Jan 6

Jan 6 3 Tricks to help yourself Eat Fresh This Year!

Inspiring Stories, Tips, Tricks, Table Scape Ideas, Recipes

Hello New Year we’re ready for you! With all of those good intentions fresh in your mind, here are 3 Quick and Easy ways to help yourself Eat Fresh in the New Year!

There’s nothing worse than opening the fridge and seeing loads of fresh food but no real interest in cooking it! Or watching all that fresh food go to waste before you figure out what to make with it! These are my fave ways to help myself eat healthy -

Plan

Only buy what you’re going to eat! I know, this sounds silly - who buys stuff they aren’t planning to eat? Ummmm, everyone. Studies show that making a meal plan and then making a grocery list helps shoppers buy at least 30% LESS, which means you waste LESS, which means you save money. WIN WIN WIN
Start with the simplest of meal plans. I love using my weekly planner to do this. It helps me see what nights we’ll be home, what evenings I’ll have time to cook, if friends are coming over etc…
Be realistic with your Meal Plan! Even though I deeply love cooking, I don’t want to cook big meals every night. I plan for leftovers and busy evenings where I won’t have time to cook, lazy dinners and so on. This is a HUGE help to not over buying produce which is the #1 thing thrown away.
Choose 1 new thing to try each week. Just in case you don’t love it you know you’ll have some other things on your meal plan that you do like! So give that Kohlrabi a try … but buy some cucumbers too ;)
If you need a little inspiration for your dinners, check out our Cookbook Dinner Changes Everything - it’s loaded full of real fresh dinner ideas!
2. Prep
Block out time to PREP . You’ll be more likely to eat the food you bought if it’s all ready! If you’re planning for salads throughout the week, chop extra lettuce and cabbage, dice extra vegetables, marinate and cook extra meat.
**Salad Saving TIP! Shred up that cabbage and mix it with your lettuce and greens - the cabbage will help it stay fresh longer!
3. Pack It
Invest in storage containers Fresh food last much longer when it’s stored properly. You’ll get a return on the money spent in the first month you use them! PLUS when everything is prepped you’ll be much more likely to eat the food, which means you won’t be wasting as much! And if you’re filling your plate with fresh vegetables you’ll be much less hungry to eat the other stuff.
Have various sized containers I like having a big bowl of salad greens all ready to grab. Then I store my prepped vegetables in separate containers to keep them lasting longer.
Nuts are a favorite snack and salad topping for us. Save money and buy pecans and walnuts, pine nuts and almonds in bulk - toss them with a touch of olive oil and your favorite seasonings and roast big batches of them! I roast mine at 400 degrees for 3-7 minutes depending on the nut. They’ll keep the longest if you store them in the fridge or freezer!
Bento Box it! You can build your own Adult Style, Healthy Eating Lunchable and I bet you’ll be embarrassed to say how much more fun lunch is. Seriously! Even my kids are way more likely to eat their vegetables when they’re cut up and in cute little containers.

To help you on your quest for Fresh Eating check out the side bar - I put a few of my fave kitchen Planning, Prepping and Packaging tools all together for you. Having good kitchen tools will make all the difference in how easily you can prep and cook and have fun in the kitchen!

Cheers to healthy eating!