Feeding a family can be a lot of work. Parents know that all of their kids are not always the easiest to feed. Many young children are picky eaters and change what they want and what they like constantly.
Keeping things consistent can be difficult in a household with multiple children and family members to feed every day and every night.
Meal prepping is something that people who are looking to lose weight and work out do a lot, but families also tend to meal prep, as well. Parents sometimes meal prep to keep their kids in the know and also make their food shopping much easier.
When people meal prep, they often prep for the entire family at one time. It makes not only cooking easy, but food shopping easy, too. If you already know what you are making for the week, you can easily pick up what you need at the store.
When you meal prep with specific dishes in mind, you can save money by not buying things you don't necessarily need. And, you also save food because you aren't throwing away things that haven't been eaten or that go bad.
Busy parents, especially those who work, can use meal prepping and menus as a way to save time, cut down their food shopping costs, and also make sure their kids are going to eat with no complaints.
Caroline Campbell is a mom of two but also works full time. Being a working parent is hard enough, but it's even harder when she has to cook dinner every night with picky kids—especially kids who are under the age of five.
Campbell decided that she would make her life, and her family's life easier, by coming up with a 4-week long rolling menu. The menu was comprised of lunch and dinner meals for every day, that way everyone knew what they were getting.
Let's face it, we all have leftovers sometimes. But, with this menu, there are days and nights where the mom will make something, and use it as a base for something else the following day.
The gammon is used for dinner the previous night, and the following day, she makes a ham and pea soup which is made from the leftover gammon and other things she already has in her kitchen.
Many people walk the aisles at grocery stores for inspiration and also understand what they want to get and cook together. But, prepping things means you can also order everything and skip the food shopping trip entirely.
"I’ve then created shopping lists and done each of these orders for the next 4 weeks on Tesco. I know it’s not as budget as it could be but the time and hassle it saves is worth £7.99 for the delivery saver as Tesco is where I’d shop in person," she said.
Campbell's menu and her success with the meal prepping for 4-weeks at a time prove that working and being a parent can totally work, you just have to be strategic about it.
