Reducing my cognitive load on food

A typical day leaves very little room for improvisation. Sleep, work, basic maintenance, the small rituals that keep a life running. They fill almost the entire 24‑hour cycle. When I looked closely at where my time was going, food turned out to be the largest flexible block. Not the eating itself, but everything around it: deciding what to make, checking what I have, preparing it, cleaning up afterward. It was a constant background process that consumed more time and attention than I wanted to give it.

I enjoy eating, and I want the food I eat to be nutritious and unprocessed [1]. But preparing that kind of food every single day takes time I don’t always have. Meal prepping became a way to reclaim that time without compromising on what I value. I’ve been doing so for almost a year now. It gives me predictable meals, predictable nutrition, and predictable effort. It removes the daily decision‑making and replaces it with a weekly session that stabilizes the rest of the week.

That’s the real reason I meal prep: it gives me back time and reduces noise.

Meal Prepping Basics

Once I committed to meal prepping, I needed a way to keep track of what I had, what I needed, and what I was actually eating. A simple spreadsheet grew into a small workbook with sheets for foods, products, inventory, consumption, preps, meals, and recipes. It isn’t a system for its own sake, it’s just the easiest way to keep everything coherent.

Balancing macronutrients [2] is more precise than people assume. “Variety” in the nutritional sense is often misunderstood. The body doesn’t distinguish between fiber from oats or fiber from peas; it just processes fiber. The same is true for vitamins and minerals [3]. Once the nutritional bases are covered, the remaining differences are mostly about taste. The place where variety matters is contamination: arsenic in rice [4], heavy metals in tuna [5], the kinds of things that accumulate when you eat the same food repeatedly. Rotating foods reduces that exposure.

So my recipes are built around nutritional composition and predictability. They’re simple, repeatable, and easy to prepare in batches. The goal is stability, not novelty… A set of meals that reliably meets my nutritional needs without demanding daily attention.

The meals I prepare each week aren’t designed for bulking [9], cutting [10], or any other goal‑oriented nutrition plan. They’re simply built to cover my daily requirements in a stable, predictable way… A baseline [6]. Once that baseline is in place, the rest of the day becomes easier. I don’t have to think about whether I’m getting enough protein or fiber or micronutrients [7]. The foundation is already there.

If I need extra calories on a given day, I can improvise. A piece of fruit, a handful of nuts, an extra portion of grains. As long as I keep an eye on sugar and salt [8], the system stays balanced. The point isn’t precision for its own sake; it’s reducing the cognitive overhead of feeding a biological system that needs consistency more than novelty.

Meal prep gives me that consistency. It gives me a baseline I can trust, so the rest of my choices don’t have to be perfect, just reasonable…

How I Meal Prep

I prepare everything on Sunday. It’s the one moment in the week where I can batch the work and remove it from the rest of my days. I calculate the total amount of each ingredient I need (usually five times the portion size) and cook the entire batch in one go.

Vegetables are the only part that require a bit of attention. Because I use frozen ones, blanching becomes a small timing exercise. I let the water come to a boil, add the vegetables, and give them a couple of minutes. I like them crunchy, so I’m careful with the timer.

Grains get washed several times before cooking. Fish goes into the oven. Chicken is grilled in a pan without oil. None of this is complicated; it’s just consistent.

Things that don’t need to be cooked I keep plain. Oats I tend to eat with lukewarm water only. Plain yoghurt, with some defrosted berries. Oils I actually drink, by emulsifying them in lukewarm water.

I take a supplement for iron, since I rarely eat red meats. Besides that, I supplement calcium, electrolytes, glutathione, collagen, and vitamins.

The cost is predictable too. Meats run around 25 €, vegetables around 5 €, grains another 5 €, and everything else: yoghurt, berries, supplements, about 5 €. In total, roughly 40 € a week. That’s about 8 € per day for meals that are stable, nutritious, and unprocessed, which is more than reasonable in 2026.

A typical week-worth prep of the two main meals

Data

This is a dump of the three relevant sheets for meal preparations. I will update it regulary.

