Food Rituals for Everyday Life and Busy People

Being busy often gets in the way of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  One secret to success in eating healthy while being busy is to keep it simple and create a ritual.  Thinking less and making fewer decisions.

If healthy food is there, you’re more likely to eat it. If you have healthy food available, you don’t have to decide to eat well… you just do it.

Given we love rituals at Ritualize, let us introduce you to the food ritual. Here are a few choices depending on how you want to work it. Only you know what will work for your schedule, so read on and see if these will fit.

The Sunday Ritual

You don’t have to do this on Sunday, of course. You can choose any day you like.

It’s just that Sunday is often a time when people are more free, more relaxed, and more able to devote time to this type of task. And it’s a time when we’re usually thinking ahead to the upcoming week.

Set aside a couple of hours to do the following.

• Look ahead to what’s happening in the upcoming week. Where might you not have time to cook? What are the quiet and busy times?
• Come up with a general menu for at least the next few days. It doesn’t have to be anything in-depth. Just get a basic sense of what you might need to have on hand for the week ahead.
• Build your shopping list from your menu. This will help you be as effective and efficient as possible when you tackle the shops, and you’ll be less tempted by spontaneous (unhelpful) decisions.
• Hit the supermarket or grocery store. Stock up on what you need for the week. Consider grabbing a few extra “just in case” emergency items as well, such as canned beans, frozen vegetables, or other easily-stored healthy options that you grab at the last minute.
• Once you’re back home, start prepping and cooking. Whip up a batch of protein — for example, by grilling or roasting several chicken breasts at once. You could try a casserole in a slow cooker or stews, curries etc, add your washed veggies then divide into containers and freeze or refrigerated.

Some people choose to prepare almost all their meals for the week on Sundays. Others prefer to figure out which meals will be easy to cook just prior to mealtime and save them for later, preparing only meals that they might need for busy times (such as lunches at work).

Do what works best for YOU!

The Daily Ritual

You can combine the Sunday Ritual with the Daily Ritual — for example, by preparing your meat/protein on Sunday, and then add some quick-prep veggies on the day of eating.  For example, you may have your chicken breast already cooked and sliced, ready for a quick stir-fry.

During the Daily Ritual, you can prep a few extra items to have on hand for later in the day, or the following day, like chopped vegetables.  Glass containers are a great way to store chopped up vegetables.

Try a Morning Ritual where you whip up a fast-cook bowl of rolled oats or a blender omelette.

• Shake up your rolled oats with any other items (e.g. ground flax seeds, cinnamon, protein powder, other grains, etc.) in a large container.
• In the morning, scoop out the dry mix, pour in some water, and pop it in the microwave. Top with fruit and Greek yoghurt (see our recipe here) and enjoy a healthy breakfast that will keep you going all morning.
• Whip up some eggs in a blender (with some veggies if you like) and keep in a container for the next morning. Just pour and cook. You can prep this egg mix a few days in advance so you have it on-hand for a quick, healthy breakfast.

It’s easy to prep a salad that won’t go soggy during the day. Try our Salad in a Jar recipe.

Or try a Dinner Ritual where you simply make extra portions and save the rest for tomorrow. Again, it doesn’t take much more time to prepare a few extra things, so where possible, cook in bulk.