The only thing I prepare in advance are cut up vegetables, so I have them ready to snack on and serve as sides with lunches- otherwise I eat less wholesome snacks, like bread and cheese. I know you can buy prepared raw veggies, but for some reason they never appeal to me. I cannot tolerate those baby carrots, pre cut celery is usually not very fresh, same for broccoli and cauliflower.

I don't and I don't like leftovers and never have. I do make extra on Sunday night and Tuesday night but that's only because I go to my gym trainer the following night and so DH has something to eat. I eat something very light when I come home.

I do what zalco does, cut up certain things ahead of time to make it easier. Multiple of the same meal I can't do

There are some foods, like beans, which are better after a day or two in the fridge. Not nine days old like pease porridge, but some time. I agree about the eggs. Would be better if frozen. I get what the woman was about, however. I've never understood stomach restriction surgery. If the point is you can only eat a tablespoon at a time, just do that and skip the cutting! That poor woman probably can't face cooking all the time when she can barely eat. While overeating is not usually the true cause of obesity, a person didn't get there by not liking food.

I do sometimes make something big that turns into lunch leftovers and lasts a few days. But that's about the "let's eat it!" because it's too desired to make it into the freezer. That's like my current lasagna. It doesn't become dinner again, but does get eaten cold out of the fridge, or warmed up in individual servings for make your own meals.

I also do the cook a chicken today, make chicken salad tomorrow, kind of thing.

Re salads, I learned during the beginning of the pandemic, when I spent more time on my own, that if I wanted small salads just for me, the only way I could deal was by making half a dozen at a time in their own containers, with the dry crunchy bits (seeds, etc.) in the side compartment so they'd stay nice. The containers came in a big set. I think they're supposed to be for a sandwich and celery sticks. :) The trick was to make different dressings so they tasted different each time. But they take up a lot of room in the fridge, and I've just been keeping washed greens and dumping handfuls here and there, recently, rather than making small salads. If one is careful about properly washing and drying the ingredients, they really do stay nice for four or five days. At least in my fridge they do. But they also start really fresh from the farm.

I can't imagine eating the same thing for a week (3 days and I'm about done), but if it suits some people, and the food isn't rotting, to each their own.

I wouldn’t meal prep like that, but I do occasionally make an extra portion or two to either eat later in the week or to freeze for another time.

They say variety is the spice of life. I am with you Amy. I don't even menu plan much less meal prep. I don't even plan a full days meals. What I think I may want for dinner some days may very well change by dinnertime. The closest I come to planning ahead is sort of deciding what food groups I want for breakfast on days I have to leave the house early. It may be traditional like eggs or it could even be salami and cheese on a mini bagel.

I make batches and freeze. Leftovers are fine for Thanksgiving and sometimes I will eat a casserole the second day.. I sometimes get a rotisserie chicken and have chicken one day and chicken tacos the next. But no, not all week, yuk.

I freeze things like soup in portion, chicken and dressing, chicken tetrazinni (having that for supper tonight. I would not make a week's worth of salad. I also don't like to eat the same thing every day....although I confess, after Jody passed, I didn't care what I ate, and some days I did eat the same thing three times a day, and some days I only ate ice cream.

I'll do planned overs, as cook a pot roast one day, and have hot beef sandwiches the following night. Or make a large pot of chili or soup and freeze some. But eat the same thing every night for a week or eggs several days old? No way.

I might start some prep early in the day if I have some time and want to cut down on preparing the meal all at once. Clean salad ingredients, peel carrots or prep cauliflower to roast, but no, I would not be on board with eating food cooked days before.

I dislike lertovers. I do occasionally make something - like Lasagna, cut it into squares, freeze and then shrink-wrap for future reference. I just made bean soup; after eating two portions, the rest went into jars and into the freezer.

I don't eat anything after it's a day or two old. Three days is the absolute longest I will keep something unless it is frozen. I can't eat more than a meal or two of leftovers and then I need to eat something else. My body just absolutely rejects eating the same thing over and over for days. I'll cook up extra chicken or veggies or something so I can use the excess to make an extra meal. I'm fine with cooking and freezing food for later. I'm not eating a Thanksgiving dinner that has been in the refrigerator for a week. I don't have the skill level to keep salad fixings more than a day or two.

It can work for some people. Meal prepping is great for my DD and her DH for example. Because of their crazy work wchedules, both of them would rather take healthy food to'work than try to eat what is available to them. In her case, she is at the hospital and needs to eat when the cafeteria is closed so there isn’t much choice.

