Any tips for a single man to eat healthier?

moneyistooshorttomention

Pollycat wrote: »

Here's the link to the 'Cooking for one' thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5774513/cooking-for-one-mark-three&page=124

UOTE]

For page 124 of the thread.

Change page number once on thread to go back to page 1 of the thread.

Pollycat

moneyistooshorttomention
Your quote doesn't work. :whistle:

Finding page one of a thread is hardly difficult - especially when you can see 'page 124 of 124' and there's the word 'first' less than 2 inches to the left of that.
But for those who do find it difficult:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5774513/cooking-for-one-mark-three

So - there we are. :T

Page one of the 'cooking for one' thread on the Old-style board. :wall:

monnagran

Hi. I am also learning to cook for just me afte r a lifetime of catering for the hoardes, cook lunch for 70, no sweat, cook lunch for me, nightmare. I am also trying to lose weight, so this is what I have learned so far.

General rules....loads of salads, vegetables and fruit. Moderate amounts of protein. Small amounts of carbs. Once, ONCE, a week an indulgent meal, be it a Sunday roast, full English, meal from the chippy or a sneaky Chinese. It's easier on the will power if you have something to look forward to.

Salads. Don't buy packs of things, you'll never get through them before they start to go off, although some things will last longer if wrapped in foil and kept in the fridge. Otherwise buy things loose where you can buy just what you need. Quite apart from the usual things, buy jars of beetroot, small tins of sweetcorn, pickled red cabbage etc.
Veg. Root veg will keep for ages wrapped in foil in the bottom of the fridge. Cabbage can double up as lettuce in salad. broccoli and cauliflower can be shrouded in a cheese sauce and frozen in portions, (you didn't mention a freezer, I'm supposing you have one).
Fruit, anything goes.
Protein. Any meat. Cheese. Eggs. Any fish.
Carbohydrates. Bread (preferably wholemeal) rolls or slices frozen in individual slices. Pasta. Yorkshire Puds. Pastry. Potatoes.

This is very simplistic but a good way to start.

One 'go to' recipe. Fry off some mince and finely chopped onions. Place in large casserole or slow cooker. Add as many vegetables as you can pack in, grated carrots or other root veg, peas, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes (a tin is fine) corn, celery whatever you have. a sprinkling of herbs, dash of Worcestershire sauce, some gravy (small amount in slow cooker, rather more in casserole. Casserole goes into low oven for a couple of hours, slow cooker on high for 4 or 5 hours.
When cooled freeze in portions. Use on spaghetti or a jacket potato, topped with potato -mashed or sliced - for cottage pie. Over a plateful of veg, or any way your heart desires.

You still with me?

Oh, well done. Good luck with both the meal planning, cooking and losing weight.

wort

I wonder if it would be best to plan your meals for week. Before you shop , try to do it so your veg and salad will be used up before end of a week , they will last longer.
Soup is really easy and can be filling if you use lots of veg. Just use a stock cube instead of making own.
I was given a small slow cooker, they can be prepped night b4 then thrown in in the morning and left to cook whilst at work . To buy I think are around £12.
They would then give you a meal for another day not necessarily the day after, if you cool and put in fridge quickly. Maybe a portion in freezer if you've room.
Also check your portion sizes, takeaway portions are huge!

[Deleted User]

If you want to eat a healthy diet, the most important thing is don't jump to conclusions about which meals are healthy and which aren't without checking the contents first, or you'll fall at the first hurdle.

PasturesNew

DeadMan wrote: »

I also spend more than I probably should on take outs.
I nuke a lot of stuff.
My main issue is one of storage for frozen items ... in the fridge going off too quickly
I would cook more but it's a chore.
I have a decent frying pan but woner if getting a wok would be better and doing healthy fry ups using peanut oil or similar.

Time, cleaning up the mess after and storage of perishables always seems to be the issue for me.

