Avoiding Food Boredom and Meal Planning Fatigue

Ever find yourself staring at the contents of your fridge and feeling completely uninspired? In this episode of Blasphemous Nutrition, we tackle the common struggle of food boredom. Join Aimee as she delves into the monotony of meal planning and offers creative solutions to keep your taste buds excited and your meals interesting.

Aimee knows firsthand that the desire for variety and excitement in our meals can often make sticking to meal plans or elimination diets feel impossible. Adjusting to dietary changes that eliminate or curtail former staple foods tends to lack the diversity our palates crave, leading to that dreaded food boredom. But don’t worry, Aimee has got you covered!

In this lively episode, Aimee shares her expert tips and practical strategies to help you overcome food boredom by making small changes and embracing experimentation to break out of food ruts and rediscover the joy of cooking and eating. Whether you’re struggling to stay motivated with your current meal plan or simply looking for ways to spice things up, this episode is packed with inspiration and actionable advice.

Takeaways:

• Meal planning can become boring and monotonous, especially when relying on a limited variety of staple foods.
• A perspective shift is necessary to see dietary changes as an opportunity to broaden culinary horizons and discover new flavors.
• Utilizing a wide range of spices, exploring different grocery stores, and incorporating new protein and produce options can add variety to meals.
• Keeping a list of tried and true favorite meals and utilizing prepared foods can save time and make meal planning more enjoyable.
• Experimenting with different cooking methods, textures, and ingredients can help break out of food boredom and add excitement to meals.

Resources:

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography
Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative
 Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack
Work with Aimee

