What’s the Difference between Meal Plans and Meal Planning?

Meal Plans: Are usually static templates stipulating what to eat. Meal plans often involve repetition of what is listed for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Also, they typically do not take into account your schedule for cooking or the foods you need to use up. Finally, they may not be individualized to your preferences or nutrition needs or developed by (or with) a registered dietitian.

Meal Planning: Is the action of deciding meals in advance using your schedule, preferences, foods on hand, seasonal produce, sale items, etc. Consequently, meal planning usually leads to grocery shopping once a week, for only the items needed, and having others (e.g. family) involved in creating the menu. If you know how to meal plan, you can create your own weekly meal plans!

Is Meal Planning for You?

Are you:

• Overwhelmed by the “what to make for dinner” question?

• Unprepared (with available groceries) to make dinner at home? 

• Resorting to take out more than you’d like?

• Resenting money spent on eating out when cooking at home is cheaper?

• Believing your diet could be healthier if you cooked more?

• Making several trips to the grocery store in a week?

• If you answered YES to any of the above, meal planning would benefit you

Benefits of meal planning

1. Save time

Planning your meals for the week can help you to manage your time better. We spend a lot of time deciding what to eat, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up after dinner. By planning ahead and organizing your meals, it means there are no more last-minute trips to the shops and reduces the aimless wandering and overspending when you’re there.

2.  Reduces the amount of food waste 

Whether you’re planning out your meals or using a food delivery service to manage your meal prep, it can help reduce the amount of food you waste. We can all be a little guilty of wasting food, but by only buying what you need and using the ingredients as close to when you purchase them can reduce what ends up in the bin at the end of the week

3. Enjoy more variety

When we’re busy, it can be easy to cook the same thing over and over again. Meal planning helps to ensure you’re eating a variety of different foods, and it can help you eat more fruit and vegetables, which can help reduce the risk of chronic lifestyle diseases. By following a healthy meal plan, it will also help ensure you’re eating the right foods in the right portions. 

4. Avoid unhealthy options

Meal planning helps to make the easy option a healthy one. Instead of heading to the drive-through or picking up an unhealthy takeaway on the way home, knowing you have a meal ready for you at home can eliminate the temptation of unhealthy last-minute options. These foods can be higher in calories and sodium and can sabotage your weight management or health goals. Being too tired and hungry can lead to poor food choices, so it’s handy to have meals ready to go when you are.  

Diabetic meal plan

For individuals with diabetes, a healthy meal plan should focus on whole foods rather than processed foods to help manage blood sugar levels as much as possible.

Planning your meal

Your freezer is your friend

Extra spaghetti sauce or fresh basil about to go bad? Freeze it! For those nights when you just can’t be bothered to cook but also don’t feel like ordering in, having frozen leftovers are almost as good as having a fresh home-cooked meal. Work these frozen treasures into your meal plan to reduce the amount of new cooking you need to do on any given night.

Beyond just freezing leftovers, there are lots of fresh ingredients that can be easily frozen for future use too. If you’re unsure if you can freeze something or how to freeze it correctly, Google it. You might be surprised at just how much you can save that way.

Write your plan somewhere you’ll see it

There is no right way to do this — there’s only the way that works for you (and whoever you live with or share cooking duties with). But it is important that you write down your plan and your grocery list. If you’re meal planning with another person or people, you’ll also want to write down who is responsible for which night(s) of food.

We started with a whiteboard on our fridge, then switched to a weekly planning pad with a perforated grocery list on one side. It has a magnet on the back and lives at eye level on the fridge, so it’s impossible to miss. To make adding to the list easier, there’s a magnetic cup stocked with pens right next to it.

Summary

Meal planning shouldn’t be that hard. It is rewarding to achieve especially if you keep all in mind all the benefits listed above. A healthy family starts from having planned and well organized family meals.