When I ride (or excercise) a lot, as I have this week, I get a huge appetite. I think this is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, my lack of appetite when I don't exercise contributes to me feeling generally unhealthy when I don't exercise. On the other hand, when I do exercise and have an appetite, I have to find lots of food, and it has to be lots of food that I won't get tired of.

How do you deal with food. I know some of you are in the same situation I'm in now, getting home late due to a long commute...

this can make it hard to have a dinner cooked at a reasonable hour. And I don't think it's good to depend too much on microwave meals.

And then there's lunch. I often have a hard time coming up with lunches that I find palatable.

How do all you bike-commuters deal with getting meals prepared? Do you have any handy tricks or tips you'd be proud to share?

Here's some things I do:

Keep some healthy snacks at work (I prefer fruit and nuts, and generally eat all day long).

Plan in advance for meals. Use slow cookers (crockpots) to cook meals while I am at work, or pressure cookers to speed up the cooking time of meats, beans, and or veggies once I get home.

One of my favorites is to slow-cook beans all day, then all I need to do is pull out the tortillas, salsa and pre-shredded cheese and in 5 minutes I am eating hot bean burritos.

Or, on weekends I cook large meals and then eat leftovers all week (boring, I know). But, if I pressure-cook or grill a large pork roast or turkey breast on the weekend, then I've got something good to work with all week. A 5 pound turkey breast will provide meals all week: BBq turkey (throw some shredded turkey into a skillet with bottled bbq sauce for 5 minutes), turkey sandwiches, turkey soup (add turkey to canned soup), turkey burritos (warm shredded turkey with salsa from a jar), and so on.

My personal favorite is a huge salad that I throw together in the 8 minutes that it takes to boil water and cook pasta. Use sauce from jar, and I can be eating 10 minutes after arriving home.

I'm getting hungry...

Lately I make up salads once a week, and have them ready when I come home. Things like pasta salads, and rice salads. I also like making up dirty rice burritos, as well as bean burritios and warming them up.

See how much money you save from not driving and use that to buy lunch at a restaurant if you have time. I'm in college so I can usually make the time to go to quiznos (the best subs ever).

If you do cook something like lasagna cook a ton of it. Most of this stuff tastes great for days. And if you don't want to eat lasagna for a week you can always just have it as a supliment to whatever else you'd like to eat.

Any time I feel like I need more protien in me I eat some kapers or sardenes. Those aren't for everyone though.

I second the fruits and nuts idea. An pear tastes the best when your thirsty and hungry (and we all know biking makes you both).

I microwave rice so that I don't have to worry about looking at it while it's cooking. Then I can throw it in something easy to make, or make some fried rice or whatever.

Oh yeah, and a george forman grill makes everything that includes cooking meat 10x easier.

These are just some things I've found. If all else fails, lucky charms is hard to beat. Peace.

Mmmm, Lucky Charms. Any good breakfast cereal makes a great dinner!

For lunches, you need to prepare three or four main things you can
dish out and microwave. You need to invest in some good food containers,
like Tupperware, Rubbermaid, or Ziploc. I always pack my lunch, and my panniers
get heavy as hell sometimes, but if you apply the effort at home, a seriously nutritious
lunch and good snacks are easy to have every day.
Part of my morning routine is to assemble the day's food supply while my eggs
are boiling. For evening food, I think you need to cook on Sunday and have things ready
for the week ahead. Then if you have to depend on microwaveables, it'll be your own good stuff.

i get really hungry too when i'm riding regularly. i also have little time to cook, so between larger meals i fill up on these, because they are quick and easy:

pasta with ragu sauce
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
tons of bananas
tuna fish sandwiches (can of tuna with a little mayo and maybe a slice of cheese)
granola bars
baked potatoes

if i do cook a proper meal, i try to do something that will create leftovers for a few days. personally, i love left overs after a ride or late at night. you get the food quicker and with less hassle.

Dinner after I get home is in two phases. 1st, right after my ride I make a sandwich. Meat, cheese, bagel, honey. Perfect post workout snack in my opinion. 2nd, Dinner is usually fruit and some thawed out chicken/fish/fake meat cooked on my trusty george foreman grill. Takes 10 min tops.

Like said in the couple of posts above, I love my George Foreman grill. I'm a big meat eater, so I throw in a steak in the Foreman grill, it comes out nicely done in 6-7 minutes. I usually eat my steak with some lettuce salad. Canned sardines and some bread is also quick meal option. I sometimes buy canned chicken breasts (at Sam's). When you mix it with some mayo and add little salt and pepper, you can make a nice sandwich. If you're on low carb, just eat that wrapped in lettuce leaf.
I totally understand the urge to eat when you are actively biking, I'm just trying not to eat too late or too much. I think it's good to eat small throughout the day, so that you don't get too hungry and eat too much.

Raw food takes 0 minutes to cook, although it does take a few minutes to maybe put it on a plate or slice it up. I like to just chuck a bunch of fruit in the blender for 30 seconds, and through a monster salad together with all the nuts and veggies you need.

One more reason to go vegan!

The important things are:

I just never get tired of eating. That's the truth!

I've tried that and turn to be real good dinner...thanks Makoa