#120: Do You Really Need a Meal Plan? (Busting Meal Planning Myths)

Think you don't need a meal plan? Or winging it is easier? We're busting the biggest meal planning myths today, and you might be surprised at what you've been believing.

In this episode, we're tackling the misconceptions that keep people from experiencing the true benefits of meal planning. From "it's only for organized people" to "my handwritten list is working just fine" (spoiler: it's not), we're setting the record straight. If you've been resisting meal planning because of any of these myths, this episode will change your mind. 

Plus, we're answering more dinner dilemmas, including how to navigate multiple food allergies and preferences in one household, cooking without common seasonings like garlic and onions, and what to do when you're too exhausted to even think about dinner.

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Transcript

meal planning myths
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[00:00:00] I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello. Welcome back to the Plan to Eat Podcast. Today we are bust in some myths. We are talking about meal planning myths. Today we're gonna do some busting so that, we can all be on the same page with what meal planning is and what meal planning isn't.

Riley: That's a great way to put it. Especially as we head into the holidays, especially as we head into New Year's and resolutions, like just getting it straight helps us all have a better mindset as we move into those phases of the year.

Roni: That's true if you're wanting to start a meal planning habit, whether right now, which would be a great time to start meal planning because you'll have about six weeks before the new year that you could establish your meal planning habit. If you started now or

Riley: mean, I'm all about not waiting,

Roni: I am[00:01:00] 

Riley: do it. Do the thing you wanna do.

Roni: Let's be honest, January 1st only has significance because we put it there.

If you wanna put your significance on November 21st, instead do it, man. Just go for it.

Riley: I am a, I'm a Monday starter. Like I do like to plan for a few days before I get started with something new. Shocker. I love planning. So, you know, there's 52 options every year,

Roni: Hey, that's a good way to look at it. I like it.

Riley: Yeah. You don't need to wait for the first.

Roni: That's right. But even if you are, you know, getting, getting your mindset right around meal planning, can be a good place to start. If you're, if you're dragging your feet and procrastinating, maybe listening to this podcast to help you get started,

Riley: You wanna

Roni: let's jump in.

Riley: Alright. The first myth is I only need to meal plan for big holiday meals.

Roni: Yeah, we're gonna bust this one right up. Obviously the myth here is that meal planning isn't only for big holiday meals. It's [00:02:00] for any meal that you're feeling stressed out about any meal where you need to just take the brain drain and decision fatigue out of it.

And that's what meal planning is gonna help you do if you, you know, do your meal plan on the weekend, it takes the stress away on all your weeknight, all your busy weeknights potentially. And it's gonna save you a lot of time. It's gonna save you money at the grocery store and again, gonna save you that brain drain situation.

Riley: and I would, I mean, I would add just only that you should also plan for big holiday meals.

Roni: Absolutely.

Riley: I mean, yeah, I mean, think about how much easier that is if you don't meal plan at all and then you suddenly meal plan on that one day. I feel like it's even harder to meal plan for that one day 'cause you're doing something a little bit outside of your norm.

But I mean, meal planning allows you to figure out how many servings you need, what recipes you need, how your recipes fit together in the course of a meal, especially like. Thanksgiving. Like, do all these things like work together? Is it, you know, do we have Anu, do we have a green vegetable? Do we have any vegetables?

Do we only have the, you know, [00:03:00] carby Thanksgiving yumminess, like you only planned a pumpkin pie and a Turkey. Okay, we gotta fill in some gaps here. But especially with, like serving sizes I feel like is key with a holiday meal because if you're having 15 guests over, you need to make sure you've got enough food to go the whole, whole team.

Roni: For sure. And I think that that what you said is interesting Riley that if you only are meal planning for your holiday meal, it's a little more challenging 'cause you're like a little rusty. You haven't done any meal planning. But I also think that that's an opportunity to be like, okay, you planned for your big holiday meal.

