Eating for Productivity: The Philosophy of The Healthy Efficient Eater

    The work starts before the sun comes up, and does not stop after the sun goes down. There are many variables – your product or service, operations, distribution, marketing. Maybe you are just updating every social media account, trying to come up with clever phrases and beautiful pictures to capture at least your share of the billions of eyeballs that may be your potential customers.

    For entrepreneurs, the work is the life, especially in the beginning. But life goes on. An aspiring entrepreneur working alone or with a team must still take care of basic needs. You must identify where your food, shelter and clothing will come from or you will not be able to operate.

    Some entrepreneurs will order take-out for every meal. But others will want healthy options and their own quality control. Busy people look for efficiencies and productivity shortcuts that will help them improve their day by reducing or eliminating mundane daily tasks to focus on business.

    The need to prepare healthy tasty meals every day is one challenge to address. For the aspiring entrepreneur who does not want to stop once or twice a day to cook a productive approach to cooking and eating is necessary. What kind of meals can be produced quickly and efficiently? And how can the meal planning be organized to reduce the strain on the entrepreneur’s time?

    Time or Money

    Healthy meals are available at a cost pre-made in supermarkets, by delivery services or through a personal chef. Since the aspiring entrepreneur usually does not have the money to spend on these options, a D-I-Y solution is required.

    One day every two weeks, or longer depending on storage capabilities, must be spent on grocery shopping, cooking, packaging and freezing meals. While business demands are always paramount, you can consider this your day to catch up on your favorite podcasts – listen while cooking and in the car – and to exercise – lots of walking around – or connect with non-business related friends – people feel more aligned when you are doing something they normally do.

    The day should not be considered wasted. More business work can also be done while food is cooking. Save short time tasks to do on cooking day when you will be working sporadically while food is prepared.

    The Tools of Efficiency

    Meal Planning

    The idea of planning your food may sound like another unattractive task but it is actually more straightforward. At the beginning of this process, you may not know exactly which foods you are going to enjoy eating. You may want to experiment with the foods in the Meal Ideas section, and it may be a few weeks, even months when you know exactly which meals will make up your standard plan.

    The weeks of experimenting will lead you to a couple of favorites which will become the food you eat every day. If you are inclined to more variety you can cook 7 different bulk meals and eat something new every day. But your challenge will still be to maintain consistency. Your efficiency comes in not having to think about what you are buying, cooking and eating.

    Grocery shopping

    After deciding on your meal plan, you will be buying the same food every time you go to the store or order online. You should be able to get in and out quickly. Sometimes you are unable to resist the sample tasters or a sale on something you have not tried in awhile, but keep moving through to pick up your items as quickly as possible.

    If an item is missing, immediately think of a substitute. You are wasting time if you go on to another store in search of an item that can be replaced. If the item is a must have for cooking that day move on to another store to try and find it. If you have some time, order the item online for next time.

    Healthy Selections

    A major reason to prepare your own food is to maintain quality control by selecting with healthy nutritional foods. Just because you are working day and night on your business does not mean you should sacrifice your health. In fact it’s the opposite. You want to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating balanced meals that contribute to your stamina and capabilities.

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a healthy diet protects against chronic noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Further, your selections should be balanced. While fads and diets come and go every day, a healthy diet usually requires a combination of different foods. Including:

    • Staples like cereals (wheat, barley, rye, maize or rice) or starchy tubers or roots (potato, yam, taro or cassava)
    • Legumes (lentils and beans)
    • Fruit and vegetables.
    • Foods from animal sources (meat, fish, eggs and milk)

    WHO’s Healthy Diet Fact Sheet also lays out the amount of each food group to eat: For adults, here’s the basic idea from the guidelines:

    • Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains (e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat and brown rice).
    • At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day (2), excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.
    • Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars (2, 7), which is equivalent to 50 g (or about 12 level teaspoons) for a person of healthy body weight consuming about 2000 calories per day, but ideally is less than 5% of total energy intake for additional health benefits (7). Free sugars are all sugars added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates.
    • Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats (1, 2, 3). Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) and trans-fats of all kinds, including both industrially-produced trans-fats (found in baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods, such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, biscuits, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels). It is suggested that the intake of saturated fats be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake (5). In particular, industrially-produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided (4, 6).
    • Less than 5 g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day (8). Salt should be iodized.