She doesn't make just one huge meal, she makes about 3-4 different meals, and not in great quantities, just enough for a couple of meals per person. All are low carb. Most meals are frozen, and some of course are used for that night’s dinner and the next day’s meal, so there is little repetition. I have watched her prep, and it works very well, both for portion control and for healthy, good food. Her husband’s portions are larger as he does strenuous workouts and has a very high metabolism.

None of her prep involves pre-cooking eggs to eat day after day, I assure you. Yuck!

I don't like cooking so when I cook, I cook more than one night's worth. The microwave is definitely our friend!! Especially since there are just the 2 of us, almost any portion of anything you cook is going to make more than just one night's worth. I just grilled pork chops last night and we'll finish them up tomorrow. If I make more than 2-3 days worth, then we freeze it for fending nights. Especially soups...which I make almost thick as stew...are better leftover.

Eggs are so quick to cook, I can't see making them ahead. I will chop veggies fresh as I need them as precut veggies just don't taste as fresh to me.

We prefer fresh food freshly cooked. We don't buy fresh food to put into the freezer to store and don't intentionally cook more than a meal's worth to eat another time or to freeze. We do buy some kinds of wild seafood that comes from too far away to be shipped here unfrozen but that's about it. We don't plan menus in advance, we note down what strikes us before food shopping or pick up what we find is available that we haven't had in a while.

We're retired now. Breakfast and lunch are almost always "you're on your own" unless one of us offers to make eggs for the other. We split dinner cooking duties, she makes some things better than I do and vice versa. Neither one of us is so fond of cooking as to call it a hobby but you need to cook what you want to eat at home. We don't over-do that and enjoy a lot of the diverse kinds of ethnic food available in our area.

One of our kids has a very busy work and personal life and does prepare a few different types of lunch meals on the weekend and mostly freezes them. To have healthy food beyond salads available for lunch at work, when they often don't have enough time to go out.

"Meal prepping" is a new term I hadn't heard before.

I do meal prep. It's self-preservation. It means that I can have variety plus the food is ready in minutes when my blood sugar plummets. I cook sauce and freeze each item individually and just grab a jar of this and a jar of that. Otherwise I am eating hunks of cheese, bread, and drinking milk in order to ward off the dizzy spells. Not healthy and huge in calories.

The dizzy spells and near blacking out are very scary. You would think I were used to those pesky dizzy spells after having them since my early thirties and I'm 64 but no.

I’m with Elmer. I would never prepare vegetables ahead of time. The minute they're peeled or cut up they start to lose flavour and they also begin to lose nutritional value, especially vitamin C, when exposed to oxygen and light. And precooked eggs sound absolutely vile. Things like some soups and casserolles do improve with reheating, but only once.

The earlier discussion on reheating carbohydrates also sounded like a recipe for horrible food to me. How to take all the joy out of eating for a tiny nutritional advantage at the expense of flavour and texture.

If you have a freezer, I don't know why anyone would subject themselves to the same same same for a week. I almost always cook for more than we are. I almost always freeze half. I rarely have to "cook from scratch" more than a few times a week. The other's I take already prepped meals from my freezer. I've worked in too many restaurants to think everything one pays for is prepped THAT DAY. The over sensitive idea that chicken cooked on Sunday would not be great in a salad or hot dish on Friday is wasteful and in my experience just not true.

I could have written what you wrote! I also have a great deal of frozen homecooked food in the freezer- all food that freezes beautifully- for whenever. I make 5 pounds of brown rice at a time and freeze it. It's perfect.

I have to or waste a lot of food. I only freeze things like lasagna, soup, chili, etc...and eat them for lunch meals. I have a bunch in the freezer still and will have to eat them up now that I'm at home. If I don't freeze leftovers a lot would go in the garbage.

I have a 3 days rule, it either gets frozen or thrown away. I will usually just freeze part of it right after I make it. The 5 or 7 day salad sounds gross, especially if mixed with the dressing. I can't imagine freezing eggs, why? It takes a minute or two to scramble an egg.

Annie, I also don’t enjoy cooking. When possible I made a recipe that will cover two nights.

Sometimes we like just a salad, so prepared lettuce, with all the fixings kept separate, goes for 3 nights.

I agree with Kath about 3 days.

Amy, I would not want to eat the same dinner for 5 days. I get it though for a busy family where both parents work. I can see making a turkey and then using it for a variety of other meals.

Yes, I meal prep. I pretty much have to because on top of working long workdays I have an hour commute one-way. I'm utterly bushed when I get home, the last thing I want to do is cook, and often I don't even want to eat -- I'll just grab something leftover from the fridge or make a bowl of popcorn, then hit the sack to do it all again the next day.