Look at how much less stressful that was to have your grocery list for all the things so that you could just make one trip to the grocery store. And then you had a plan for the things that you were gonna cook. And probably even what you did was you planned out, what can I do the days before the big meal, as well as what can I do on the day of?

It's like how much easier to do that, make that big meal? And

Riley: day to thaw your Turkey?

Roni: yeah. And so like how much easier does your daily life become if you're doing [00:04:00] that kinda upfront work too?

Riley: A hundred percent. Yeah. It, it really does help. I mean, I plan not just for big holiday meals, but for big holiday birthdays, you know, like I have planned for birthday parties, baby showers. Like it really does become something that is very much a natural overflow. Like, like I meal plan every day. Why would I not meal plan for this party I'm throwing on Saturday?

Roni: Right. Yep.

Riley: I don't wanna forget anything. I don't wanna have to make a separate trip to the grocery store. I don't wanna have to wing it because the key ingredients missing and I, the grocery store's closed.

Roni: Right.

All right. Next myth is meal plans are too hard to stick to. And I'm gonna say the related myth to this is also winging it is easier than planning.

Riley: Do we also wanna add the next one, which is a meal plan is not enjoyable to follow.

Roni: Yeah. I think that's a cousin maybe of those other ones.

Riley: Yeah. They're definitely in the same fam, but, yeah, so meal plans are hard to stick to. This is a, this is a, this is a thing we hear from people all the [00:05:00] time. If you've been following our dinner dilemmas, um, some ideas around this being too hard to stick to are what I planned tonight doesn't sound good.

So that would kind of fall into the enjoyable, maybe this is not enjoyable to do. And I guess. That like any habit, we have talked about this. I feel like I'm gonna, I'm repeating myself, but like any habit, it's a little hard at first, but once you get into the habit, it isn't hard to follow. You know, you and I have talked a lot about how you'll, you, and I'll plan like four dinners.

It's not that I'm planning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm just planning four dinners. And in the next seven days we're gonna eat those four dinners and I switch up my meal plan all the time.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Like, okay, I don't want this tonight, I want that. Let's have this. Or, oh man, that night got busy. Let's make the easier meal tonight, the more difficult one tomorrow.

And it just starts to flow in a way that's really easy to follow. And honestly, really enjoyable to follow because you already have all the ingredients.

Roni: Right. Yeah. And I think that, you know, a meal planning, [00:06:00] feeling hard to stick to might mean that you're planning the wrong recipes,

Riley: Ooh, that's a good point.

Roni: right? Like, I think we've talked about this a little bit on with some of our dinner dilemmas, is if it feels hard to stick to, then maybe you need to, you know, pick recipes that are your easy autopilot recipes.

Like you could just make 'em with your eyes closed, or they're just in general recipes that you're familiar with, recipes with maybe fewer ingredients so you don't feel like you're wrangling 17 things to, to get your recipe put together. So. Potentially you need to look at the recipes that you're actually putting on your meal plan and being like, why do I feel like this is so hard to stick to?

Like, why don't I wanna make these meals?

Riley: Yeah, that's an excellent point because your, your dinner tonight could be the three ingredients you picked up from Trader Joe's because you follow somebody on Instagram and that's the meal that they, you know, they buy these three things and you've got dinner. It doesn't have to be a 45 step or 45 ingredient, brand new Asian dish with vegetables your family's never heard of.[00:07:00] 

Like, that's not tonight, that's not, that's not, um, how you start meal planning.

Roni: Right? Yeah.

Riley: Unless that's something you already do and you know how to make.

Roni: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then I think the idea that like winging it is just easier or maybe like winging it is just what we do. I think there's an element of it where you don't know what you don't know.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: And that, like, if you, if you think that winging it is easier, it might be because you've never had a successful meal plan or maybe you've never even tried meal planning, just to have that experience like we're talking about with the, you experience it at Thanksgiving or Christmas and you experience that like stress relief of having a meal plan and already knowing what's for dinner and it's not five o'clock and you're like, oh, I guess I gotta go to the grocery store to like get some sweet potatoes and you know, some eggs or whatever in order to make this recipe happen.

