Bullivant: Meals-in-a-jar a healthy, on-the-go option

By Claire Bullivant

Hands up anyone who has tried to lose weight, eat healthier and failed. What went wrong?

One of my top three strategies for successful, healthy eating is time management. Any intent to eat well gets forgotten when I have to rush out of the door or meet a deadline. In that mode, I grab anything from anywhere – and it’s usually not good.

That’s why healthy meals in a jar are so brilliant. These jars are airtight so food can usually last three or four days without spoiling, which means you can make food for half the week, put the lid on and not think about it again until you grab it from the fridge – take it to work, eat it at home or make it a healthy TV dinner.

You can prepare food in jars for your kids so they have a hearty meal waiting for them anytime.

You can freeze certain meals. I’ve made lasagne, chili con carne, even chicken and mashed potato. Caution when microwaving the glass jars, though. I only microwave from fridge temperature, and my attempts to heat glass jars in the oven got … well, shattered. And you might have to invest in a mason jar koozie (yes, it does exist!).

What about salads? Until now, the main reason not to pack a salad was the dressing; if you dress the salad, you are later left with a wilted pile of greens. And if you take the dressing in a separate container, the risk of it spilling is off-putting. Not so, the mason jar salad. There’s a plethora of pictures and advice about how to make these salads on the web and I highly recommend taking a peek, so that you can have grab and go healthy food every day.

If healthy, convenient, fast food exists, this is it.

Claire Bullivant is the owner of Bead & Berry Coffee House, which has a grand re-opening this fall.

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This column appears in the October issue of InMaricopa.