Meal Planning From a Variety of Approaches

One of the biggest hurdles to eating healthy at home every night is dealing with all the fatigue and stress that come from our crazy busy schedules. With everything else on our plates (figuratively) and the ever-present siren call of the drive through window, it's no wonder that only 41% of Americans cook at home 5+ times a week and 11% cook at home rarely to never. This is shocking to me, but not entirely surprising.

The easiest way to get home-cooked food on the table more nights of the week than not (saving calories, money, family time, you name it) is to meal plan in advance. This saves the nightly scramble of, "what do you want for dinner," "do we need to go to the store," and, "oh screw it, let's just go out."

One amazing thing about the internet is the sheer number of websites and blogs, and now apps for your smart phone, that really can help a busy family out. All you need to do is pick a strategy and run with it.

First, you can go old school. I think I have mentioned once or twice that we started meal planning with a very excellent little book called Saving Dinner.

Books like this have menus laid out, seasonally, for every night of the week, with suggested sides. I like this one because it features lots of lean proteins, veggies, and whole grains, and the recipes tend to be very simple and quick to make, perfect for our busy family.

Another option is to subscribe to a meal planning service. Many of these have a small fee attached. Leanne Ely has one, which even has an option for a paleo and gluten free option, which is very trendy right now. The Dinner Page is a free option that's been making the Pinterest rounds lately. Recipe.com, a BHG offering, tracks your local grocery sales, helping you plan your meals around what's on sale, saving you moolah.

Finally, a little more advanced mode is to see what's in season or on sale yourself, and planning your meals around it. All Recipes is a great place to start; you can plan a week or two in advance and it will even generate a shopping list for you to print. The site also offers a free smart phone app called the Dinner Spinner that allows you to select what type of dish you want to prepare and what ingredient you have to use, allowing meal planning on the fly. For Weight Watchers aficionados, Skinny Taste has gobs of great recipe ideas and also posts the points value of each.

If you have children that you want to involve in meal planning (which can be a great tool to help overcome picky eaters), you can do something like this, from Once Upon a Chocolate Chip Pancake where your regular go-to dinners can be selected (photo cards can help younger children who cannot yet read) and pinned to the board. A posted menu can also help fend off dinner time arguments ("But I don't want spaghetti--I want chicken nuggets!").

How do you meal plan? On the fly each night? A week/two/month in advance? Please share!