Meal planning 3

This is a continuation from my previous posts.

Meal planning 1

Meal planning 2

Here, we wrap it all up.

Set things up once

We figured out the problems we wanted to solve. We didn't look at them as problems, though; we framed them up as goals, and guidelines. "Pillars" as I called it. Things like "I want to reduce waste, eat organic, stick to a budget and save time." So we broke that down into how we could achieve those things.

That looked like finding places that supplied organic and plastic-free items, and scheduling our shopping into our week in the way that was most productive for us.

Then we looked at our shopping list as an inventory. We listed everything according to the supermarket layout, for any impromptu visits, and we learned to manage our shopping list in such a way that at a glance we could see what was in our pantry/fridge at all times.

(I wouldn't bother so much with the prices, as I have. They change all the time. I just haven't deleted them.)

We also got creative about inspiration for a meal plan and we scaled up or down the recipes based on our pillars. (For example, my lentil dal recipe was laid beside Dr Greger's daily dozen requirements, as its blueprints, and then I checked to see what I could source organic, plastic-free, and locally according to those blueprints.)

We looked at the budget, next. I assigned a cost per item as a guide to see if my recipes were budget friendly or not.

Then we assigned those meals to days of the week based on what we had on that day and whether we needed the leftovers the following day.

Schedule

Now, we put it in the calendar. That's your meal plan. The things is, this is not something you have to live by. Remember - 80/20. I think it helps to have ideas in your 'backlog' that you can pull from, in case you don't want whatever you had planned. This happens, of course. This meal plan is simply more about getting a baseline.

So why put it in the calendar? Simply because that's the easiest way to get a holistic view, and you can see where things would work for lunch the next day. That starts to take care of lunch.

The other thing, is that if leftovers for lunch are too similar to dinner, you can switch things around to avoid repetitiveness.

In my plan, I use a lot of the same meals to stretch out over the week, because I am not easily bored with food I enjoy.

But I don't expect my family to have to eat so repetitively, so I break theirs up with others things.

I make sure there's enough other things that's quick and easy for them to make in my absence. We also have sandwiches for lunch on Saturday.

For breakfast, we're pretty much a Wheat Bix household, but because I like the organic and low waste approach, I bring my own homemade muesli to work with me.

It's a real Dr Greger buster!

Here's a little snippet of how it looks in my calendar:

From here, we can start refining. Lunches can get a bit more exciting for those of us who want more variety, but essentially, this is a basic meal plan which meets all of the criteria outlined at the start. What hasn't been detailed are things like kids lunches and snacks. If there's demand for it, I can share that too. (Go on, let me know!)

How do you meal plan?