The technology of meal planning

One of the aspects of meal planning that people often find difficult, is recipe searches and looking for ideas on what to make.

Modern technology can help you out here.

There are a lot of meal planning apps out there for you to use, some are paid for and some are free.  All are useful in one degree or another.

Today I am writing about some apps that I have tried out either paid or free.

The first one is on my computer, not my phone

Plan to Eat

This is a click and drag app that allows you to plan 3 meals a day plus snacks. I use the snack option to plan school lunches. It also creates your shopping list.

The only problem I really have is that they only have American stores listed. Obviously they can’t list from the entire wold.  They do have a blog that goes along with the app, so that you can read more on meal planning.

One of the things that I have had to do is create ‘recipes’ for school lunches which enables me to click and drag, otherwise you need to type in the ingredients for every single item in order for you to generate an accurate shopping list.

You can share you recipes with friends who are using the app or keep them private if you wish. You can also import and save recipes from  your favorite websites (except mine for some reason). Not to worry though most of my recipes are on my profile and are accessible to the public.

The app is $5 a month and for me it is totally worth it. https://www.plantoeat.com/

The next app works on both your android phone and computer. This is a free app

Pepperplate

You need to create a profile on the computer and then sync it to your phone to use it.

The biggest problem I had was that I could only import a recipe from one of their supported sites. This meant that any recipe that was from another site had to be manually inputted.

Once you have your recipes uploaded you can then plan your monthly meals and the app generates your shopping list.  Since the app syncs to your phone, you will always have your shopping list with you.

My favorite feature is that if you are having a special event or gathering, this app allows you to plan the menu, starters, mains and desserts, once again creating your shopping list. https://www.pepperplate.com

This phone app is great for converting your recipes from Imperial (US) to metric (most of the rest of the world), whether it is fluid or weight that needs converting. It is also great for when you need to use a recipe that feeds for but there are six of you or only 2 of you.

I have only been using it for a short time but I have found it very useful. You can find it in the play store on your phone

There are two other apps that have good reviews but I cannot test them out as they are only available to iOS phones via the iTunes store and aren’t supported by android.

Cloud-Freezer

This app is apparently more of an inventory app than a meal planner app. I love the idea of having an inventory of my kitchen on my phone. You would avoid buying something you already have. Found on iTunes

Meal Board

This is the second iOS app that I found which had great reviews. It is apparently a combination of Pepperplate and Cloud-Freezer. It takes time to set up, but it is apparently worth the effort. Found on iTunes

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to review any of these apps.

I would love to hear if you are using a meal planning app, which is it and what you like about it.