Grocery Shopping and Food Prep Tips

Again with the conundrum: how to eat healthy when you have no energy to prepare healthy food. Here are some tips on how to make eating healthy as little of a drag as possible.

Grocery shopping smartly

To help grocery shopping be less of a dent in my week, I use a combination of the options I discuss below. I also enlist my husband to help me put away groceries because that is where I tend to run out of steam and go into crash territory. Especially now with the excessive disinfecting of items due to COVID-19.

Shop in person at non-peak times

You will get out of there faster. Also, if you have brain fog, you may feel less overwhelmed by the flurry of activity.

Delivery services or pickup services

You could use a delivery service like Instacart. A few big chain grocery stores like Hyvee and Walmart have pickup services that include even frozen and fresh produce items. The downside to those is there will always be several items that they were out of stock in. It also takes a significant chunk of time to shop online for the whole grocery list. However, if you cannot shop in person, this method is invaluable. This is what we are currently doing through COVID-19.

Partial pickup

Target has pick-up services for nonperishable and nonfood items. You could do a pickup for these types of items and then go in the store for produce. This would cut down on in-store time.

Meal delivery services

There are a numerous options for meal delivery services. This route is expensive, of course. However, if you struggle to shop and prepare food, it is a wonderful option. Hungryroot (some prep involved), Daily Harvest (heat up or blend only), and Freshly (just heat up) are examples. I only have personal experience with Daily Harvest. Their smoothies are the bomb, but I only liked one of the meals, so it wasn’t worth it for me.

A tip if you live in a rural area

It can be harder to find niche, healthy items in rural areas. I love shopping online for this. For example, I order almond milk from Elmurst 1925. I find certain pantry staples like cassava flour from IHerb. Thrive Market can be a good resource as well.I must say, though, that each time I go to the store I am finding more of these niche, healthy items in local grocery stores. If you are looking for something specific that you cannot find in person, just Google search it and see what the shopping bar turns up.

Food prep tips

I prep food the day after I get groceries because I don’t have the energy to do both in one day. Food prepping can cover a wide spectrum as far as what it means. For me, it is simply chopping and freezing the produce that may not last until I use it. I also chop the produce that I like to have ready for snacks like celery.

I have tried to make a week’s worth of meals at one time and it doesn’t work for me with my energy limitations. I was 3 hours deep, sitting on the floor exhausted and defeated with a tornado of mess surrounding me. I also accomplished roughly 1/4 of the week’s food to show for my effort. No thanks. Working on food steadily through the week jives better for me.

Double your recipes

This may seem like a no-brainer, but lunch has become magical for me ever since I started doubling my suppers to save the leftovers for the next day’s lunch. Healthy food with no added work is a win.

A tip for produce

When possible, purchase a pre-cut or frozen option for what you need. It is more expensive, but it can save you massive amounts of time depending on what it is. For example, celery is piece of cake, so I don’t buy pre-cut celery. However, I spent one hour the other day working on three acorn squashes. Never again. Next time, I will just buy frozen and cubed squash. By the way, the soup I made with that squash turned out horrendous which made that hour even more disheartening.

Soaking beans and grains

This is not really a convenience tip, but it’s relevant to how I prep food. When I consume beans or grains, I soak them first to reduce the naturally occurring phytic acid. Phytic acid binds to nutrients in the digestive tract and takes them on it’s journey out of the body. How rude. The process of soaking beans and grains prior to cooking initiates the plant’s own enzyme called phytase. Phytase breaks down the phytic acid, decreasing this nutrient-leaching activity. Phytic acid is also an antioxidant, so it’s not a total a-hole compound. You don’t need to go on a crusade against phytic acid, but it may be useful to minimize it.

I thought this process would be a huge pain in the butt, but it takes me less than one minute. Each morning, I look at what I have planned for supper, and measure out what I need. I put the dry grains or beans in a mason jar, cover them with twice the amount of warm water (so the jar looks like half grain/half water), thrown in roughly a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (the acidity speeds up the chemical reaction), give it a good mix or shake, and that’s it! The jar sits on my counter for several hours until I cook. Then, I rinse the beans/grains, and cook them. FYI, dry beans and grains take 1-2 hours to cook. You don’t have to hover over them, so it’s not a big deal, but be aware to start them early.

Do you have any grocery shopping or food prep tips to share?

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Statements on this site are not meant to be taken as medical advice. These statements reflect my personal experiences having mild-ish post-viral POTS and ME. Due to the wide spectrum of these diseases, comorbidities, and everyone being different, your experiences may be very different than mine.

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