Meal Planning Main Page

Meal Planning Ideas:
Low Effort
Medium Effort
Big Effort (but big pay-off)
3-Night Plan Example

Meal Planning Tools: Grocery Lists
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1. Take the time to make a list of your favorite healthy meals. For each meal, type or write how you prepare them and a shopping list for each. Put these write-ups in a 3-ring binder that you keep in your kitchen. The next time you can't think of what to cook, consult your own "cook book".
2. Chest freezers make excellent cold-storage! If you don't have one, a regular freezer compartment that is well-organized works fine too. I love making a big batch of chili or stew and placing individual portions into those cheap plastic containers that can go directly from the freezer to the microwave. I often use a frozen container of soup in place of the freezer-pack in my lunch-bag (which is small and well-insulated). That allows the soup to thaw a little bit while keeping other items at safe temperatures.
3. Meal planning for the week - similar to the medium-effort version, but with the extra step of comparing your menu with your resource(s) for specific nutritional requirements. One easy way to do this is on the "My Pyramid" website. They recently added a very cool "meal planner" tool. You enter your menu choices for the day, and the tool provides benchmarking information about how your menu compares to the recommendation the site makes for you. Check it out! If you register (a non-invasive process that doesn't require you to divulge any private information) you can save your weekly menus and do meal planning for the whole family.
   
4. Read:
   • "Stocking Up" by Carol Hupping and the staff of the Rodale Food Center
     ISBN: 0-87857-613-4
     (I have "Stocking Up III", which I believe is the latest edition.)
     
   • "Joy of Gardening Cookbook" by Janet Ballantyne
     ISBN: 0-88266-355-0
     

© 2008 Paul Gagne, All Rights Reserved