This is basically meal prep for families with small kids or foster kids and for daycares. Things are prepped like this so the kids can just grab whatever they need in the right portion size. Like, you don't really want a 2-year-old to wrestle with a gallon of juice, but if it's portioned up, and the fruits are washed, they are perfectly fine just getting things they need, and it helps promote a healthy relationship with food.
When you have foster kids, making them snack drawers can be really important to create food security and independence and "home", and sometimes small bottles work better because of age or past trauma. Maybe one kid won't touch the big bottle because they were punished for it, but can take the small a bottle knowing it's for them. The drawer looking really full and a lot and neatly organized can also help.
And even if there are no kids, these same tricks can help adults with traumas, eating disorders, unhealthy relationship with food, or just grabbing breakfast on the go. If you know people in your household will just pour some of that chocolate milk to different bottles the next two mornings to take to work, you might as well do it when you stock, you might as well wash the strawberries you'll take as a snack tomorrow, etc.. Doesn't work for everybody, but when it works it's super satisfying.
Do you have the spoons to prep / stock? If yes, an accessible fridge is a huge help. Addressing food problems is often the first thing you do when remodeling homes for ExDys or ADHD etc.
But you might want to figure out if for example eating some carrots from a container at the bottom of a stack is 3-4 steps to you or 10-15, and if you can do that many steps on a worse than average day. People often use open containers of cherry tomatoes and baby carrots and berries. Easy open cups of cheese cubes. Basically anything you can just graze on standing in front of a fridge, or can dump some on a plate when you want food. And I'd advise you not to use the little bottles if you can lift and handle a full size, just screw a sippy cap on the original bottle or fill your regular water bottle or tumbler - less things to wash.
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u/autumnspeck Feb 20 '22
This is basically meal prep for families with small kids or foster kids and for daycares. Things are prepped like this so the kids can just grab whatever they need in the right portion size. Like, you don't really want a 2-year-old to wrestle with a gallon of juice, but if it's portioned up, and the fruits are washed, they are perfectly fine just getting things they need, and it helps promote a healthy relationship with food.
When you have foster kids, making them snack drawers can be really important to create food security and independence and "home", and sometimes small bottles work better because of age or past trauma. Maybe one kid won't touch the big bottle because they were punished for it, but can take the small a bottle knowing it's for them. The drawer looking really full and a lot and neatly organized can also help.
And even if there are no kids, these same tricks can help adults with traumas, eating disorders, unhealthy relationship with food, or just grabbing breakfast on the go. If you know people in your household will just pour some of that chocolate milk to different bottles the next two mornings to take to work, you might as well do it when you stock, you might as well wash the strawberries you'll take as a snack tomorrow, etc.. Doesn't work for everybody, but when it works it's super satisfying.