Why is meal prep such a struggle?

The final frontier of adulting.

May 20, 2024

As a general rule, something has to go extremely wrong for a grown adult to make or eat a TikTok casserole. The other day, I saw a Chef Reactions video featuring a mom making pasta out of her kitchen sink, all replete with canned tomato chunks, shredded cheddar, Velveta, pepperoni, salami, Kraft singles, and star-shaped cheese, and just mixing it with a wooden spoon. The post was a culinary version of Harrison Butker’s commencement speech. While there is a through-line between these heinous concoctions and our deteriorating standards of what is watchable on TikTok, this trend does reflect the attitude of those who claim they just don’t have the time to cook while clocking in a daily average of 10 hours of screen time. Our broader culture is not what you would call “healthy,” but if you wrap its knee with that little rubber mallet, some part will reflexively jump to defend a culinary genre featuring little to no video evidence of its creators eating their monstrosities.

A sort of relatability radiates from these TikTok casseroles; as far as home cook standards apply, I am a relatively competent chef and can coordinate an enjoyable fajita night with a side of guac, but come dinner, I often wind up microwaving a slice of cheese on a tortilla. Degrading myself to this kind of low-effort sustenance is subject to how much turbulence occurs in any given workweek. As someone who turned 30 not too long ago and has been exploring the outer boundaries of Washed Behavior in the years since, I have come to a realization that appeared belatedly and somewhat haltingly. The most taxing aspect of being an adult is trying to figure out what you want for dinner every goddamn night until you die. This is an ironic predicament to find myself in, considering there is a little LED screen in my brain that is otherwise busy at all hours displaying different types of sandwiches and the names of NHL enforcers of the early ‘00s.

It seems counterintuitive that, as one grows older and more secure and self-possessed, you tend to be less likely to find yourself in Meal Prep Mode. This makes me consider the irony of how much I hate grocery shopping, the easiest and most convenient way in the history of this planet for any species to get food. If I could change anything about “the way my mind is,” it’s that I’d remove the part that is okay with the laziness-driven attrition that leaves our fridge and cupboards bare. At one point, the state of our fridge was one of rotting/liquifying arugula and a disconcerting amount of space, a product of ill-tempered drift and deep institutional dedication to flubby patchwork. Every Sunday when it is time to go to the grocery store, my girlfriend and I ask What should we cook this week? and immediately memory-hole every food we have ever enjoyed. Then, the second I return home from the store, I’ll remember 10 things I wanted to buy but forgot.

For all the tremulous gripes I have about takeout, maybe we could use an app called “Feed Me.” It’s Uber Eats, but it decides the recipes and meals for you and the food shows up. Some of you may suggest this sounds like HelloFresh, but even pre-selecting the meals is a half-hour debate between teriyaki meatballs and baja fish tacos. As a man, meal prep isn’t as subjected to personal idiosyncracies because you can survive off one pound of grilled meat and a whole vegetable every day until you die. The vexing issue that my girlfriend and I have as a couple is that she won’t eat the same meal for two days in a row and, for some ungodly reason, can’t handle any spice beyond red chili flakes.

And so I go on, plowing through three or four attempted solutions per day until we arrive on spaghetti. Spaghetti is safe, and after it is twirled up and plated and we take that first slurp, we remember how much we love chili relleno, Zuppa Toscana, truffle cheese smash burgers, and miso ramen. And then we look down at our uncool spaghetti, doing a discreet facepalm, vowing to get something more appetizing the next time. That next time comes, and I step into the store, overwhelmed by an expansive grocery list and a bounty of produce and meat options. I am just a man with a dream and buying whatever speaks to me. On my last grocery run, I purchased a three-pound bag of jalapeños and thought, What a good deal! Most times, I stand still and my mind drifts, just blocking the aisles, gazing hopelessly at the shelves, blocking the progress of those with a plan. I ask myself What do I get? What do I want to eat? And I buy spaghetti because I live the life of a fool and take no steps to correct my actions in the future.

I also forgot to buy toilet paper.