    The guidelines are helpful for managing the amount and types of food to buy, and serve as a reminder to include a variety of selections – especially fruits and vegetables – in the grocery list.

    Since essentially every food can be frozen, you can freely select your favorites and still obtain the nutritional value weeks after purchase.

    Bulk Cooking and Freezing

    Efficient cooking means limiting the time spent preparing food. And to do this, the busy entrepreneur will mass produce large quantities at the same time, and freeze the food for consumption at a later date. This approach concentrates cooking into a few hours, once every two weeks (or longer), and permits the most flexibility in ensuring meals meet the entrepreneur’s own personal eating preferences.

    The only pre-requisites are to have a place to cook and a freezer. Storage containers can be plastic freezer bags purchased anywhere. And re-heating, although most convenient by microwave, can actually also be on the stovetop or in the oven.

    After cooking, you will break up the food into storage containers available in the freezer to eat over the next two weeks. Remember to defrost your containers a day or two before you want to eat the meal.

    Efficient cooking and eating provides you with the opportunity to limit the time spent on survival tasks while still enjoying a quality home-cooked healthy meal. While your entrepreneurial dreams may eventually take you forward to the day when you can hire a private shopper and private chef to do these activities for you, for now, you at least have an efficient method for taking care of these chores on your own, until that day comes to pass.

      The Saving is in the Spices

      From the sandy beaches of Zanzibar to the bustling markets of the Malabar Coast, entrepreneurs tore up the world in search of spices.

      When they found cumin, nutmeg, ginger and paprika, consumers around the world went wild. Why? Because spices changed their boiled potatoes, cow hides and thin chickens into delicious savory dishes that sparkled in richness and flavor. The revelation for the palate was both sensational and devastating for people around the world.

      Today the chases for spices no longer leaves vulnerable populations in colonial hands, but the joy in transforming food has not abated. Spices take up half an aisle in your typical grocery store, and a few self-service bins. Beyond salt, we have discovered a need to jazz food up to make the eating decision much more pleasurable.

      Efficient Spicing

      While typical recipes often call for precise spice measurements, efficient eaters have no time for measuring spoons. The idea of only allowing a precise amount of dusty powder in our food is too much of a restraint for someone with a business to run.

      Not to mention, opening and closing all those spice bottles which can add precious minutes through added steps to meal preparation. Unfortunately, spices are by definition inefficient because there are so many different kinds, multiples can be used together in different dishes, and those bottles are either small and finicky or ginormous bulk varieties. Worse if you buy in bulk bags, you have to come up with some other smaller container transfer system or you risk having a mess on your hands every time you want a pinch of black pepper.

      Experiment First

      To include spices, which are essential for enjoying repetitive food and ensuring flavor after freezing and recooking, we recommend adding spices to taste – always. This means put in as much or as little as you want as you prefer depending on how it tastes to you, and whoever shares in the food you’re preparing.

      The Efficient Eater should follow our meal ideas and experiment with how much spice to add each time.

      When bulk cooking, you do not want to add any unknown spice to a pot full of two weeks worth of food. That’s way too much of a surprise to discover you do not like paprika on your chicken after you have cooked two weeks worth of chicken pieces!

      [Ninga tip: you can in fact ‘wash off’ your cooked chicken and re-heat in a new sauce made of another spice. However, if the food has been sitting in the old spice for awhile, chances are the flavors have seeped through and you’ll be in for yet another big surprise, which or may not be a good thing.]

      Unless you know how much you love a particular spice, do not add the entire bottle of something new all at once. Cook your bulk food without spices, then add your new addition to your own serving at each meal. Add or subtract the added amount as necessary for you to enjoy. You can even add a sprinkle or two to each spoonful to decide how the taste is changing, and finalize your decision in one meal. [That’s very efficient! Excellent!]

      After ten or so iterations, you should have an idea of how much spice you can tolerate in one setting. For example, if you experimented up and down with a new spice over five meals, and settled on the amount used at meal five. Remember that amount, multiple the amount – one shake, one spoonful – by the number of meals you cook at one time, and you will have the amount of spice to add to the entire pot or baking dish the next time you cook.

      Write it down if you think you’ll forget. Or put a little less if you’re still afraid. Once you know you like a particular spice with a particular food, you can go ahead and add it to the entire pot and continue to iterate.

