Healthy Eating for People Who Hate Cooking

by Thorin Klosowski
Lifehacker

One of the barriers for healthy eating is the time it takes to actually prepare a healthy meal. If you already don't like the idea of cooking, making a well-rounded meal is even more of a daunting task. However, it is possible to make meals without actually working too hard for them and we'll show you how to do it.

Personally, I can't stand cooking. For whatever reason, it always feels like a wasted effort to take hours making something only to completely destroy it within a couple minutes. But I'm well aware of the health risks that can come about from eating a frozen pizza for every single meal, and that's why I started digging into ways to get the nutrients I needed without always resorting to frozen dinners. First up, here's what I've done, and we'll look at what others suggest a little later.

The Smoothie for Vegetable and Fruit Intake

The smoothie is something like a garbage-disposal of healthy food. If you can't or don't like cooking, it's the easiest, simplest way to ensure you still get the fruits, vegetables, and vitamins you need in the day without having to come up with complex recipes that require you to cook several foods at once. All you have to do is toss a few fruits and vegetables into a blender with some water or ice, stand around for a few seconds while it blends, and then you end up with a food that's really a drink and requires a stupidly small amount of effort.

How much do you need to throw in there? Let's look at the recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables and see how we can get that into one or two no-cook meals.

• Fruits: For most Americans over the age of 18, 2 cups worth of fruit is recommended a day. That's about a single large fruit – as in, one apple or one banana.
• Vegetables: Vegetables require a bit more than fruit as far as recommended amount. You need at least 3 cups of raw or cooked vegetables.
  

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March 7, 2012

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