Pre-prepared convenience food

 

Have you ever just craved something from a fast food place? 

Or only grabbed it because you were running short on time even though you know if would be so much better for you, and cheaper if you had made it at home and could just bring it with you?

For my son Char, this thing is Starbucks coffee cakes. For my daughter Rose, also Starbucks, but the oatmeal bowls. They both have the time blindness and tend to think that it will take them a much shorter time to get ready to leave the house than it actually does and then before they know it they are running late  and do not have time to eat breakfast, pack a snack, or get something to eat for after their activity, i.e. class or work.

How about another conundrum of knowing you and your family should eat healthier so you go into the grocery store and look at the produce section and knowing that chopping, peeling, and storing everything is going to be a huge barrier for you to eat it. Because of this, it is easier to spend the extra money to buy the prepacked stuff that is already sliced and sometimes individually packaged.

All the above is something that my family has found to be the case as well. We have been through every single scenario I mentioned, and many, MANY more.

 I like to get the fruit or vegetable charcutier trays when they are on clearance in the produce sections, but that is not very often. (Especially because I nearly exclusively buy groceries online for pick up, but that is another story.) Char is very partial and likes these the most, as he is a “No make, only Eat,” kind of ADHDer. (Not a word, but it fits the context here! Lol)

Rose likes to call these things the ADHD Tax. It costs more for food eaten out, or for convenience, because you did not have the time to make it before you left or knowing that the amount of work that will be required to prepare the healthier options, so you end up buying chips or the more expensive prepared fruits and vegetables.

As a person who is neurotypical, living with four people who are neurodivergent, it falls upon me to help support those members of my family to navigate these things. A job I proudly and happily serve. For now, what a part of that means is that I buy the much cheaper whole produce. Five pound bags of whole carrots for $1.98 instead of one pound bags of baby carrots for $1.65 apiece. That is already a savings of $6.27, on just ONE food item. The same goes with celery, cucumbers, kiwis, bananas, pineapple, apples, grapes, oranges, melons, snap peas, and fresh green beans. All foods we eat on a daily/weekly basis. So, I buy whole versions and spend two hours each week peeling, slicing, and packaging portions of them. We also have a fifty pack of meal prep containers that I put a few servings of whatever each person wants in them for their day. I can quickly put together a healthy snack or lunch for whichever of family members that needs something for that day.

Food prepping days make kitchens very messy 
and most other chores don't get done, but at 
the end of the day it is all worth it.

 I also cannot sing the praises of the powdered food   preserver enough. I can cut up apples, dunk them in   chilly water with a ½ tsp of the food preserver, and   they will not turn brown for four to five days. Highly   recommend it for anyone that wants to try it. (I am   not sponsored, and I do not get any money from this,   I just really like it.)

One other thing I do to help them navigate the need to go to fast food restaurants is that I get box mixes or make “from scratch baked goods.” Coffee cake mixes are exceedingly popular here. The moist, spongy cake, the crumbly cinnamon topping… mmmm! Making myself drool just sitting here! I make them in a 9inX9in pan, cut them into nine pieces and then wrap them in parchment paper and cling wrap to toss into their bag before they leave in the morning. This eliminates the need for Char to stop at a coffee shop on campus or on his way just to grab something quick and sweet.

 Another big favorite is stufflers. It is a special waffle maker I bought to make stuffed waffle sandwiches. We love these because I can make gluten free batter, add some protein shakes or powder, and put any filling in that they want. Popular ones are marshmallows and Nutella, sausage and scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese, and overall, the possibilities are endless. We have yet to be bored with them yet. But these are great because I can spend a day baking each month, make 50 stufflers for everyone, (that is only 10 a piece in our house, so not as many as you might think) wrap them in parchment paper, and place them in gallon freezer bags. I write each person’s name on the bag, and they can microwave them right before they leave and eat them in the car or on the bus.

On that monthly baking day, I also make a few batches of cornbread, banana bread, muffins, and a treat or two (brownies, rice Krispie treats, bon bons… you know the delicious things that make life worth living some days!) I try to prepare it all as well as I can so that everything in our house can be as easy to grab as possible for everyone. The one a day rule really applies to these things so that they last all week, and I know that Rex did not grab the whole pan of rice krispie treats and sit down and eat them all.

*The one a day rule is something that we have enforced since the kids were toddlers. You can only have one serving of something a day. So that means only one rice krispie treat, one package of pop-tarts, one granola bar… that kind of stuff. It keeps them from eating a whole box of fruit roll ups for lunch.

Two final, but particularly important, thoughts on prepping foods for the family:

The first one is to make sure you make something for yourself too. I have made the mistake way too many times where I will get everything for Bruce and the kids but forgot to get or make anything for myself. So, I end up without healthy snacks and instead of making them as I need them, I usually just do not eat. Not healthy for anyone. Doing this for too long really messed up my system and only in October of 2023 did I finally nail down with my doctor some meds and a regime to help me get healthy again. Bruce is always very quick to tell me that I have to take care of myself before I can take care of everyone else, but sometimes as a mom it is hard to prioritize myself over the ones I love.

The second thought is this. Do not be afraid to use unconventional things if they work for your family. The silliest thing we do, that I honestly hesitated in sharing but wanted to be completely transparent about, is that we use cereal as snacks. I buy these snack sized portion bags from Walmart, and I buy the big bulk bags of favorite cereals, and portion them out. Yes, some of them have some sugar in them. But if you compare the amount of sugar in the cookie cereal to chocolate chip cookies, the cereal is nutritionally better each time. I shove handfuls of the bags in each person’s snack bins and They can grab them for any reason. We went to a gaming convention last weekend and took about 100 bags of portioned cereals with us as our road snacks. We did not have chips, cookies, gas station food or candy. We ate cereal. Cheaper and healthier overall.