How to Make Anti-Inflammatory Eating Actually Fit into your Busy Life

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I think one of the biggest reasons people struggle to stay consistent with anti-inflammatory eating is because they think it has to look extreme.

Like they need to throw away everything in their kitchen.

Learn how to cook completely differently overnight.

Spend hours meal prepping every Sunday.

Make separate meals for themselves and their family.

Never eat comfort food again.

And honestly?

The second most people picture THAT version of healing, they’re already overwhelmed before they even begin.

And I would be too!

That mindset alone makes everything feel exhausting.

But here’s what I've learned after doing this for years:

The people who actually make this lifestyle stick are usually NOT the people trying to be the most perfect.

They’re the people who learn how to make this realistic.

Instead of trying to force your family to love “anti-inflammatory food”...

make the foods they already love anti-inflammatory.

That’s the shift that actually makes this doable.

Like if you want to make lasagna, for example.

TRY USING THESE INGREDIENTS:

• Organic brown rice lasagna noodles (Jovial is my favorite brand) in place of regular wheat pasta

• Kite Hill vegan ricotta

• Simple Truth vegan shredded mozzarella (or organic shredded mozzarella if you can tolerate/want to use dairy cheese)

• Organic no sugar added marinara sauce (Primal Kitchen's Roasted Garlic Marinara is my favorite-tasting, but many stores have more affordable generic brands, too!)

• Organic grass-fed ground beef

(Check out my full lasagna recipe here.)

BOOM!

Now you have a delicious, comforting, family-friendly meal the whole family will love without the ingredients that would make you flare.

Because, look...

You don't need to just eat boring diet food like chicken and vegetables for an eternity to feel better.

You just need a way to make the food you love in a way that loves your body back.

(Without having to cook and clean all day, of course, because if it takes up too much of your time and energy... you're never going to actually do it.)

You also need a healthier mindset around all of it, too.

Because all-or-nothing thinking is one of the fastest ways to burn yourself out.

You eat perfectly for a week...

Then life gets busy...

So you eat something “off plan.”

And suddenly you feel like you failed and have to start over Monday.

Here's the thing:

Using food as medicine isn’t supposed to be another short-term challenge you survive through.

It’s supposed to become your lifestyle.

So it has to be doable.

That means:

• Quick meals

• Simple swaps

• Imperfect days

• Family-friendly recipes

• And consistently coming back and doing better any time you fall off track

That’s the part most people are missing.

And it's the part that changes everything.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Which is exactly why, in this blog post, I’m breaking down exactly how I was able to feed my family of 3 for 6 days in a row (only eating out twice because we wanted to, not because we had to) by simply meal prepping ONCE.

And it only took me 80 minutes from start to finish, including cleanup.

🤯🤯

Here's how I did it and how I recommend you do it:

1.) Order your groceries online.

(Now, obviously, I know this isn't a possibility for everyone, but if you can make this work in your area and with your budget, it's a huge help. And don't be afraid about letting others pick out your groceries for you. There literally are bigger things in life to worry about.

Instacart is my preferred grocery ordering app in America, but I'm sure there are others around the globe.

Choose delivery if that's available in your area and you can afford it because we've all been there when we come home from the grocery store after a big shopping trip and now we don't have energy to cook, so we order a pizza.

Don't let that be your story.

Reserve your energy for meal prepping because that's what actually helps move the needle in your health!)

2.) Organize all of your ingredients by "recipe."

(I say recipe in quotes because you save more time if you can cook by feeling / have your recipes memorized.)

That's why inside of my Meal Prep Solution Course, I teach you how to cook by feeling.

And I make it so that you literally don't even have to measure anything.

For example, instead of putting "3/4 of a cup of shredded carrots" or "1/2 cup of zucchini" in a recipe like many cookbooks and food bloggers do...

my Meal Prep Solution Course recipes will call for things like "half a bag of pre-shredded carrots" or "1/2 of a zucchini," etc.

3.) Start the longest cooking / longest to cool items first.

So things like soups, which take a long time to cook AND a long time to cool...

you always want to start those first.

