Meal planning can help you eat healthier and waste less food. It’s better for the whole family. Here are all my tips to make meal planning a success at your house! ๐
Eating at home is a great place to start when you are trying to eat cleaner. Restaurant food is usually packed with calories and generally has more trans fats as well. Home cooked food is way healthier for you and you have total control over what goes into it.
By the way, don’t confuse meal planning with meal prepping. Meal planning simply means that you plan your meals, make a list and shop for those ingredients. You do not make the meals ahead of time… unless you are a rockstar and you want to.
Why Meal Plan?
- It reduces dinner time stress. Having a plan for even three nights out of the week makes my life so much easier. It’s amazing how stressful it can be to think about dinner at 5:30 when everyone is home and my teenagers are constantly saying “I’m hungry, what’s for dinner?” Having a plan is golden.
- You can eat real whole foods and follow a clean diet with just a little bit of planning. It’s harder to make good choices when you are scrambling at the last minute to make dinner. Make a healthy plan, buy the ingredients and you don’t have much choice!
- It saves money. When I go to the store without a plan I put things in my cart that I don’t need. If I don’t have a plan for them they shouldn’t be going in the cart.
- It reduces food waste. I find that when I meal plan I am less likely to buy that bunch of asparagus that might never get eaten. When I buy it, I have a plan for it. And I start my meal planning by assessing what I have left in the fridge to use.
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