And that's just like what you're used to. I, I think there's an element of it that's like, if you think winging it's [00:08:00] easier, you just don't know what the opposite version is.

Riley: Yeah, my brother-in-law was typing an email the other day and I happened to be FaceTiming with his wife, my sister-in-law, and he, I could hear him go, oh, he like had deleted his entire email. So his option in his mind was to retype the entire email. And I said, I think you can just hit command Z. It's like, undo.

And he did that and he was like, oh my goodness. Like you're a lifesaver. But his immediate response was, oh no, I've gotta go do this hard thing all over again because you know, retyping an email you've already written super annoying. Right? But. It is the same concept is like there's an easier way if you can retrain your mind to know that there's an easier, like Command Z is easy.

Like that's so easy. It's like second nature to me at this point to do that. If I mess up when I'm typing, and the same thing applies here. It's like he's used to just having to redo his email, but now he can retrain himself to just do Command Z and it's done. It's back. And the same kind of concept here is like, yeah, you [00:09:00] going to the store for the milk or the can of Rotel that just like makes the dinner, you know, like or whatever.

Like yeah, that's, you can do that and you're probably really used to that, but if you already have it, it's so nice. It's like, and that becomes that like feeling of refreshment, like that stress gets lifted. It's like, oh, there's an easier

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: You just need that positive reinforcement to start working towards that new habit.

Roni: Yep. Yeah. And then this, this other one here of, meal planning isn't enjoyable to follow or like a meal plan isn't enjoyable to follow. I think people might also say this at something like, meal planning's boring, right?

Like, I think those would be pretty related. And in my opinion, I think meal planning is whatever you want it to be.

It doesn't, you know, if, if your meal planning is only boring if you make it that way, right? If you're only planning boring recipes that you're tired of and your family's tired of, and they all kind of have the same, uh, whatever flavors, well then you can create a different meal plan. You get to control the [00:10:00] variety and the flavors and the cuisines and the ingredients, and there are literally millions of recipes online that could add more excitement to your weeknight dinners.

So, so I really think that if you feel like it's not enjoyable to follow, again, it could be an issue with what are the recipes that you're planning, what are, what's on your meal plan?

Riley: And Yeah. And it's not just, is it too hard to follow and that's why it's not enjoyable, it's that you're planning stuff that you don't like or that you've eaten too many times like that happens at our house, like it was just a couple of weeks ago. I had planned the whole week, and you're gonna think, this is really funny, actually, I told my husband, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna tell you what's on our meal plan this week, because I had not purchased groceries yet.

And he was like, gimme the highs and the lows. And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, I wanna hear like the good stuff on the meal plan first, and then tell me the bad stuff on the. And I like died because I, it's how funny, like he views it as like highs and lows and I read him the meal plan [00:11:00] and he is like, oh, it's all highs.

And I was like, sweet. But some of the reason it was all highs is because the week prior my daughter had come to me and she had said, mom, like, we haven't had this in forever because we have this for dinner. And I was like, sure. So I immediately added it to the next week's meal plan and then that, for whatever reason, whatever she told me she wanted to eat sparked another thing that I had forgotten we hadn't had in a while.

So I added that and suddenly I had this meal plan pre-made for the week ahead and it was all highs apparently.

Roni: Apparently your 5-year-old and your husband have similar tastes.

Riley: Uh, they definitely do, they're just two little peas in the pod.

Roni: Oh, that's really funny. This also makes me think of, when we read salt fat, acid, heat, this is also related to Thanksgiving. And in the book, um, Samin talks about how like when she originally had some, like, went to a friend's house or something for a Thanksgiving dinner and was like, wow, all the food just like tastes the same.