Eating out every day for lunch gets to be too expensive, and because I work a long day, I need to pack a lot of food (breakfast, lunch, and 2 snacks - usually fruit or vegetables) so I prep what I think I need on Saturdays or Sundays. I actually like leftovers and don't mind eating the same lunch every day. If I run out of leftovers by end of the week, I'll stop at the sandwich shop round the corner from my office, but that's not too often.

Foods that reheat or repurpose well, I'll make a big batch: chili, meats, stew, some casseroles, soup, rice, pasta. There's almost always something in the fridge to build a meal on. My mom was a wizard at using leftovers, so it's natural to me to do likewise. I've never had issues eating a delicious dish several meals in a row.

I wasn’t thinking of hard boiled eggs. They're precooked by definition. But I hate them anyway. But OP referred to freezing scrambled eggs. Yuk.

We love leftovers in our house - luckily because while I love to cook, I also work a lot, so the thought of cooking a full meal 5 or 6 nights per week (we'll go out 1 or 2) doesn't appeal to me. So things like soups, stews, casseroles, many pasta dishes, etc. (things that keep well) are planned for a multi-night rotation. But then we also make things - maybe pork chops with a veg and a baked potato - that are intended for one night only. I go grocery shopping generally once per week, but to me, it doesn't take much work to plan out a week's menu with those things in mind -- it's a little trickier in the summer when we have other things going on, so we have to stop and think which nights either or both of us will be home, etc., but still.....really not that difficult. We like variety in our food and feel that we get plenty of that by making different things each week -- I don't at all feel that eating the same food 2 or 3 times in a week (especially not consecutively) impacts that. Again, simple planning.

As to eggs.....it takes a couple of minutes to scramble them, so I wouldn't do that ahead of time but if I were prepping hard boiled eggs for a few days - sure. Salad -- we often do this and it works fine for us, with a couple of things in mind. I might make a big salad tonight and have it with some grilled chicken and plan to eat the rest of the salad for lunches that week. Salad is one of those things that I know I need to eat more of but it's sort of a pain to prep and I can easily talk myself out of if I have something "better" in the fridge -- haha -- so, if I make it ahead of time, I'm incentivizing myself to eat it since I hate the thought of throwing away good food. The caveat here is you have to know what can go in it without spoiling it quickly. I have learned that lettuce, cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, celery all keep just fine if properly sealed. I / We will then add anything else we might want to it as we go - tomatoes, pickles, olives, nuts, meat, dressing - whatever.

I don't really 'get' some of the strong reactions here - to each his/her own. I wouldn't enjoy eating the same thing for 5 nights in a row, but I also love a wide variety of foods - some people don't....that's ok. But I've also never died - or been repulsed - from eating something that's been in my fridge (properly sealed) for 6 days. I think a one-week rule is fine.

I cook specifically for leftovers. I won't cook 2 chicken drumsticks, but cook 6 instead. 2 pork chops, etc.

I don't usually eat the same meal twice in a row, but will have my leftover meal a couple days or so later. I've cooked a meal on Sunday and had the resulting leftovers the Friday. I haven't had a problem with eating food longer than 3 days.

About that three day rule, me too, except I almost never eat anything after the first day anyway, some eceptions apply. I have learned to just toss things after the first day and keep my refrigerator tidier in the meantime.

https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/cold-food-storage-charts

Not intentionally, but if I (sometime unintentionally) make a larger quantity than 2 meals I have no problem with either freezing it or eating it over several days - It just won't be all that I eat in a day.

Only exception is that I will think ahead and hardboil 6-8 eggs at a time - they come in handy when I am involved in a big, timeconsuming chore and need a little something to hold me until I want to take the time to stop and cook.

I cook dinner most days for the five of us (DD’s family is next door) and most nights I cook enough for DSIL to take for lunch the next day. With a few exceptions, other leftovers usually go to waste. I do cook some things for the freezer — primarily spaghetti meat sauce, gumbo and ”stoup” (a thick, beefy vegetable soup/stew). These freeze so well and actually taste a bit better after the flavors meld during cooling and thawing time. Before holidays, I sometimes make a few dishes that freeze well just to take the pressure off — our Thanksgiving dressing and twice baked potatoes for Christmas both freeze beautifully for a few weeks.