What is a takeout order - if you're ordering 2 items you're best off eating 2/3rds of each and boxing the rest up to nuke the next day. If you're ordering more than 3 items, then what? And are you then eating it all? Can you drop something?
For money - is there something you're buying that's easy to make or buy cheaper? e.g. do you really need a "huge/proper naan bread" at £2, or will a supermarket multipack at 50p do? do you really need to buy "plain white rice" for £2-£2.50 when you can buy it frozen and nuke it or buy pouches for about 50p. Analyse all your orders and see what you're really buying/paying for and ask yourself "did I need that?" and "did I need to get XYZ from that shop?"

You can stir fry in a frying pan, you don't need a wok. It'll help to control your portion size too. You can either stir fry small quantities... or stir fry two parts of it at a time and then mix them on your plate.

The first place to start with food is to realise what you are buying, how much that's costing, then looking at whether you need that item, or can put it back on the shelf. Also, only buy from the shop what you can guarantee you'll be eating, focus on zero waste. Whatever you don't buy will still be available next week, so you don't have to buy it today.

Data_Bus

Unfortunately eating a healthy diet isn't simple. You have to put some effort in. Try looking at the Rosemary Conley website.

suki1964

There's nothing you can do in a wok that you can't do in a decent frying pan and oil is oil, peanut oil is only used in Chinese cooking because it has a higher burn tempeture, it's no healthier

Being male and cooking for one is the same as a woman cooking for one, sex has nothing to do with it

If you had seen the programme on Thursday about what fast food done to the health of a young fit male, you would be rushing to the kitchen, cook book in hand and be quite happy to have a sink full of dishes


Healthy eating for me, means you buy the natural product in its natural state as much as possible. So it's chicken, not chicken nuggets, it's roast lamb, not lamb kebab, steak, not Big Macs

Keeping it clean as some say

But hey, I'm not a saint and I'm a carb junkie and do love my pasta and bread , even if I avoid crisps, biscuits and cakes

Never cook one meal, always cook once, eat twice or thrice

If salad and veg are being chucked away, stop buying them, you obviously don't like them enough to use them up

Instead, buy frozen veg, it many cases it's fresher then fresh, and when it comes to salad stuff, I only buy lettuce and tomatoes as they get used up in the lunch sandwiches, the rest of my salad comes from jars, gherkins, peppers, walnuts , beets, tinned corn - etc. Jars last forever. Long as there's no mould, they are fine no matter how far past the best before date

Roast a chicken. You don't have to sit and watch it. Throw it in the oven and 90 mins later, you have the bases of a dinner for the week ( depending on how much you eat ). While the chicken is roasting, throw in another tray with carrots, spuds, parsnips, roast them for 45 mins and you have enough veg for two days. So serve up two roast chicken dinners, eat one, put the other in the fridge and ping it when you get in from work the following day

Any veg roasts, I even roast cauliflower. Saves on the washing up

And left over roasted veg makes soup. Just Bing it in a saucepan with water and a stock pot, bring to a simmer for 20 min, then blend - soup

Cooking is as quick and easy as you like. Even an omelette , oven chips and salad takes 10 mins to get together and is a lot healthier then a take away

( I use baking parchment on my oven trays, saves washing up )

timehastoldme

Sistema microwave things are useful, we've got the vegetable steamer which is quick to use and easy to clean up. The omelette maker is also not bad, a quick lunch and easy to use. The rice maker is fab, we don't make rice any other way now.

LameWolf

Can I take it back to the basic "cooking just for oneself" thing?
The first thing is to recognise that you are important, and you are worth putting in the effort for.

When Mr LW was in hospital and I was just [STRIKE]cooking[/STRIKE] catering for me for a while, I lived on microwaved scrambled egg, which I ate straight out of the dish I'd nuked it in. Because I got it into my head that it wasn't worth dirtying a saucepan, bowl, cooking utensils, plate and knife and fork "only for me". There, I think, is the problem for many people in cooking for one, be they male or female.

You deserve a good, tasty, nutritious meal.