3 Reasons You Should Make Big Quantities of “Basic” Foods

(Photo by Sunshine Hanan on Flickr)

For some of you, this might be common knowledge. And if so — fantastic.

For others, this might be a habit you need to get into. If you’re prone to fits of laziness in the kitchen — and even if you’re not — you need to start cooking larger quantities of things like stock, beans, vegetables, and other “basics” that should provide a good nutritional foundation to your meals.

Here are three reasons why.

For Psychological Reasons

There’s no question we all get lazy sometimes. It happens, it’s inevitable. And when we have to cook something healthy — even though it’s not really that tough — psychologically, the idea of popping something already done, or going out for a meal, or getting take-out, is simply easier. We know it’s not better for us, but it’s easier on our brains during those lazy moments.

So having big quantities of beans, grains, stock, and vegetables always ready will seriously save you the next time you get lazy. It’s the simplicity of leftovers, except you come to rely on it more often — just make more, no matter how many people you’re cooking for, and you’ll always have some on hand.

Because They’re Incredibly Versatile

Making big quantities of basic things doesn’t limit you in the slightest. You can dress beans with just about anything. You can make a meal with about 400 different grain/vegetable combinations. You can add meat to any of those things with about 5-6 minutes of preparation. All of this is ultra-versatile.

But versatility really gets useful when it’s so easy. When you can do whatever you want because you have so many open-ended things on hand, it gets all the easier to do it. That’s when you really notice how easy it is to use lentils or garbanzo beans (chickpeas) in dozens of different ways — when you start actually doing it.

Because They’re Damn Healthy

The most important reason comes last. When you pick the right basics — they’re usually also the healthiest ones. But thankfully, the way good food works has sort of sorted this out for us. The following foods, for example, aren’t so hot when re-used:

• pasta
• white rice (unless you’re frying it)
• anything deep-fried
• anything with a lot of cream or thick, heavy sauce

On the other hand, think of beans. Think of grains. Think of cooked vegetables that you can quickly pop into a frying pan with some olive oil. All the stuff that’s best for you is also the stuff that lasts.

There’s probably some kind of evolutionary reason for this, where the things that give us the most nutrition are also the ones we can store and eat days later. I don’t know — I’m not a scientist. But I do know what tastes good, and what nutrition really works for getting in shape.

It’s not all about recipes, ratios, calorie counts, and the rest of that stuff — sometimes it’s about acknowledging the basics.