Starting easy and at home: cooking your own meals.

Image (c) Constanza Ehrenhaus

One of the things you can do to easily save money and eat healthier is cooking at home. This should be a no brainer. However I keep hearing that people go eat at fast food places because it’s faster and cheaper. I never understood that!
Between the time I have to put in driving/walking to the fast food place, decide what I want, stand in line, ask for what I want (which I never get, but that is another issue, I think I’ve been cursed with attendants never understanding me!) and wait to get my food, by the time I’m actually eating it is more than 20-30 minutes. And I can cook my meals from scratch in that time or less!
The prices are ridiculous, especially for the quality of food you are getting. Plus I find it so disturbing to generate so much trash! and the quality of the food is low and who knows what chemicals you are eating with that food!
Bottom line: not cheap, not fast, not green!

The solution? Cook at home. With a little bit of planning you can cook healthy, nutritive foods that take not too long to prepare and you can bring them to work or school with you, reducing the packaging and plastic waste. Plus you would know exactly what you are putting in your body, giving you control on your diet and health. Wait for sales and pack up your fridge and freezer. When you can buy chicken for $1/lb, frozen veggies for $1 a pack (our winter option!), and rice and noodles for a few cents to a dollar per bag or box, you can prepare a meal for much less than $5.

While sometimes fast food is a solution to a very busy day, it should not be the rule to your every day meals. The important thing is to keep in mind that there is a moment for which this might be adequate. You are traveling, in an airport, you had a particularly crazy day…. but a lot of people use the fast food place by default, hurting their finances, their health and the environment. Maybe one hour less of TV every 3 days would allow some people to prepare a big meal to put in the fridge and eat through half of the week. Especially if you are using the oven or a large pot for a stew! Those are my easy fixes, just put the stuff in, let it cook for 1-2 hours, take it out when it is cooked. Requiring minimum supervision and preparation!

You don’t know what to cook? I will be sharing some recipes with you, I have a few easy to make meals that are simple, healthy and so good!