Fit Fare

Ok. It might seem silly, stupid or any other variety of descriptives to plan your weekly meals ahead of time. You could be sitting there, like I was when I first heard about it, thinking “Yea, right. As if I know what I will want to eat on Friday on Saturday.” And it’s true but meal planning doesn’t have to mean exact planning of what will be eaten when. It can mean that, but it doesn’t have to.

There are many benefits to meal planning. For one, you will buy what you need and not end up with extra groceries or missing ingredients. This translates into another benefit: if you are buying only what you need then you are spending less. Plus planning ahead can make it even easier to eat locally and in season.

WAYS TO MEAL PLAN:

#1 – Cook ahead
With this option, you set aside one day, like Sunday for instance, and cook for seven days. Your meals are refrigerated and/or frozen and taken out on the day you use them. This is pretty flexible in that you can decide when to use what based on what you actually want that day. Some people even cook all their meals for a month on one day. This technique has a lot of different options such as triple batch cooking, making 20 different recipes, etc. A great primer on it can be found at She Knows.

#2 – Plan exact meals for exact days
If you do this, you would plan everything from salad to dessert for every meal for a week. Then this is transcribed into an appropriate shopping list. You have a predictable schedule for what you are cooking on what day and all the ingredients to actuate it.

#3 – Plan seven days worth of meals
This is very similar to option #2 but not nearly as rigid in nature. You still plan seven days worth of meals but this flexible option allows you to decide on a day by day basis which to make.

#4 – Let someone else do the planning for you.
There are websites and books devoted to telling you what to eat. These resources take the thinking part out of the equation, making meals a snap.

TIPS

Do choose a meal planning style that fits your personality. If you like a solid, rigid plan, then go with that. If you prefer a more flexible method, choose that one.

Don’t plan seven days of new recipes. You will go crazy and your family might too, especially if the recipes turn out to be less than stellar.

Do incorporate some new things each week into your meal plan. As they say, variety is the spice of life.

Don’t plan meals you know your family will dislike - even if you really want to try them - it will be more headache then it’s worth.

RESOURCES
Better yet, as with everything else these days, there are resources on the web and in print to help you easily plan your meals and grocery shop accordingly.

Meals Matter - offers an easy to navigate interface, recipe and menu suggestions and the ever helpful grocery list feature, where you can print out your grocery list based on the meals you’ve planned. The downside? If you just input your own meals without their recipes it doesn’t go into the list. The good news? It’s free.

Chatelaine – this is for the person who doesn’t want to do the planning themselves. They offer exact meal plans for seven days – breakfast, lunch and dinner – in different types like energy enhancing, vegetarian, etc. You can print out a week’s shopping list and just go. The downside? You have zero control and there is no option to do this just for dinner. But it’s free, and that’s always nice. And the meals don’t sound too bad.

National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute - This is a cool interactive meal planner that offers options to add to your daily meal plans. It doesn’t have a shopping list feature… in fact, its only use is for calorie planning, but it’s a nifty interface.

Saving Dinner - I know a lot of people who swear by this book and website as the mecca of meal planning, particularly meal planning ahead of time. This site does have a fee associated with it for the weekly meal plans. Or you can just buy the book (which offers dishes appropriate for being made ahead of time) and do the actual planning part yourself.