[JimboK]

Agreed with the others based on my limited experience.

Three days ago I bought a cheap piece of beef marked down due to a short date. Had a lot of fat -- probably why it was marked down. I slow-cooked it like a pot roast, but with vinegar and crushed red peppers to make it BBQ-ish. It was well cooked by 4 in the afternoon and I started sampling. And sampling. And sampling. I might have eaten a half pound of it as a snack. (Guilt free! That's the sort of behavior that condemned me on any other type of diet.) I never felt hungry for the rest of the day. I had a salad at dinnertime to get my greens, but that was it.

Sweetleaf, I think you're on target about keeping some prepared meat. That's one reason that when I cook, I try to cook a big batch. And there are practical and economic benefits. I'm energy-conscious, so I'd rather turn the oven or stovetop on once for one big batch of food than several times for single meal quantities. I'm price-conscious too, and large packages of meat often have a lower price per pound. I always look for marked down meat with a short date, which requires either cooking or freezing pretty quickly. What I don't expect to eat in a day or two, I'll pack up in meal-sized portions and freeze. I can then quickly turn one of those into a snack with the microwave when I get the munchies.