You, it was during the acid chapter where she was basically saying like, the standard American Thanksgiving needs more [00:12:00] punchiness to it. You need to add some acid. It's, it's why everybody loves the cranberry sauce.

Riley: Totally.

Roni: why? I think, I mean, maybe some people don't like it, right? But it's like why the cranberry sauce really hits on Thanksgiving because everything else is like kind of bland and we have mushy textures and those kinds of things.

So that just makes me think about this like a meal plan isn't enjoyable to follow and thinking about like, okay, well how can you add some like punchiness into maybe like into your recipes? E Like if you're like, cool, I just need, like the meal plan needs to be simple. So like we're planning the same recipes that I know, but like maybe it's like leveling up the cooking skills a little bit to be like, how do we add some zing?

How do we like make this recipe itself more interesting so that I'm like excited to eat it instead of just like, okay, we're having mashed potatoes and gravy again.

Riley: Yeah, that's such a good point. And I have to share this with you too. I know this is, I'm getting a little bit rabbit trail over here, but last night I had made, well, so somebody had [00:13:00] made us curry, my niece had made Curry, gave it to us, I'd put it in the freezer. So that's what we had last night for dinner.

Made some rice to go with it. And while I was doing, like, while I was heating it up, I was like, I tasted it. And I was like, well, that is really good. But she had told me it was a little spicy for my kids. And so, and it, it was a little spicy for them, but, so I was like, I'm gonna make a little yogurt sauce to go with it.

So I mixed, I followed the yogurt recipe from the carrot and Turkey

meatball thing that you and I love. Yeah. But instead of doing lemon juice, I did lime juice, so lime and salt and Greek yogurt. And I mixed it all together. It was so good. Like, I thought it was so good. It was a perfect topping to the curry.

Like just like that spicy curry with a little bit of like cold zestiness of the lime. And so, but I put it on the sides of my kid's plate 'cause I didn't know if they would want it on top. So my daughter just starts eating the yogurt by itself and she goes, Ooh, that is punchy. That is punchy mom. That is [00:14:00] punchy. And I kept telling her, eat the yogurt on the food. It goes with the food. And she, and she's like, woo punchy. And I have never heard her say that. And I wonder if she got it from you because I, you just were saying this pun you need some punchiness, you need some acid. And yeah, she kept saying it last night.

It was so funny.

Roni: is hilarious. I don't know if I've ever said that around her, but I like it.

Riley: I don't know. I loved it. Woo punchy.

Roni: Ooh, punchy.

Riley: I'm like, stop eating it by itself and put it with the food. I never know exactly what they're gonna like, and so I just do a lot of things like in pieces, right? Like it doesn't have to go on top of each other,

Roni: Right.

Riley: and so I should have just put it right on top and it's punchy.

Roni: Oh wow. Okay. Our next myth is meal planning's only for organized people.

Riley: Well, you can start meal planning and be an organized person.[00:15:00] 

Roni: Yeah. I would say meal planning might be easier for somebody who's naturally more organized, but I think anybody can be a meal planner. And really the first thing to do is just get started. Uh, we talked about this few ex a few episodes ago of like just getting started, your first few weeks of meal planning and really it is just getting started and you're gonna make mistakes and things are gonna go the way that you thought they were going to, but it's gonna be fine 'cause you're gonna learn and you're gonna get better.

Like your first meal plans are definitely. Not gonna be amazing and let, I mean, but like you also might find that you have a knack for it that you didn't realize you might not be good at organizing your bookshelf. Right. But like, maybe you're good at making meal plans and you didn't even realize it.

Riley: Yeah. When I think of people who I know who, who would classify themselves as a disorganized person, I immediately think that something like, like a tool, like use a tool like give yourself a crutch. That is, there's no shame in that [00:16:00] to give yourself a tool to make something easier because you're not good at it.

