Julie Languille has an idea that’s so good and wholesome and savvy that it makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Her larder is stocked with whole, ready-made dehydrated meals, which she cooks in batches of 40 at a time, Smithsonian writes. And unlike the pre-prepared food you can buy in a store, this food is actually good for you:
“The meals that I have on hand are tastier than the commercially prepared dried foods,” says Languille, who doesn’t use any artificial flavoring, coloring or preservatives in her recipes, save for a few packets of oxygen absorbers, which keep food from changing color or growing mold.
By putting a lot of work in at the front end, Languille saves time when she actually gets around to serving these meals — all she needs to do is add water. She does have a “full-scale food-storage unit in her home,” though, Smithsonian says. And it’s not completely clear that it saves time to cook like a maniac four times a year instead of cooking less food more often — but it does mean she’s got plenty of meals on hand in the event of an earthquake, hurricane, or zombie apocalypse, and there’s a lot to be said for that.
It all makes sense when you think about it — better ingredients, less salt, healthier food — but it also gives us hardcore lifestyle blogger fatigue.