A bout of illness for the first week meant that I was unable to take my anti-depressants for a few days. This affected my weekend, meant I was too ill to really think about prepping a week’s worth of food, and too drowsy to shop after I restarted my med schedule (or medule, if one is so inclined).
For the second and third week, I found myself out of antidepressants, had lost my repeat prescription and, even if I had found it, didn’t have the money for the medication.
Luckily, for situations like this, there’s Huel #notspon
Huel is a nutritionally-complete, vegan meal replacement that produces 0 food waste (unlike my last attempt at meal prepping, oopsie). I’ve been having deliveries of Huel for many months now, and have acquired quite a backlog of powder from going through phases of eating it and…not. Not for any fault of Huel, it’s the fact I have very little self-control when it comes to food and enjoy having solid food to munch. That said, whenever I do drink Huel, I find it a lot easier to stay away from unhealthy food, and find that I’m much less hungry in the evening.
So, as my mental health has made it difficult to prep meals these past weeks, I’ve been having my morning muesli, a portion of Huel for lunch, and nothing after 2pm until breakfast the next day, from Monday – Friday.
Day One: Monday
Or, at least, that was the plan at 11pm Sunday evening. Unfortunately, my Huel bottle still had some leftover banana mix in it from uh…. a few months back? and although I left it to soak for most of the morning while I prepared to go to work, I found I couldn’t face using it today and instead opted to leave it in soak all day.
The only slight issue I find with Huel is that on occasions like today, where my depression has meant that I neglect basic chores such as removing the dining… stuff from my room… for months; when one opens the lid of the Huel canteen to pop it in the washing up bowl, the smell is atrocious. Yes, this is to be expected after months of festering in my room, but I also find that the smell is quite pungent even after coming home from a full 8-hour day. The fumes are reminiscent of the smell of vomit, in the current case the smell of vomit after one has eaten far, far too many foam bananas. So, if you are planning to Huel it up, make sure you rinse that shit immediately after you’ve chugged that beautiful liquid down into your belly… and don’t think about what your insides must smell like after doing so…
(also, you can email me at georgia.e.goddard@gmail.com before the 31st of Jan for a little refer-a-friend link to possibly get some money off your order 😉 this is our little secret, don't tell anyone...)
Got any suggestions for future meal prep recipes? Please do let me know in a comment!
I like recipes that a) require very minimal/simple cooking, b) use a small budget, and of course c) are vegan!
The Lazy Vegan 