Healthy Meals for One

Pussinboots61

I am confused about what to eat as in what's healthy and what isn't.

I live alone and work full time. I try to eat healthy but I hardly succeed. I get in from work and end up having something quick, like breaded chicken in the air fryer and microwave steamed veg or I'll even just have a tin of soup or some toast. I do have fresh salmon and chicken breasts sometimes with microwave veg but feel hungry afterwards.

For late breakfast/lunch I take overnight oats to work and they keep me full throughout the day and in my afternoon break I have a banana and some nuts.

When I am in an organised mood, which isn't very often, I will batch cook things like bolognaise, lasagne, cottage pie, pasta bake etc and I do enjoy those meals. However I have now read and heard things like you should cut down on carbs and red meat. The only red meat I like and eat is beef mince, other than that it's chicken or fish. I love pasta and another quick meal for me is tortollini with a tomato sauce. I also like jacket potaoes but they are carbs.

I am not overweight and don't need to diet as such but I know people who do Slimming World and say their view is that they can eat as much pasta and potatoes are want and they lose weight, so it can't be that unhealthy.

Anyone got any ideas - any single people who are in the same boat as me. I have got an oven, microwave, slow cooker and air fryer with one drawer.

powerspowers

Sounds fairly balanced to me, and much better than when I lived alone, I lived off toast and cereal. 

I think the low carb thing is a bit of a fad and wouldn’t worry about it to much. Do what you can to make sure you are eating a lot of different veg, especially eating different colours. Beans and lentils are good if you can include them in casseroles or other batch cooks. Also trying to include fibre- so brown carbs rather than white pasta. 

But overall it sounds a fairly varied diet. Cooking for one is a pain, especially when you’re busy. Don’t stress too much about all the different diets, there’s always someone trying to sell something! 

Brie

I'm not a singleton but have enjoyed the meals I can have when the OH isn't about.  Generally they are things like duck breast with pak choy or lamb rump with spinach or similar.  I really enjoy a jacket potato and I think the things that work well for me are potato or rice rather than pasta or bread for carbs. 

I do know that even veg like red peppers (which I love) are full of carbs but at least they also have lots of fibre.  There's the simple traffic light on veg that might help.  Green veg have less carbs than yellow which generally have less than red - the redder the sweeter which is obviously why I like red pepper best!  But peas are better than corn etc.  

Also look out for the hidden calories and other things you wouldn't want to eat.  These are often hidden in processed foods.  So while I used to often take birchler muesli (overnight oats) to work for breakfast now I'm more likely to grab a muesli bar which are full of sugars and often salt too.  When I was making overnight oats I was using straight dry oatmeal, a layer of fruit (berries or peaches in juice) with yoghurt on top.  Sometimes a sprinkle of sugar.  Someone suggested I would do better just using milk or even just water on these but that for me was a step too far.  In any case the oats are a much more filling start rather than a single muesli bar which leaves me quite hungry by mid day.

Watch out too for the other little things - a sugar in your coffee/tea, a pot of yoghurt that has added fruit, sugar, or salted butter for your toast.  And drinks - I like a glass of wine or 3 and my OH loves his orange juice - frankly I think his option has more calories than mine!  But that' because I'll drink a couple of glasses of wine while he'll have a couple of litres of orange juice which is packed full of sugar!!!

bouicca21

All sounds fine to me.  I aim to build my daily meals around 5 a day, and to eat veggie at least twice a week, ditto fish. I reckon the occasional bit of red meat on the other days doesn’t matter too much. 

It’s difficult to find recipes for single portions, but most recipes for 4 are easy to halve, so I tend to make two portions at a time, and I choose to make stuff that’s relatively uncomplicated. 

Katiehound

The thing to avoid at all costs is 'low calorie' - most likely to be ultra processed. Similarly 'low fat' usually means pumped full of sweeteners.

Aim for many more than 5 a day.

There are some really interesting air fryer recipes on 2 x recent series on channel 5
here's one https://www.channel5.com/show/the-air-fryer-diet-lose-weight-cook-fast

yes, they are generally for 4 people- not always- but some really yummy recipes which you could halve and then freeze the second portion for another day.

FlorayG

If most of what you eat is fresh and unprocessed then that's a healthy diet. Unhealthy food is stuff that has a long list of ingredients on the back ( including most packaged varieties of plain old bread)
For example, plain pasta served with some grated cheese and grilled bacon is healthy. 'Pasta Carbonara' that comes in one packet and you just add boiling water or just heat up is not

IrisReticulata

Hi, I’ve been a healthy vegetarian for 40 years. I batch cook mixed veg and lentils, beans and grains so save money by freezing two out of three. I use organic tofu with frozen veg for easy breakfasts cos I’m lazy. I use overnight organic oats with added fresh and dried fruit to which I add peanut butter and tahini and honey (it sounds yuck but I love it cos it’s healthy and nutritious).  I also add turmeric for my joints. 

I eat organic nuts as a meal - I’ve never snacked as I wasn’t brought up to do it so never developed the habit. I make my own humus as I get three times the amount for half the price. I bought a food processor on facebook marketplace for a tenner. It’s paid for itself tenfold. 

I eat at least 40 different fruit, veg, nuts, legumes grains and beans a week and even using organic I pay less than £120 a month to eat. 

I don’t ever buy pre-made meals and never eat anything with ingredients my mum wouldn’t recognise. If it isn’t food I don’t eat it. Luckily, I love only so only have myself to please. 

gwynlas

You seem to be eating a fairly balanced diet already.
Just remenber protein veg and carbs are fine providing they are not highly processed and add some fruit,
Canned fish is quick and convenient as are canned beans of all descriptions.

CliveOfIndia

It depends to a large extent on your preferences.  Certainly, batch-cooking stuff lie like stew, bolognaise, whatever is brilliant, healthy meals for low cost.

Never forget soup and bread. You can make soup from anything, especially good for veg that's gone past it's best.  Bread is dead easy to make, and that can give you a hearty meal with a soup.  Stews in particular - make a big pot of nice stew, then each day just throw in a load more veg and cook it a bit more.  Once batch of stew lasts you a week.  Come Friday it's pretty much a veggy stew, but it's still got the taste of meat, and it's cost you something  like a fiver overall

JIL

I think you are doing really well. Sounds like a very balanced diet.
I wouldn't worry about the carbs, I'm sure next year they will be back in vogue.

Would there be some ideas in this thread?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5774513/cooking-for-one-mark-three/p1

kimwp

Think about trying to eat
- 9-10 fruit and veg a day
- 30 plants a week (consider legumes-  chickpeas, lentils, beans, herbs and spices)
- more resistant starch - green bananas, cooking and reheating starch (but cool it quickly and refrigerate to avoid food poisoning)
- more fibre - always choose wholegrain 
- the necessary vitamins

Just pick one thing at a time and assess it and try to improve it. Ie add one more veg to each lunch and eat an apple after.