A Case for Meal Planning

“Variety is nutrition.”

Ever since I started meal planning my family has been healthier and happier. We eat more nutritious food and we waste less food or scraps. This is because when we plan we have the opportunity to write or see all of the meals we will consume for the week. More than likely, when someone sees there are “5 out of 7” meals featuring beef they’d be less likely to plan all five of those meals in one week. Rather they’ll incorporate more fruits, vegetables, and more varied proteins into their diet. That’s pretty much what happened to us. Our meals became more diverse with a variety of fruits, vegetables, meat proteins, plant proteins, complex and simple carbs, nuts, and starches.

“Waste not, want not.”

When eating from every food group each week there’s a greater likelihood of absorbing all of the nutrients the body needs–which will actually help the body loose or maintain a healthy weight. There’s also a better chance of not wasting food. A typical family loses about $1,500 a year from discarding food or impulse grocery shopping. That’s the equivalent of about $165 billion a year in the U.S. alone which could feed about 25 million people.

“Saturday - Friday.”

With meal planning, it’s easy to identify what foods or ingredients are actually needed for the week and reduce impulse buys. For example, if I plan three meals that have carrots, I will buy in bulk and use all of the carrots to cook each of those meals. This is a much better option than purchasing carrots to only use them once and discard the rest. This image is an example of what meal planning looks like in my home. I recommend using an app like Whisk to find, create, and plan recipes in your week. Join my community on Whisk to easily add my recipes to your meal planning!