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Transcript

0:00

Hey Rebels, welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I'm Aimee, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take. On living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you've found most health advice to be so generic as to be meaningless, or so extreme that it's unrealistic, and you don't mind the occasional F bomb. You've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now let's get started. Welcome back to blossom as nutrition. I'm your host, Aimee and I'm a food hoarder. There are a lot of reasons why meal planning is challenging to do consistently over the longterm. Aside from challenges in scheduling sometimes it just gets really damn boring. While some people are fine to eat the same thing over and over again for years, many of us crave variety and interest in our meals. And we struggle with meal plans or elimination diets when we're accustomed to a wider variety of foods. When we're making a dietary change, it can seem at first that there is nothing to eat. Whether a client is simply avoiding gluten or is going on a complex elimination diet like autoimmune paleo, or a low FODMAP diet, this complaint remains the same. The actual reason for this is because by and large, much of our modern diet is various concoctions of the same few foods, wheat dairy, egg soy. And corn. Meets generally rotate between chicken, pork, and beef. And when you think about it, it's not actually a lot of variety, which is one of the reasons why people panic. If one of these is suddenly taken out of rotation, So firstly, a perspective shift needs to happen. The reality is there are loads of different produce and protein and even starch options out there. And if you're facing an elimination or a significant reduction of a food or multiple foods that have typically been a staple item. It's actually a wonderful opportunity to broaden your culinary horizons. Now to keep things interesting. In my kitchen, I have an obnoxious amount of spices to choose from, to season both my vegetables and my proteins. Various different spice blends from all over the world, seasoning packets, and even some jarred sauces can have a place in your kitchen to shake it up. And additive free jarred Alfredo mixed into a bag of spinach with a sprinkling of salt and Rosemary warmed until the spinach is wilted is an excellent way to get those greens in when you are sick of salad. If you're dairy-free that same bag of spinach could be wilted down with coconut milk and maybe you toss in some garam masala or an Indian seasoning blend for an Indian inspired sod. My spice cabinet has a variety of different chilies, spice, blends, and individual seasonings that easily allows me to pull together Lebanese Indian, Mexican, or generic Asian flavors on a whim. Now the first couple of weeks of a new plan, whether it's creating a menu plan from scratch or using one like prep, dish, or having a meal subscription box delivered to your home is all about trial and error. When you find a winner, make a note of it and keep a list of those tried and true favorites to come back to Eventually you will kind of get bored of your current rotation. And you can go back to this list and then rediscover meals that you have forgotten you adored. This takes so much stress out of meal planning because these meals are both tried and true. But they're also new again. If you take pictures of your meals, you can scroll through your phone and even type in food in the search bar of your phone to find meals over the past year that you really enjoyed that were also aligned with your health goals. Have something like this. To lean on when you are creatively exhausted. It feels a little bit like when you get to pull out your summer clothes from the closet. Recipes that you find online can be organized into Pinterest boards that you can then organize by protein source ethnicity or any other means that make sense to you. Creating subcategories like kids' favorite or 30 minutes or less. Can further allow you to find exactly what you need when you're planning ahead. And that way you don't have to like open up a Pinterest board of recipes and then that's find two or 300 different things and go scrolling through that. Those sub folders are incredibly helpful. When I find a recipe on Pinterest that I like, I. Shifted into a tried and true Pinterest board that I can pull up and look through when I don't want to think about something new to make, but I'm bored with sort of the same old baked chicken soup meatloaf thing that I'm actually currently rotating through. When you have a little extra time, even going to a new grocery store, it can shake things up. Maybe you discover a flavor of poultry sausage that isn't available at your go-to grocery store, or they carry rainbow carrots. And your home grocer does not. These little variances is sometimes all it takes to shake things up and break you out of a food boredom funk. The more open to experimentation. You are the better you can weather these bouts of boredom. A trip to a dedicated butcher farmer's market or a fishmonger will likely expose you to protein and produce varieties that you're unfamiliar with. And then a conversation with the person behind the counter can give you great tips on how to prepare meats or veggies that may be unfamiliar to you. You might even get a good recipe to put into your repertoire. One of the ways I step out of boredom is to step into an Asian, Indian or Halaal grocery store and see what kinds of spices and foods are available to play with there. Sometimes you find vegetables that you have never heard of. But this is where Google comes in super handy. A quick Google search will pull up a recipe that incorporates that vegetable and often it's a fairly simple recipe. You can build an entire meal inspired by that vegetable and the Google recipe. For instance, a shrimp stir fry that uses an unknown green that you've never encountered before at your local Asian grocery store. For some of you, the biggest obstacle to consistency is time. And this is where using some prepared food can be extremely helpful. Uh, quick and easy protein options are rotisserie chicken, which we've talked about in our episode with Kathy Davis. Frozen salmon patties, pre cooked shrimp either fresh or frozen; canned chicken and even canned seafood. These can be used in a variety of ways or stretched out among several meals. A whole rotisserie chicken can become chicken salad, chicken