilled chicken breast and slice it over a bed of spinach and call it good.

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Great thread. I don't work full time so I don't need to plan out and cook a whole week ahead but I can still do things like pre-bag veggie snacks for the fridge so when I open it and am hungry the healthy food is one of the "easy" things to grab. Being prepared definitely helps with eating right!

:lol: I delayed looking at this thread because I thought it was yet another person complaining about not having enough time! haha. Should've looked at the OP and known better! Glad I checked it out.
Great job on your planning, PC! You're so organized. I have to get something like this planned out for the week. Meals are becoming haphazard. Healthy, but not well planned. Great inspiration!

Great post PhotoChick! I was one of those "don't have time" excuse users big time myself. Until I actually tried it that is ;) I don't do my whole menu for the week on Sundays but basic stuff I do - like the boiled eggs and a pot of oats or prepping some dried beans. But I do put together my next days food while dinner is cooking. By the time din-din is done, my lunch bag is tucked in the fridge ready to grab and go in the morning. Imagine my surprise to find that boiling up a pot of whole wheat pasta and chopping a few veggies, adding a little feta cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil it actually takes the same amount of time as fixing a pan of Hamburger Helper. And, surprise, surprise - I'm a pretty good cook. DH hasn't missed the packaged processed or fast food dinners one bit.

Yup, along with the complaints about the grocery bill being higher trying to buy the healthier foods. DH had a few minutes of grumbling about the grocery bill but when I pointed out to him how much we had been spending on fast food or eating out every month, he realized we now actually spend less on food than we used to.

It really is all just excuses but I think we have to keep in mind how impossible it all seemed when we started out too. I know, in my case anyway, I was so on the verge of a serious depression that just the idea of not knowing how to choose fresh fruit and veggies that were ripe at the grocery store made me feel like such a loser I was actually afraid to try. It's always easier to make excuses than it is to make changes. It really took my fear of growing even fatter, and being fat forever getting bigger than my fear of looking stupid in the produce section to get me to learn to cook *real* food.

It's true that cooking, food prep, menu planning are skills that can be learned, but they're also becoming lost skills for a variety of reasons (convenience foods, I believe, being one of them - which isn't to say I think they shouldn't exist). They skills aren't difficult to master, but if you have no idea where to start, then reliance on packaged foods become not just a convenience but a necessity.

Shopping, cooking, and eating on a tight budget in as healthy a way as possible is one of my top priorities, with my husband and I both on disability with health and weight issues. I've been told it's impossible on budgets larger than ours, and when I tell those people how I've done it, usually there's no more than one or two tips they're willing to try - the rest is "too extreme," like going to more than one grocery store.

I've even been asked how to peel a carrot when I say that whole carrots are generally cheaper than baby carrots (I do buy baby carrots for snacking, but generally use whole carrots for stews). I guess because I was peeling carrots at 4, I assumed everyone knew how to do it, at least in theory... vegetable peeler in one hand, carrot in the other... What's a vegetable peeler, you mean a knife?....

I love making soups because to me they're one of the easiest things in the world to make. They take a lot of time, but very little of it is my time. If I make them in a crockpot, I don't even have to be there, but even in a soup pot on the stove, the simmering doesn't require much monitoring, so a soup may take 6 hours or more to cook (not so much because it has to, as because I started it a lot earlier than I planned on eating it), might require no more than 15 minutes of my time.

I think it's harder to eat a healthy diet on convenience foods. It's not impossible, or even extremely compicated, but it does require a different kind of shopping. It's a skill that isn't often taught though either. So we're losing the "old ways," of home cooking, but we're not necessarily learning a good new way either.

I saw a commercial on Saturday morning cartoons teaching kids to read nutrition labels, and I was really impressed. When I was a kid, it was already starting to be less common for even girls to know the cooking basics or want to. And while they were taught in school, they were considered a class smart girls didn't take and boys took because they were gay or wanted to meet dumb girls.

