Australian Meal Planning site

ThereseAT

Hi, just starting out. Wondering about meal planning? What sites do people use? I'm in Australia so want something local if possible. So brands etc are accurate.her
Therese

livingleanlivingclean

I enter the foods I want to eat in to MFP to create my own meal plan - all entries should be checked for accuracy as they are mostly user entered, but you won't have an issue finding your products here (and if you do, you make your own entry)

tiptoethruthetulips

A once popular site was calorieking.com.au. I doubt whether the data base has been updated for sometime, and the forums were quite active but now very much under utilised.

kommodevaran

I use a spreadsheet.

ThereseAT

kommodevaran wrote: »

I use a spreadsheet.

How do you have it set up???

kommodevaran

ThereseAT wrote: »

kommodevaran wrote: »

I use a spreadsheet.

How do you have it set up???

At the top, I have a running inventory of the contents in my fridge, freezer and pantry. The left side is for what I have, the right side is for what I consider buying.

Then the actual meal planning table. Five columns - Date, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Extras/Notes. Each cell has three rows, and breakfast and lunch have color codes for two of them - pink for fruit, green for veg. Now I just fill them in - sometimes, completely or partly many days ahead, sometimes just the same day. Sometimes I fill in an idea of I want to eat before I go shopping, then fill in what I ended up with. When large but inconsistently sized items like melons, I weigh it out and decide how many days I'll be eating it for, based on what I think is an appropriate daily portion and how long it will keep. This makes scheduling grocery shopping easy, and discourages overeating as well as wastefulness and overbuying. I usually do my shopping on Mondays and Fridays. Limited exposure means less temptation, and fewer decisions to make means improved impulse control. I'm saving money, time, stress and frustration - while eating healthy and tasty.

For dinner, I rotate themes through the week. This allows me to get in a variety of foods, and at the same time opens up for creativity. Some dinners are simple protein+starch+veg, other dinners are soup or casserole. If it's very light - ie only vegetables, no beans, I add a dessert. I aim to try a new recipe/combination now and then.

Whenever I have room for a treat, I use the last cell for that. Or if I need a fourth meal. Or if there's something special I have to remember.

I mark items I haven't bought yet, in italics, and items I have to prepare in advance (thawing, soaking) underlined. I often highlight the last portion in bold, and if there's something I plan to buy again, I move it to the right side of my inventory.

Every day is a new row. I don't delete, so it's also a food log. It's nice to be able to look back for ideas. If something was particularly successful, or not at all, I mark it with an emoticon.

I live alone, so I can make all decisions myself. Planning is necessary to ensure variety and at the same time eat up everything (many foods are only sold in "family" packs). But planning is also very easy because I live alone - just one person to plan for, and when I run unexpectedly out of something, it's because I failed to keep track. My system isn't as complicated as it might sound, and I really didn't come up with all the details right away

yirara

Can't helpw ith Aussie food, but I just cook, weigh and log everything pretty much on the go. If I plan to make a rice dish then I weight the protein I put in and everything else high calorie. Based on what's left I determin the amount of rice I'll use. Then fill up the rest with veggies. Doesn't take long and is super easy to do.

Machka9

MFP's database is full of Australian foods. That's one of the reasons I chose MFP over some of the other choices out there.