People who come to Plant to eat are often people who are, who are organized. They love the organization that plant to eat offers, but they also are people who are meal planning with pen and paper. And I think of people who I know who are, who would classify themselves as disorganized and starting with a paper, like a paper plan, like.

Is gonna be really hard, you know, or they're gonna do it and it's really not gonna go well. And so they're gonna probably not continue it. But planning with meal, planning with plan to eat is like pen and paper planning, just way better. It's all the, it takes away all the hard parts. Um, it, for example, like forgetting your list, there's no forgetting your list.

Okay? How many disorganized people, myself included, who leave their list at home,

Roni: Right.

Riley: okay? It's already on your phone. Your list is made. Taking, like getting every ingredient you actually need on two [00:17:00] said, paper list is so hard, so hard. But because all your recipes are on your meal plan and then plan to eat, populates your grocery list for you, you don't have to do that.

It's already done for you. It's like, again, the organized piece, like Plan, eat, provides the organization, it classifies your recipes for you in a recipe book in different categories organized for you. So all you have to do is search. If you can't find it, go search for it with the whatever you can think of.

Um, so I'm thinking like, if the pieces of paper planning aren't working for you, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Find a crutch. And I actually don't think plant to eat is a crutch of meal planning. I do think it's, it's, I wouldn't say crutch, maybe say partner. It's more of a partner. It's taking out all those hard parts, all the parts that are so frustrating, the list forgetting, forgetting your list at home, forgetting something on your list, forgetting to meal plan for a whole night of the week.

All those pieces are done for you.

Roni: Yeah, I'm just thinking about that. Like old, I'm gonna call old school style of meal planning of pen, pen and paper where you're like in [00:18:00] your kitchen and you're like, okay, what meal should we have this week? Okay, cool. We're gonna have like these tacos and we'll make a slaw. You are like trying to write down the ingredients that you like remember from that recipe, and then maybe you think of another recipe.

Okay, we'll have like spaghetti and meatballs and you, you write down the ingredients that you have from that recipe and then you're like, I'm kind of out of ideas. I'm gonna go to Pinterest or, or Instagram and find a recipe. And then you're like trying to write down the. Ingredients that you need from the recipe, from your phone, but then you also are like, how am I gonna save this recipe so that I know exactly how to, so I know which ingredients are supposed to go in it and how I'm actually like gonna cook it and like, oh my gosh.

No wonder people don't want a meal plan. That sounds so horrible.

Riley: Well, I mean either you have 150 tabs open on your phone at any given moment or 3000 bookmarks on your browser, or you have a Pinterest board that is, I mean, I like Pinterest. This is not me knocking Pinterest, but a pin, like a recipe in the abyss of my Pinterest. [00:19:00] That's a, it's really difficult to find 

Roni: And you're like scrolling through and you're like, well, the last time I saw it was on the left hand side and it was about 17 rows down.

Riley: Yeah, yeah. 

Roni: But how many recipes have I added

Riley: was in blue. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's just really not a sustainable practice and just adds to the mental fatigue. Uh, that's just unnecessary.

Roni: Yeah. I think no matter who you are, you can be a meal planner.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to be an organized person, but you can partner with an organized company.

Roni: Ooh, there you go. Hmm. Love it.

Riley: Alright. The next myth is I don't need to meal plan.

Roni: Right? Just like you don't need to make a budget, but you run outta money every month.

Riley: Okay, let's, I'm gonna give a little caveat. You might be a very special and unique individual who does not need to meal plan. There. Are you, there are people like you out there if you're listening to this, which I bet you're not because you're, you wouldn't be listening to our show, but [00:20:00] maybe there are some outliers I'll give, I'll give that, right?

Like I'll give that out there. But in general, I feel like most people, if you are considering what you're gonna have for dinner, if you are buying groceries at the grocery store to eat, said dinner, you're a meal planner.

Roni: absolutely.

Riley: If you eat, you're a meal planner. Yeah. If you go through the drive through to eat your dinner every night, you're a meal planner.