My grandmother and mother taught me to cook, sew, do laundry, crochet, do needlepoint (and ironing - was a skill they attempted to teach me, but the only thing I ever mastered were squares - sheets, pillocases and handkerchiefs), and my dad taught me and my brother woodworking. I was four when pretty most of the lessons begun, but my sisters 14 and 16 years younger than me, learned a lot fewer of the "domestic" arts. Less interest, less need.

For weight loss and health, cooking skills aren't necessary, but they come in handy. And while cooking skills may not be necessary, planning skills pretty much are, and a good grasp of basic nutrition sure helps also.

Wait.... you have NEXT week's dinner planned?? Oh now I'm really impressed! I dont even have TONIGHT's dinner planned.

This is how I am too...I need to have things packed ahead of time with 5 kids in and out of the house so when I buy my fresh fruit and veggies I go ahead and pack them in snack baggies so I can just grab and go! If I don't I spend more time looking to see what I can grab and will go for one of those fiber one bars or something...makes no sense to me why I do it lol!

I work from home but I think that is worse than going to work somewhere else sometimes esp with food :D

Thanks for the recipe for the baked oats Photochick!

Great thread!! I am a SAHM so I dont do a whole lot of prep on the weekends but I do sit down and write up a menu that we use for the week!!

It saves a lot of time and I never have to ponder over what I am going to make for dinner. And it helps me stay away from the pre-packeged foods.

:)

You know .. the whole cooking thing is interesting to me.

On the one hand, I love Food Network because I get so many great ideas from it. On the other hand, I do think that the plethora of cooking shows has created this idea in people's heads that everything they fix needs to be "gourmet" food. Or that you have to have a huge array of different pots and pans and gadgets to cook. Or that you have to stock up on exotic ingredients.

Even the basic shows tend to foster this attitude to a degree.

I think it's a shame, because even if you don't like to cook, cooking doesn't have to be hard or a chore. Believe me, as much as I like to cook, there are some weeks where I'm super busy and stressed and juggling 20 different things and the idea of coming home in the evening and making a meal fills me with dread. :) I'm no different from anyone else out there in that respect.

I wish more people were taught the very basics of how to fix a simple, nutritious meal. Even for a lot of people the concept of balancing veggie, carb, protein is so foreign, and that just blows my mind.

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My FH loves the whole wheat pita pizzas I make him. So he always asks when am I going to make them again. He won't use the oven himself. One night while I was at work, I came home and he ate the last of the pitas [which I wanted to use for work lunches, since he left my WW bread untied and it got moldy]. I asked him if he actually used the oven, and he said "NOPE! 30 seconds in the microwave!". :lol:

When I did our food shopping, I bought him 2 things of whole wheat pitas and a set of the WW for my own for this week. :D

Hehheh. My husband loves cheese - any kind of cheese with a passion.

One day I bought a wheel of Laughing Cow cheese for my snacks. I came home the next day and he'd eaten all but one of them. I have to admit I pitched a bit of a fit about it. A drawer full of cheddar and feta and blue cheese and he ate MY Laughing Cow.

So now with a sheepish look on his face, he'll ask me "is it ok if I have one of your cheeses". :)

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Thanks for the thread, Photo. I do okay planning ahead, but I was sweating tonight---between Girl Scouts, soccer and the gym, I was a little stressed about dinner.

Well, after reading your thread, I attacked my problem by planning ahead. I have chicken in the crockpot with BBQ sauce, butternut squash roasting in the oven that can be reheated later, and 16 eggs boiling on the stove for snacks this week. I made enough chicken and squash that it will stretch for a few meal. Sometimes just looking at cooking a different way can help folks plan ahead.

As for learning to cook, I owe it all to Racheal Ray. I have the skills to move on and be creative and healthy, but I seriously didn't know how to time pasta to be done when the meat/sauce or veggies were done until I watched marathons of 30 minute meals. I could cook ONE thing at a time, but simultaneously? Forget it! Now I can multitask in the kitchen and it was a learned skill for me.

My butternut squash smells GOOOOODDD!!!!

Wow! Really? I assumed everyone knew how to do that too. Of course, I no longer peel carrots (just scrub 'em), but still.