I know this topic has come up here before, but it always seems to be focused on odd dichotomies, like meal prep vs fast food takeout, which isn’t the point.
What I understand from other posts I’ve read here:
(if any of these points are wrong or more nuanced than portrayed, please correct me)
So, on the whole, if one’s purpose is to eat a balanced diet and avoid any problems over the long term, would doing meal prep (once a week, or twice a week) be better overall than cooking for that day (or occasionally for that day + the next day’s lunch, as often happens)? Is there some form of meal prep that preserves nutrition better? What percentage on average of nutrition is lost if one does meal prep? Is it negligible? Do these factors differ if you’re in one country or another?
You have a lot of great questions and all of the factors you listed do play a role in safe meal prepping- I think one of the key concepts that is often overlooked is just general food safety. Sometimes people do not know how long food is actually “good” for in a refrigerator before it is at risk of becoming spoiled, so I have linked to a cold food storage chart if you are interested (does play a role in nutrient loss).
This is obviously going to be a bit of a mixed bag based on what foods are cooked, but in the interest of simplicity:
On the whole, there is still a lot of research being done to determine the precise impact that food processing has on nutritional value, but for practical purposes it’s not all that relevant as the differences are not going to be massive for the most part.