I don't meal prep, not a fan of eating the same food the next day nor do I have the freezer or fridge room to store premade foods. When I lived alone I just made enough food for the one meal except if it was chili, soup or stew. My cousin when she cooks for us she likes to make enough for leftovers which she will eat for 3 days. Left over containers of food just takes too much space in the fridge. My cousin will not eat anything that contains onions, soy, mayo

so the fridge is full with 2 of each type of pickles, mustard, ketchups, sauces, plus all of our produce and 3 types of bread, carton of plant based milk then regular bags of milk, different juices or cold drinks. Then my brother always bring home containers of food one of his lady friends has cooked for him which he never eats. No room at all for prepped foods. Living alone I thought my fridge was big. not with 3 adults who like different foods

"The over sensitive idea that chicken cooked on Sunday would not be great in a salad or hot dish on Friday is wasteful and in my experience just not true."

The guidance in the food safety material link in Lucille's comment above (based on resources of several expert federal agencies) says that leftover foods are safe for 3-4 days. Sunday to Friday is 5 days.

3-4 days is usually the maximum time for me with most leftovers, and I sure don't care to hang on to it after it's all been reheated in one batch. Yuck indeed.

But I do often make things to cover 2-3 days. I only work part time, so I have the luxury of being able to cook from scratch often. I try to be thrifty and not waste food, but I'm not irrational about it.

I do boil 7-8 eggs at the same time and store them unshelled for several days in a mason jar.

My breakfasts are usually cottage cheese or Greek yoghurt a bowl of fresh fruit and coffee. I never get tired of that.

Just today I had a bowl of cooked spaghetti from days ago to use up, so I made a casserole and used up some leftover creamed spinach in it too.

What on Earth is so repulsive about hard-boiled eggs kept for a handful of days in the fridge? Don't peel them ahead of time, and they'll taste the same as the day you prepared them.

OP was talking about scrambled eggs, not hard boiled.

There are two of us, but I cook some recipes for four, so we have leftovers for lunch the next day or possibly a second dinner, with fresh side dishes.  Some dishes taste better on the second day anyway (curries, stews, minestrone).  I also have recipes based on using leftovers, so roast chicken, lamb etc become pot or sheperd's pies or curries, rice goes into a fried rice dish (I do deliberately cook extra rice), vegetables go into a soup or pasta sauce.  And doesn't everyone love pizza leftovers for breakfast?  I don't use leftovers after the third day, and nothing gets reheated more than once.

I have scaled back my favorite recipes to serve 1 or 2 and scale back any new recipe I want to try. I don't mind leftovers, but don't like the refrigerator being too cluttered. Have never meal prepped. I do make out weakly menus so I can make out the grocery lists. When my children were young, I made out menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is a life-long habit for me.

I do not see "leftovers" as meal prep really. Nor do I see repurposing leftovers into a new meal as meal prep. I am not a fan of many things leftover and reheated. But I do not think I could ever stomach food that was made days and days ago and shoved in the fridge for the specific purpose of not cooking everyday. That's more of what I was talking about. Making a giant batch of something to portion out and eat throughout the week instead of cooking or eating out daily. I am a person who believes firmly in the to each their own philosophy. I am sure I do many things that other would find odd or would never do in their own lives. But I would rather make something easy like a sandwich or an omelet everyday than eat days old food. But that's just me.

OP - to me, "meal prep" is simply preparing for the meal at hand, like peeling the carrots, so there may be a bit of a disconnect in this thread. If I use yesterday's leftover chicken to make a chicken pie, to me that's still meal prep even though it involves leftovers. I agree with you on the underlying point: I definitely do not cook five or six days worth of meals at a go. I cook fresh (or repurposed leftovers) pretty much every day.

Two other observations: we are being hammered here in Australia with messages about the environmental impact of food waste, so I do try to use up leftovers in some creative way rather than throw them out. And I'd rather eat leftovers of a home-cooked meal, however repurposed, than buy packaged meals from the supermarket. Within appropriate safety levels of course. Three days. Not five or six.

jmm, that is why in my original post, I specifically defined what I meant by meal prep.

By purchasing items in an amount or quantity that's sufficient for the servings to be prepared and eaten, there will be no waste.

Rather than trying to figure out how to use an excess, it strikes me as much easier to avoid having an excess to begin with. Don't buy or cook too much.

I remember ages ago during my service years often seeing the same sign in military mess halls - "Take what you want but eat all you take. Don't waste food". Sometimes a higher up NCO would be standing near where food trays were dumped and stacked and they'd not hold back when they saw someone who didn't practice what the sign said.

I don't want to be "At-Your-Service", like a waitress...when I'm in my own home. ☺ I don't get up at 5:30am and fix my husband his breakfast and pack his lunch. I make things ahead, in batches.

