As a holistic nutritionist with a picky-eater son, I know how hard it can be to provide us with nutritious dinners that are also tasty, eco-conscious, cookbook-cover-worthy, and affordable. That is why I like to meal-plan and set myself up for success each week.
Disclaimer: Success varies greatly and typically manifests as a failure. I know you are wondering now: Are we supposed to just go about our everyday crazy lives and pretend that the collective trauma of a seemingly endless pandemic, the near-overthrow of our “democracy”, and irreversible damage to our climate isn’t real? Also, are there vegan, Keto, raw-food, or vegetarian options? Or, besides working full-time, I need more time and more healthy food options. This is how I meal-prep with a grain of sarcasm of course.
Grocery list: First things first. Is it safe to shop in person, or should I still get groceries delivered? What a great, unanswerable question! Luckily, all these meals can be made with basics from your pantry, unless, of course, your definition of “basics” is boxed wine, a pallet of family-sized hand sanitiser, and masks.
Monday: Start the week off strong with an easy, vegetarian three-bean chilli. All you’ll need is one pot, eight ingredients, thirty minutes, and a health insurance plan that at least partially covers cognitive-behavioural therapy. Eco-tip! Use reusable bowls, utensils, and straws, but somehow never wash them because that wastes water. It’s a real Catch-22, which is a book you know well since it was a mandatory read when you were in school.
Tuesday: Normally, Tuesday would be burger night, but there was an anti-mask rally outside the grocery store today, so you couldn’t pick up buns. Then, on the way home, you listened to a podcast about how the industrial meat industry is destroying the Amazon rain forest. Serve veggie burgers wrapped in lettuce, call the French fries “Pommes Frites,” and boom! You’ve got yourself a healthy, classy dinner. Fruit for dessert.
Wednesday: O.K., my son is still pretty mad about the whole fruit-for-dessert thing. No better way to rebound than with a tuna yoghurt sauce and zoodles (zucchini noodles). Tuna because it is high in mercury, and you can’t afford to damage your kids’ brains any more than constant exposure to screens already has. Reality: sub zoodles for real noodles, sub yoghurt for mayo, and then sub the whole thing for pizza.
Thursday: You know those videos in which perfectly manicured moms use the multicoloured batter to make fun cartoon-character pancakes for their delighted children? You don’t know how to do that. Sandwiches.
Friday: T.G.I.F.! Which in this house stands for “Thank God I (bought) Frozen dinners!” Did you know that you can eat frozen dinners for breakfast and lunch, too? It’s true! Plus, your kid(s) will get a decade’s supply of sodium. Chocolate and movie night.
Saturday: Pull out some cereal and sniff the milk. Since time is meaningless, it’s the breakfast-for-dinner night! This one requires almost zero prep, which gives you a few minutes to reflect on how the labour of creating a meal plan and doing all the budgeting, shopping, and cooking takes away from your ability to do other things, like staring at a wall. Hmm, that wall needs some fresh paint! Better just clean it while remembering the birthdays of every member of your immediate and extended family.
Sunday: Time to start planning for next week! Because the weeks never end! They just roll on, oblivious of our attempts at stackable food-storage solutions or our efforts to eat the whole rainbow every day. Yet we continue the strange performance of “planning,” as if playing a sonata on the deck of the Titanic can make people a bit more comfortable while the damn ship is sinking. A futile attempt at control as we slip through chaos into darkness and maybe, finally, into peace. Taco night! With lots of cheese.
Z-O-O-D-L-E-S!!!!