Meal Preparations

Preps

Prep ID	Energy (kcal)	Fat	Fat (saturated)	Carbohydrates	Carbohydrates (Sugar)	Fiber	Protein	Salt
DEFAULT	1970.85	60.37	13.665	171.1	23.295	#DIV/0!	167.225	1.1999

Meals

Meal

Prep ID	Meal ID	Meal Name	Timing	Energy (kcal)	Fat	Fat (saturated)	Carbohydrates	Carbohydrates (Sugar)	Fiber	Protein	Salt
DEFAULT	TB	Breakfast	09:00:00	275.7	4.095	0.66	35.82	0.48	5.82	21.12	0.006
DEFAULT	MMO	Mid-Morning Olive	11:00:00	229.8	13.95	1.95	0.24			26.4
	MMW	Mid-Morning Walnut	11:00:00
	MMF	Mid-Morning FlaxSeed	11:00:00
DEFAULT	BW	Chicken-Rice	13:30:00	661.7	9.155	2.495	65.7	3.575	#DIV/0!	69.485	0.1959
DEFAULT	AW	Salmon-Quinoa	18:30:00	698.65	27.92	5.11	62.14	12.04	12.2666666666667	43.02	0.773
DEFAULT	TO	Yoghurt Top-Up	19:00:00	105	5.25	3.45	7.2	7.2	#DIV/0!	7.2	0.225

Meal Recipes

Recipes

		Amount (g)	Energy (kcal)	Fat	Fat (saturated)	Carbohydrates	Carbohydrates (Sugar)	Fiber	Protein	Salt
TB	Collagen Supplement	15	53.1	0.075		0.12			13.2
TB	Oats	60	222.6	4.02	0.66	35.7	0.48	5.82	7.92	0.006
MMO	Olive Oil	15	123.6	13.8	1.95
MMO	Collagen Supplement	30	106.2	0.15		0.24			26.4
BW	Chicken Breast	160	316.8	6.88	1.92				59.2	0.1424
BW	Brown Rice	85	292.4	2.125	0.425	58.65	0.425	3.74	7.735	0.0085
BW	Princess Beans	150	52.5	0.15	0.15	7.05	3.15	#DIV/0!	2.55	0.045
AW	Salmon	150	320.25	22.5	4.35				28.5	0.075
AW	Quinoa	80	291.4	4.72	0.56	49.44	2.74	5.46666666666667	10.02	0.038
AW	Mixed Vegetables	200	87	0.7	0.2	12.7	9.3	6.8	4.5	0.66
TO	Yoghurt	150	105	5.25	3.45	7.2	7.2	#DIV/0!	7.2	0.225

Footnotes

[1]

Unprocessed foods: Foods close to their natural state, such as vegetables, grains, legumes, and fresh meats. They typically contain fewer additives like sugar, salt, stabilizers, or preservatives.

[2]

Macronutrients: Protein, fat, and carbohydrates. These supply energy and structural components for the body.

[3]

Micronutrients: Vitamins and minerals required in small amounts for metabolism, immunity, and cellular repair.

[4]

Arsenic in rice: Rice plants naturally absorb more arsenic from soil and water than most crops. Brown rice tends to contain slightly higher levels because the outer layers of the grain are retained.

[5]

Heavy metals in tuna: Larger predatory fish accumulate mercury and other heavy metals over time. Occasional consumption is fine; frequent consumption increases exposure.

[6]

Baseline nutrition: A consistent daily intake that reliably covers essential nutrients. Once this baseline is met, additional calories can be added flexibly.

[7]

Micronutrient coverage: Ensuring that daily intake includes adequate vitamins and minerals, reducing the need for daily nutritional decision‑making.

[8]

Sugar and salt load: Total daily intake of sugar and sodium. These accumulate easily in improvised snacks or convenience foods and are the main variables to watch when adding extra calories.

[9]

“Bulking”: A fitness term for intentionally eating more calories than the body needs in order to gain weight, usually in the form of muscle.

[10]

“Cutting”: The counterpart to bulking. A period of intentionally eating fewer calories than the body needs in order to lose weight or reduce body fat.

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