Roni: Yeah, the 5:30 PM scramble, that's a kind of a meal plan. The after work drive through or takeout, that's a meal plan. But the problem with those meal plans is that you're doing all of the work in the moment and it's really stressful. It's like the time when you're already kind of hungry and the life is chaotic.

If you have children, you know that that's the time of the day when they go crazy and they want snacks, and they want your attention on all of the things, and so it just ends up being a way more stressful experience than it needs to be. So instead, if you front load the work a little [00:21:00] bit and you already have a plan for what you're gonna eat for dinner, well then you can just hop in the kitchen and get started cooking rather than being like, what's this like run around rigmarole?

What do we have? Where is it? What can I make with it? What does everybody even want you eliminate all of those silly questions.

Riley: Yeah. It's not that I don't need a meal plan, it's I need to meal plan better.

Roni: Right.

Riley: Yeah. And that it's, that's the fact. It's not a myth. That's the truth. Right. Yeah, you, yeah. If you're not happy with the way you're currently eating, you need a meal plan. If you're not happy with the way you're currently meal planning, 'cause like we just said, everybody's actually meal planning.

We just don't call it that. Yeah, you, you do need a meal plan. You need a meal plan better, and that includes things like getting the groceries. You actually need to go with recipes. You actually like to go on nights of the week where you can actually cook them.

Roni: Right. Yeah.

Riley: I mean, we've talked about this, like, I'm not gonna pick to make beef Wellington when I get home at seven o'clock from work or after soccer practice.

You know, [00:22:00] like I, that's not the night for that.

Roni: Yeah. And you know, maybe this is more correlated with the winging. It is easier than planning, right? Like initially, I wasn't necessarily thinking these were related, but I do think it's kind of related. Because I, I think it's still, again, this situation of like, you don't know what you don't know. If you think you don't need a meal plan, you don't know.

You don't know what the other side of the coin is. Like. It's a great, the other side of the coin's. Great. You should try it.

Riley: yeah, yeah. It's come over to our side. We love it here. We're happy here. Yeah. I mean, I, I feel like there's a million things we could compare this to, but like I think about people who are active versus people who aren't active. Like, and like, once you get over that hump, like you do genuinely feel better.

It's like, but you don't know you're gonna feel better until you get over that. Like, the hurdle of actually doing the thing, the hurdle of starting. 'cause that's not easy. And that's sore. You're sore, you don't feel good. But once you're past that, you just start, [00:23:00] it's, you feel better. You don't realize you're gonna feel better until you do it.

It's the same concept here. It's like. What you're doing right now seems to be working because it's your current habit, but your habit could be so much more refined and once you refine it, it's, oh man, it's so much better.

Roni: I'm actually wondering how many people get started meal planning, just 'cause somebody referred them to a meal planning app or you know, you talk to your friend and you're like, guy, you seem like you always have it together. Like, what, what, what's your secret? And the person's like, well, I just like write down my recipes that I'm gonna eat for the week.

It's like, really helps a lot. And then like they get started meal planning, not because they're thinking about all of the benefits that they're gonna have. And then like two months later they're like, wow, why does my life feel so much easier?

Riley: yeah, yeah, yeah. I, you know, you know, I've talked about this before, it's a been a thing that we've talked about within the ethos of plan to eat. It's like people start meal planning usually because there's like a pivotal thing in their life that [00:24:00] changes.

Roni: Right.

Riley: And, and that could be that they have hit a wall with their budget 

Roni: Mm-hmm. 

Riley: that.

Like I'm trying to come because there's other ones that are easy to think of. Like, you get married and if you, you know, if you're the person who's like cooking for your spouse, doesn't matter which one of you is doing the cooking, one of you is doing the cooking and shopping, right? If you have a kid, if suddenly, like just your life circumstances matter with meal planning, like they can really be greatly affected by it.

