How to Design Healthy Meal Plans
Designing healthy meal plans saves time, money and anxiety when it comes to shopping for and feeding your family. Armed with healthy meal plans, the question "what's for dinner" won't plague you, nor will a shopping cart full of unnecessary and costly items. Lastly, healthy meal plans will allow you to take a good look at the amount and quality of nutrition your family is getting on a daily basis.
Tips For You
- Set up a chart for your healthy meal plans, either on paper, or in spreadsheet software like excel. Down the left-hand side of the paper, write the days of the week. Be sure to space them well enough to be able to write in what meals you will be having.
- Enter the category for each meal you eat into your healthy meal plans chart. Across the top, from left to right, write the words "breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks." This is a basic grid which allows you to place a whole week of healthy meal plans on one page.
- Start with the area on your healthy meal plan that corresponds to "breakfast" and "Monday." Think about what your family usually eats for breakfast, and think about how this meal could be improved.
- In a new spreadsheet column or separate sheet of paper, write down the ingredients you need to buy for Monday's breakfast. You are now creating shopping lists from your healthy meal plans.
- Continue filling in each meal, each day, including snacks, until you have created healthy meal plans and shopping list for the whole week. As you go, consider what ingredients you are buying and how you can use them up in other meals, later in the week.
- Be sure your healthy meal plans include plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats and quality proteins. If you know in advance that you will be eating out one day, add that to your healthy meal plans. Also leave space for leftovers!
