Where to start with a meal plan

Where to start with a meal plan? How long does it take to prepare one? What happens if my plans change during the week? These questions are often asked when preparing a meal planner. A great place to begin is with a quick fridge audit, check what you have and which are the freshest items, then consider how many people you are feeding and what’s in the pantry. Remember that you can make meals go further with pantry staples such as canned canned veggies, pasta and noodles.

A good meal plan can help to to make life easier, save money, help to reduce waste and most importantly help with ensuring a balanced eating plan.

Let’s start by planning to reduce waste, to do this always consume fish or seafood before meat because seafood doesn’t store as long as meat. Leafy vegetables like bok choy will not keep as long as firm vegetables, like carrots or zucchini so always plan to use the leafy veggies first, normally within one or two days.

Cooked food keeps longer than raw food so if you have time cook one or two meals at the beginning of the week for later consumption.

By the end of the week you should be using things with the longest shelf life. So dry, canned and frozen veggies are always good when the fridge is starting to look a little bare.

Meal plans really can be so useful I can’t cover all the benefits in this blog, so look for future posts on meal planning.