But there are other circumstances, like, like I said, budgeting. You come face to face with the fact that your budget is losing to the grocery store. You are failing at the grocery store and you, maybe you came to plan to eat because of you need a budget. We have a ton of, you need a budget customers, and you're looking at where your dollars are gonna go.

And you're like, they can't all go here. It's just not impo, it's just not possible. And meal planning. Then the benefit of that is budget, but then the overflow of that is less stress. You know what you're eating. You have all the ingredients, you don't have to go back to the store. So your budget's even more saved.

Like [00:25:00] less fatigue. Like all these things that are real benefits of meal planning. I'm trying to think of another circumstance, like maybe like health circumstances is another one. Like whether you are suddenly faced with a dietary change, like, oh no, you can't eat dairy. Okay, what do we do? Because you can't wing that.

You've got to figure out what you're going to eat. Um, maybe your child has to have a dairy or has a dietary thing. Maybe you're trying to lose weight or gain weight. Um, and suddenly you have to care about what you put into your body. Any of those reasons like would be a pivotal thing that gets you to start meal planning.

Roni: Yep.

I think people come to meal planning because they have these life circumstances. A lot of the times. they have life circumstances that draw them to, like being more organized or being a more habit oriented person.

But I think that they stay with meal planning because of the other benefits that they have. Right? Like you come for this core thing [00:26:00] that you're, the, the main problem you're trying to solve, and then you stay, you continue to meal plan because you're like, oh, I see all these other benefits in my life.

Like, I'm saving time, I'm saving money, I'm wasting so much less food. Like, everybody's generally more happy with what we're having for dinner. I'm, I'm, I'm no longer scrambling at five 30. So it's like the, you come for the one thing, you stay for the other benefits.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah. That's such a good point. Which kind of rolls into our next one, which is a meal plan won't help me lower my grocery costs.

Roni: Well, this is super patently false. We have data to say that this is false, actually,

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: but I think the main thing here is that when you're overspending on your groceries, a lot of times it's because you're buying things at random. And so when you meal plan and you create a shopping list from your meal plan, you're buying things with a purpose.

Everything that you put in your groceries cart can have a purpose to it. Certainly, you could buy things outside of what's on your grocery list. I often do the extra bag of chips [00:27:00] or cookies or you know, the blueberries that are on sale. Those often end up in the cart. But in general. For me, I've found that it's only like one or two things end up in the grocery cart that were not planned.

And everything else specifically goes into a recipe or is specific to a meal, right? Like you and I have talked about that we don't necessarily plan recipes for all of our meals. So like this is a specific thing for breakfast foods. This is a specific thing for lunch foods. It has a purpose. I know what I'm gonna do with it.

And you talked about this a little bit on our last episode, where you're like, when you go to the grocery store and you buy things and you don't know what's gonna, what, what's gonna happen with them? You're just taking money from the grocery store and throwing it in the trash can. Like that's what you do when you go grocery shopping without a plan is the, the, the bag of spring mix that ends up in the back of the refrigerator that literally you never even opened. That's just wasted money. And so when you eliminate those things from your purchasing. All of a [00:28:00] sudden, your grocery costs are way less.

And you can plan, you can more easily plan ahead for this idea of like, if you do a zero based budgeting, like ynab, you can more easily plan ahead for like, okay, we're only spending $600 this month at the grocery store. Like, how are we gonna make that happen? Because that's what our budget needs.

Riley: Yeah, it's a great, great way to put it. I was gonna say something similar is like, just like you give every dollar a job, you give every ingredient a job.

Roni: Ooh, yeah. Ooh, I like that.

Riley: yeah, quote me.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Um, like when and when you give every like, and so I think I'm thinking about two different ways to do this, right? Like I, you, I have said on the show, like, I will make my grocery list in the like grocery store app, so I can see my total as I go.