      Some suggestions

      • Cumin – for chicken, turkey
      • Black pepper – on everything, almost a staple after salt
      • Garlic – on everything
      • Ginger – for fish, seafood, lighter meals
      • Mustard – often overlooked as a powdered spice, but adds a good kick to lighter foods like fish
      • Oregano – for meat, pasta, dark vegetables
      • Paprika – this spice is sweet ground red peppers so technically goes with everything. But sometimes too sweet for certain meals, but a good option if nothing else is available
      • Red (chili) pepper – on everything
      • Turmeric – for chicken, turkey, fish, vegetables – has taken on a cult-like status in recent times

      For a break down of all the spices we know, and their recommended uses, see The Spice List (coming soon).

        Is it Healthy to Freeze Fresh Fruit?

        The short answer is Yes.

        With the qualifier that it’s not known to be unhealthy, and preserving fruit to eat in the future is considered better than eating no fruit at all because you’re afraid of spoilage.

        Freezing changes a liquid in to a solid. Freezing fruit stops a bunch of microorganisms in the fruit from dancing around because the water needed for growth has turned into solid ice crystals.

        So picture your strawberry ready to begin spoiling if you leave it out on the table. But when you put it in the freezer instead, the spoiling process cannot go forward. And the fruit stays as it is.

        Understanding this fact about freezing fruit supports efficient eating. You can buy fresh fruit at supermarkets, farmers’ markets, or by the side of the road, and know that you can preserve what you bought for months, maybe years. Some believe the taste is irrevocably altered when fruit is frozen for a long time, and there is no doubt fresh picked ripe fruit eaten in the moment tastes sweeter than flash frozen and transported fruit – but the nutritional value and contribution to your healthy diet is believed to be the same.

        And since we cannot all transport to tropical islands to stay healthy, we have to manage our fresh fruit as we find it.

        Buy your fresh fruit in bulk and use freezer bags or other containers to store it in the freezer. You can separate the fruit by the week, assuming you bought fresh fruit that would last one week.

        But frozen food should not be kept forever. In fact the Mayo Clinic stated in an article that people should do at least an annual ‘freeze’ clean to remove older frozen food that may no longer look or taste edible.

        For busy entrepreneurs, the purpose of freezing fresh fruit is to preserve the quality for at least two to four weeks, not months. The best practice would be to purchase large quantities of fresh fruit, especially berries, and separate them into smaller freezer sized containers or bags for later consumption.

          The Case For Frozen Food

          The Efficient Eater website is specifically dedicated to maintaining productivity by finding fast, efficient and easy ways to cook and eat using bulk cooking, freezing your food, and heating the meals up to two to four weeks later.

          The idea is to keep cooked food preserved over time so that the busy entrepreneur does not have to take time out of her day, every day, to cook.

          For those who are against frozen food or re-heating, this process will not work for you.

          But if you are on the fence because you’ve heard some strange things about frozen food…read on.

          In our millennia long quest to make food preparation easier, humankind has made incredible strides. From the invention of fire to microwaves and the refrigerated truck, each year seems to bring a simplified method for meeting our nutritional needs. Of course, many of these advances have come at a cost. Land has been irrevocably altered to satisfy industrial agriculture, and waste and pollution have skyrocketed to produce for the sake of convenience.

          Yet since survival is our first basic instinct, and food is critical to survival there are few who would support altering the mass production of food that has permitted so many to maintain their lives. Instead, we have to consider how we can continue our advancements without causing more destruction.

          For Efficient Eaters who are also trying to stay healthy, one solution is to take advantage of healthy, sustainable purchase options like farmers markets, but to reduce the time burden of using this service by buying in bulk, cooking, and freezing the food.

          Although leafy vegetables, creams and other dairy products are not the best choices for freezing, almost every other food will work, and provide meals for weeks to come.

          For this efficiency strategy to work, you need to be able to freeze food, and assuming the food was safe when you put it in the freezer, you do not need to fear that there will be a problem when you take it out.

          The Facts about Frozen Food

          From the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), here’s what you need to understand.

          Almost any food can be frozen and eaten later

          The USDA exceptions include canned food and food in shells, like eggs. But even these examples have exceptions (to the exception). You can always take food out of a can and put it in a freezer container for preservation. With eggs, the issue is not so much a health threat, but the alteration of texture. You can freeze eggs in the shell, but if the shell cracks, the yolk turns thick and syrupy and will no longer function as you may expect for your favorite recipe. But if you try it, especially if you are using the egg in a savory dish, you may find there is no issue.

