Are you buying things that "look good" instead of doing weekly menu planning?Do you wander around the supermarket like a confused nomad looking for edible gold, but have no map to get to the delicious "treasure"? If you aren't weekly menu planning, you're causing more problems for yourself! You navigate up and down aisles with your cart trying to dodge other shoppers in some sort of gastronomical bumper car race. As someone cooking for one person, your needs are different than the mother loading up piles to feed several hungry mouths. Your cart's contents should reflect this. You intend to get what you determine to be the "basics": bread, milk, a piece of fruit or two . . . . Products on the shelves moan to your taste buds and seductively catch your eye. The item carries on a conversation with you. "I'm healthy for you". "Aw come on, you deserve me". "Look at my price, I'm a deal!" Without argument, the food gets tossed into the cart. It takes up residence in its new home - yours. Its neighbors are a menagerie of other things. And when you come looking for something to eat, you open the fridge or cupboard door, survey the inhabitants, and shut it concluding there's nothing to eat.
What! Nothing to eat?Yes, because you were unable to mentally assemble the food items into something resembling an appetizing meal. What went wrong? You bought lots of food. You didn't do weekly menu planning. You wasted time and your hard-earned money. Just as madras plaid won't work with large polka dots, chipotle sauce doesn't combine with that package of instant oatmeal you bought.It's all about weekly menu planning. Planning? Yeah, pencil that in between dusting underneath the rugs and regrouting the tub. Meal planning is not as time intensive as you might think. Most of meal planning involves buying smart. We may spend more time selecting which movie we will watch for over an hour than the sustenance we shove into our mouths in under 30 minutes. Like you at work, your food for a single person needs to be multi-tasking. Cooking for one person means controlling quantities which, if you passed third grade math, means keeping more money in your pocket and not thrown out because of spoilage.
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