So while those are cooking and cooling...

you can be working on other things.

4.) Cook your meals on sheet trays in the broiler to save time.

Now, obviously, not everything can be cooked on sheet trays in the broiler, but many, many components of many different dishes can.

For example, in 80 minutes last week, I meal prepped:

• Sloppy Joe bowls

• Korean bulgogi lettuce wraps with white rice and kimchi

• Creamy chicken and vegetable soup

• Vegetarian zucchini noodle lasagna with lentils

• Habanero salsa

So the rice, soup, and lentils could not be made on sheet trays in the broiler, but literally everything else was.

The sloppy joe meat and the potatoes for the sloppy joe bowls...

the meat for the Korean bulgogi lettuce wraps...

the zucchini for the lasagna...

and the veggies for the habanero salsa.

THIS IS THE SECRET TO COOKING AND CLEANING IN HALF THE TIME.

Because tip #5...

5.) Work on other things while the broiler is doing the cooking.

(Because this is a very hands-off way of cooking. Things are spread out evenly on sheet trays in the broiler, so at best, once or twice while they are cooking in the broiler, you have to give them a mix. That's pretty much it.)

So that frees up time for you to:

• Prepare cold elements of dishes (like the veggies for the sloppy joe bowls, the cheese mixture I had to make for the lasagna, etc.)

• Make cold salads and sauces

• Cool and package your meals

• And, of course, clean up the kitchen

So by the time I was done cooking and packaging everything, I only had 3 sheet trays and 2 small pots to toss into the dishwasher. Everything else had already been done.

The result?

I was able to feed my family of 3 for 6 days straight, almost all of our meals (except for 2 because we wanted to go out to eat), without cooking or cleaning again.

All we had to do was reheat our meals in the oven and wash the meal prep containers.

It's the quickest, easiest, most stress-free way to eat Flare Free consistently.

Reminder:

"Flare Free" means gluten, dairy, sugar, corn, soy, peanut-free, and anti-inflammatory healing meals.

(So no seed oils, no conventional meat and eggs, no farmed fish, low glycemic natural sugar replacements, and if we are using gluten and dairy alternatives, those are the most nutritious we can find as well.)

Because it's not enough to just eat a bunch of ultra-processed packaged foods just because they're gluten and dairy free.

A lot of that stuff is full of seed oils, which can contain trace amounts of trans fats that have been found to trigger autoimmunity, high glycemic refined flours like white rice flour, potato starch, etc., and of course lots of sugars and/or chemical sugar replacements like sorbitol, dextrose, etc.

It's basically the Mediterranean diet on crack is what I like to say. 🤭

So as you can see...

Eating healthy so you can lessen inflammation, reverse autoimmune symptoms, and stop disease progression doesn't require cooking every night.

And meal prepping doesn't have to take you all day.

If you follow these tips, you can make lots of food in a little amount of time, which makes eating healthy CONSISTENTLY way easier!!

Because using food as medicine only works if you do it consistently.

And this method makes that doable!

So just to recap so you can actually try this for yourself...

Here's how I meal prepped food for my family of 3 to eat for 6 days straight in just 80 minutes:

1.) Order groceries online

2.) Organize your ingredients by "recipe"

3.) Start the longest cooking items (or longest to cool items) first

4.) Cook anything that you can on sheet trays in the broiler so you can cut your cook time in half

5.) Work on other things while the broiler is doing the cooking for you

If you want to learn more about how to do this for yourself at home, plus get a full list of foods to eat and foods to avoid...

learn how to food chain so you can bring your picky eaters and "meat and potatoes husband" along this ride with you...

and so much more...

Register for my free on-demand webinar!

I hope you found this post helpful.

If you did, take a second to Pin it on Pinterest or share it with a friend on social media.

It really helps get this message out to other folks like you who may need it.

Autoimmunity is on the rise globally - at a steady average rate of 12.5% yearly around the world.

So who knows?

Just by sharing this article...

You may be helping to save a life.

Thanks again for being here and as always, if you have any questions or need any help...

DM me on Instagram or Facebook!

I'm here for you.

xo,

Laura