          Often the main reason people are afraid to freeze food for any length of time is because they fear an alteration of the taste. Some people believe you cannot freeze food because the after-freezing taste is not as good as the before-freezing taste. This is well…a matter of taste. It does not mean the food has gone bad.

          But a changed taste may be the result of freezer burn. Because of this real issue in many freezers, some believe in the literal interpretation of the word ‘burn’ as if the food has been scorched beyond a recognizable taste. Freezer burn is the damage to food caused by dehydration or oxidation due to exposure to air. So the best way to avoid it is to use air tight containers. You can still eat freezer ‘burned’ food, if you can tolerate the potentially altered taste.

          Frozen food is safe

          The act of freezing stops molecules from moving around, which stops microbes – bacteria, yeast and molds – and microorganisms from growing. It’s the same thing that happens to you if you are frozen. You stop growing and decaying. The food, which has basically already died once to become food, does not die somehow die again to become inedible.

          Instead, the minute you thaw the food, the microbes reactivate and you have to cook or eat (or both) before it goes bad. This is why thawing and refreezing can be an issue because if you leave the food at room temperature long enough to activate microbes, and then return the food to the freezer, you are freezing the active microbes in place for the next thawing.

          Your best bet is to only thaw food when you are ready to eat it.

          Cooking before long-term freezing is also important. Cooking destroys parasites. So cooked food becoming frozen food should not be an issue, unless there was something else going on with the food in the first place. And thawing and re-heating the food in the in the microwave or oven promotes further destruction of some of the unseen creepy crawlies who may have been an issue.

          The process is Fresh -> Cook -> Freeze -> Thaw -> Reheat -> Eat

          Given this sequence, you should avoid capturing microbes, parasites, microorganisms or any other small unknowns in your food. Make sure you are cooking in a safe environment and frequently wipe surfaces with raw food or juices, and watch the use and re-use of utensils that are handling raw food, clean or change utensils as you cook.

          The post-frozen flavor

          Frozen food will maintain its taste if it’s frozen when it’s in good condition. We recommend shopping, cooking and freezing as a one day event. Cook the food on the day you buy it, and freeze the same day to maintain freshness and color when it’s defrosted.

          Freezing does not destroy nutrients

          But there could always be something else going on with the food independent of freezing. So if the food is already deteriorating, freezing does not reverse that process.

          Original packaging

          You can leave frozen food in its original packaging. Food that is prepared specifically to be frozen should be placed in air-tight freezer safe containers.

          Fast vs slow freezing

          Freeze immediately after cooking, and try and keep the freezer closed so that the process can be as quick as possible. Depending on the size of the container, the stored food needs two to four hours to freeze, but overnight is a good rule to follow.

          Refreezing

          You can refreeze food that has thawed in the refrigerator (not at room temperature) or cooked food that was previously frozen.

          Power outage

          If the power goes out and you do not open the freezer door, you could have about two days before the food begins to go spoil. If the power comes on within that time, again do not open the door as you wait for the food to refreeze. If the power is expected to be out indefinitely, time to start eating. If any of the food is uncooked, start by cooking that first.

          Below is the USDA’s Freezer storage chart which is used for quality only meaning the recommended timeframe for eating food where it maintains its original flavor. Cooked frozen food can stay frozen as long as you need.

          Welcome Hungry Entrepreneurs!

          The Healthy Efficient Eater is a food blog for productive entrepreneurs who want to:

          • Eat healthy
          • Eat efficiently
          • Cook for themselves
          • Cook efficiently
          • Shop infrequently
          • Buy in bulk
          • Buy healthy

          This blog covers food including ideas on how to mass cook meals – up to two weeks worth of food at a time – that can be frozen and eaten over time. You learn how to dedicate about one day in 14 to cooking, but still maintain a healthy lifestyle by preparing good food.

          The Healthy Efficient Eater is the healthy cooking and eating food resource from Ready Entrepreneur, a site that helps aspiring entrepreneurs understand how to get started with their online business. At Ready Entrepreneur, you can find resources to finding the confidence, time and money to get started, finalizing your business idea, creating an action plan, and transitioning to your new freedom lifestyle.

          Along the way, you’re going to have to eat, but you want to make sure you stay healthy and maintain the stamina and drive to move your business forward. The information here at The Healthy Efficient Eater is designed to help you reach that goal. Bon Appetit!