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					# Meal Preparation | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					Now that you've learned to cook some recipes, and are hopefully experimenting with your own, you can move on to meal prep.   | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					one of the hardest parts of cooking for yourself is sticking to eating what you cook, and ensuring you have enough food for the  | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					week that isnt from a box or a can. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					#### Economics of meal prep. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					It hardly needs emphasis: eating food you cook makes good economic sense as you no longer include markups for labor, taxes, profit, | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					livery, marketing, and other mainstays of even the cheapest restaurants.  As an example, take a prepared meal of oats for breakfast.   | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					at 340 grams, it costs 2USD.  assuming this was only consumed 260 business days out of the year, you're still wasting more than $500  | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					per year on something less than $2 per uncooked kilo. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					#### Environmental impact | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					eating out is contingent largely upon consumers ignoring the impact of the food they consume.  paper wrappers and cups are trucked  | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					thousands of miles in some cases to their final destination, your table (and ultimately the landfill.)  if one cup weighs 12 grams, | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					and you eat lunch at fat burger 260 business days per year, thats more than 3 kilos of waste just from the cup.  cooking food  | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					yourself means reusing flatware and cutlery, which reduces the carbon footprint of your consumption. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					#### quality. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					restaurants are not in business for quality, but sales.  preparing your own meals means you know exactly what went into them. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					Restaurants make more money if they add more sugar, salt, and fat to their meals indiscriminately as humans are evolutionarily programmed | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					to seek these elements of food out.  You can improve the nutritional quality of your meals by cooking them yourself. | 
				
			
			
		
	
		
			
				
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					# getting started |