burrito, bowls, or chicken soup. Canned seafood can be used directly on a salad as your protein for that salad or mixed with Greek yogurt, lemon, and spices to make a seafood salad. Or you can mix that canned seafood with panko and form it into patties that could be baked or used over several meals. Pre cooked shrimp is great in salads and soups and stir fries. And the wonderful thing about pre cooked frozen shrimp is that you can pull it out of the freezer and take it out of the bag, put it in a bowl of cold water and it will be thawed and ready to go in less than 10 minutes. Having already prepared protein goes a long way and reducing meal prep time when you are tired or rushed, or simply do not want to spend time in the kitchen. So having these prepared. Proteins in the freezer can be a lifesaver on those crazy chaotic days when you're overwhelmed. On the produce end of things, bad and precut vege can be a massive assist, but they do often go bad more quickly. So you will need to look them over before bringing them home. Some vegetables like pre-cut broccoli. Will last a while while others like precut melon or butternut squash is pretty delicate and it will spoil rapidly. More robust veggies like cauliflower carrots and broccoli can be saved for end of week prep. While more delicate veggies like cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes. May want to be used earlier in the week. Using precut veggies is also a great time saver for meal planning services, where these veggies are included in a recipe. Just because your food plan, shopping list calls for one head of cauliflower doesn't mean you can't swap that out for precut cauliflower to save yourself some time. Just be sure that you know, how it's being used in the recipe before you make that swap. So if the recipe is for a whole roasted cauliflower and you buy pre-cut cauliflower florets, that's kind of defeating the purpose. Right? Most of the time though, it is absolutely worthwhile to make these swaps to save time. Sometimes you feel bored and uninspired by your meals and you can't really pinpoint why. To figure out which switch to make, to shake things up, consider the texture of your meals. The. Means of cooking your meals and the ingredients in those meals to ascertain what you're actually bored of. If the textures of your meals all have the same consistency or you've been relying too heavily on one or two main protein sources. That alone, you know, changing those things may be all it takes. Changing the method by which you prep your sides or your mains can be helpful. Grilling season is often exciting simply because we've been in a long season of stews and baked proteins. Right? So if you tend to throw everything in an instant pot or a slow cooker, maybe it's time for a stir fry. Sometimes we just have a side of raw veggies with hummus at dinner, because I don't want to work too hard or I'm tired of roasted veggies. And that tends to be my main stay. And my go-to. And given that our staple proteins are usually chicken or beef. Adding in some pork or fish or seafood, or even more exotic proteins like lamb, duck or venison can not only get you out of a food rut. But also introduce a different variety of micronutrients that you may not reliably be getting. So ask yourself if you're cooking methods tend to be one way, or if you're limiting your choices to what is familiar and easy. And this is creating that boredom that has you dreading stepping into the kitchen again. If you're one of those people who gets absolutely no joy from cooking. Finding a way to entertain yourself. while in the kitchen can go a long way to making food prep and homemade meals, a sustainable habit. Your favorite uplifting music, a riveting podcast, or a favorite TV show can pull you out of ruminating over the drudgery of kitchen work or exercise for that matter. Having a family member join you for conversation or one of your kiddos acting as a prep chef. Also take some of the burden out of the task. Remember, historically, we lived in larger multi-generational household and it was rarely just one person making meals. Our sisters, our aunts, and even neighbors would participate in the process of putting food on the table. That community aspect around meal prep has largely been lost in the modern age, but I think for some of us, it doesn't have to be that way. If you have access to friends or family members that won't make the process more of a burden for you. Start recruiting them, even if it's just one day a week or even, you know, like if I have a day where I am feeling, especially resentful of having to be in the kitchen. And my husband isn't busy. I'll ask him to come and either help with some. Preparation. Or just keep me company while I do the work. And that way it's not just me in the kitchen. Feeling this. Anger about being a woman in the kitchen, making the food. Right. Because sometimes that happens, which. I don't know, it's the burden of my ancestors or whatever. And just having someone there to talk to makes the process so much more enjoyable. Well, I hope this short, but sweet podcast episode to wrap up our month on food preparation and food planning has been helpful to you. If you've enjoyed listening and you have not yet left a review as always. I'm going to ask to please leave a review. I have actually included how to leave a review on apple iTunes since that seems to be where most of you are listening from so you can find that below in the show notes. And leaving reviews is extremely helpful for allowing this podcast to reach more people who may not know it exists. In addition to doing this, if you can share any episode that you've enjoyed with someone that you care about, that's also a wonderful way to spread the word. And to spread blasphemy among us all. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you next week. If you have found some Nuggets of Wisdom, make sure to subscribe, rate, and share Blasphemous Nutrition with those you care about. As you navigate the labyrinth of health advice out there, remember, health is a journey, not a dietary dictatorship. Stay skeptical, stay daring, and challenge the norms that no longer serve you. If you've got burning questions or want to share your own flavor of rebellion, slide into my DMs. Your stories fuel me, and I love hearing them. Thanks again for tuning in to Blasphemous Nutrition. Until next time, this is Aimee signing off, reminding you that truth is nuanced, and any dish can be made better with a little bit of sass.