My husband is slender, fit....eats a low salt, basically organic, nothing processed diet. So I plan ahead. I don't want to say, "I'll fix you anything"....and start cooking. I often make too much so we have leftovers and I have the night ....off. ☺

https://youtu.be/wpLJXHUyvyM

This is an example of what I am referring to.

Nicole, I get that. I do not mind cooking daily, more than once usually. It does not phase me one bit. Its just a thing I am used to doing. There are some times that me and SO are just passing ships. On those days I will still try to cook something fresh that day and leave it for him to eat in the fridge when he gets home. If I do not for whatever reason feel like cooking we will get takeout. I do not plan my cooking in a way that there will be food here if one of us gets hungry so we just heat up what is there because its there. And I do not really plan ahead either. The furthest I plan ahead is when I stop by the grocery store on my way to work in the evening, maybe to get drinks or something to cook or eat at work, and I will pick up some meat and other ingredients to make a meal for SO the next afternoon before I go to work. And I do try to only buy enough for that meal. I HATE eating something because I have to use something up before it goes bad. I wanna eat what a wanna eat when I wanna eat it, not because I have to. And while I understand everyone values their time differently, I work 12 hour shifts 4-6 nights a week. Sometimes I have to work 12 or 8 hour dayshifts on those days I am supposed to be off to fill in for someone. I do not mind cooking after I drive 30-45 minutes home from work. I would rather cook and eat fresh food than choke something down just to eat something.

ie: last week I made a huge key-lime cheesecake and quiche. It took me 4 hours to make ALL that food....from scratch.....squeezing limes, zesting, the flaky pie crust for the quiche, each baking for an hour. It took us 4 days to eat the whole quiche and the whole cheesecake. Loved it! ♥ I could have frozen it in portions, then rotated what we ate. But.....we liked it THAT much! ♥

This week, my menu will be a crock pot chicken and brown rice on the side. Nothing fancy. It will take us ALL week to eat it all.

I watched the video, are they storing all those in the fridge? Doesn't sound good at all. Too much repetition especially if it's only one or two people having to eat the same meal day after day.

I watched the video. I could not eat that every day for a week. I could possibly eat those ingredients if they switched up the sauce/seasoning... like maybe some sort of Asian brown sauce or gravy. Lol! I love cooked broccoli, but some days I would want other veggies like carrots or mushrooms or green beans. No way would I eat that chicken past the 2 or 3 day mark after it had been cooked. I might be ok with the rice and vegetable although I don't like unflavored rice. I'm not sure why he kept adding coconut oil to everything. That seemed unnecessary.

Ugh - boiled broccoli after just 2 days is pretty blecchh.

And haven't you heard? Coconut oil has magical health properties.

(Being sarcastic of course.)

I've made the jarred salads for a work week. Layering it correctly is the key so nothing gets soggy and the greens stay fresh.

I have some foods I don't mind eating every day for a week. Soups, chili, things like that.

I plan my meals for the week. We have a different entree and sides for supper each night. I usually prep for dinner very early in the AM and cook our supper when I get home from work. I use a slow cooker occaisionally. I sometimes plan for some leftovers to either become part of my lunch salad, part of another dinner or as a quick lunch for DH. On Sunday nights, I prep vegetables for 5 salads for my weekly lunch. DD and I make lunches in the evening for the next day. For breakfast, I might cook a few breakfast sandwichs ahead and wrap for reheating in the microwave at work or cook some hard boiled eggs to have on hand. Other than that everyone is on their own for breakfast. I only cook breakfast on special occaisions or when we get a quiet weekend.

I cannot comprehend eating the same meal every day for a week. Yuck!

I try hard to cook so there is no waste but my family usually foils my plans by not eating consistent quantties. I save and freeze apprpriate leftovers and trimmings. For example, Sunday I cooked a pot roast, There were a couple of slices of beef, 2 small potatoes, a few baby carrots, a spoonful of green beans and about a cup of gravy left. DS made a sandwich out of the leftover beef and I froze the rest to be part of vegetable beef soup or beef stock the next time I make some.

This is what I would do:

First throw out that box of baking powder. Baking powder is a very effective example of advertisement, but not much use for deodorizing.

Then go get deodorizing products using activated charcoal.

Yeah, I know all the popular theories why baking powder. It's that basic chemical neutralizes acidic chemical, but smell has more than acidic components.

Yeah, baking soda has large surface area to absorb odor. You must be kidding. One tea spoon of activate charcoal has over 50,000 square feet of surface area.

Activated charcoal absorbs ALL chemicals. That's why it's used in anti- poison gas masks.

With refrigerator air fresher, your leftover food will not have that refrigerator smell as much.

dcarch