And if I see that total getting to be a number I don't like,

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: I go through it and I'm like, well. What can I cut? What can I swap? What can I [00:29:00] do? I have this protein in the freezer already. I'm gonna go scour my freezer. Okay. Do I have the bag of Asian veggies that I could use instead of all these fresh ones to just save a few dollars at the grocery store?

Okay. If you shop in the store, you can also have some benefits there too, because you can see things that, like inside of my app, I can't see that. Ground chicken is buy one get one free this week. So if you're in the store and you notice like, okay, well this is on sale or this is buy one get one free, well you're definitely gonna wanna do those.

Buy one, get one free, put 'em in the freezer. Especially when things like aren't gonna go bad. And then you can use those to piggyback them for the next week's. Groceries like these are like it, but meal planning allows you to do those kinds of things because then you know, okay, I've got this ground chicken, 'cause last week it was buy one going free.

I've got it in the freezer, I'm gonna plan around this instead of putting it in your freezer and then it living there for three years, you know? And I mean, I I, and if something you're making is too [00:30:00] expensive because groceries are expensive, but you can fight the grocery costs by meal planning by saying, okay, we're actually going to have like some kind, like we're gonna have a different meal this week, a lower cost meal this week.

We're gonna use everything we have in the freezer or fridge this week. You and I have talked about this when we planned from our pantries, from things that we have that we maybe never used or bought because they were buying GI one free or bought because they were on sale or somebody gave us or whatever the reason, like when we planned from our pantries or freezers, like we save so much money at the grocery store.

But if we didn't do that, we wouldn't be able to save that much money. If we didn't meal plan with those ingredients, we wouldn't be able to save that much 

Roni: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about, uh, one of the dinner dilemmas that we had on one of the episodes recently where the person said that they, uh, would prep a bunch of food at the beginning of the week, like in hopes that they would, you know, end up using it kind of thing. [00:31:00] And it makes me think about this idea of like, when you go to the grocery store without a plan, you're doing the, like, aspirational grocery shopping where you're like, I wanna eat more vegetables, or like, I wanna eat more protein, or I wanna eat more fiber, or whatever the like, hot thing is in TikTok right now, you know?

And so, and so, it's like you go and you buy the zucchini and the broccoli and the asparagus, but you don't know what you're gonna use any of those things. And you're doing this like, aspirational version of yourself. And, and then you would come home and you're like, I don't know how to cook any of these things.

Or like, none of these things sound like what I want. Or, you know, like you just, you just have no idea what you're gonna do with those things. So it's like. I feel like when you go without a plan, you often end up being that like aspirational version of yourself when you buy the things.

Riley: a good point. I'll be honest, I was very aspirational last week and I bought a spaghetti squash with no plan.

Roni: Ooh, yeah.

Riley: I did this, I did this thing. I thought, man, I haven't had a spaghetti squash in a while. Let me toss this into my cart. [00:32:00] I didn't toss it. I had laid it in my cart, but I didn't have anything to use it for.

Roni: Right?

Riley: And it's kind the idea like, oh, I love to eat spaghetti squash. What am I gonna eat it with? What am I gonna do with it? And then it lived there on my counter until I figured out what I was going to use it for. But if I had done it in the opposite direction, like it was a risk of going to waste, right?

Because I bought it with no purpose. I mean, every day I saw it, oh, I can't wait to eat that. Oh, I love spaghetti squash. Oh, I can't wait to make that. Until I gave it a job. 

Roni: Yeah. 

Riley: And as soon as I gave it a job, it got cooked and eaten and it was delicious. 

Roni: I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. Because squash at least can sit around for a little while. I've definitely aspirationally bought butternut squash multiple times and then finally been like, okay, it's been here for three weeks. I need to figure this out.

Riley: yeah. It is going to be cooked today. Yeah. It, I think especially, I think especially people are like, we do need to have some vegetables in this house. Um, it would be so fascinating to, [00:33:00] if you don't think you waste a lot of money on groceries, it'd be a curious test to start, because like when you throw away a $1 cucumber, you're like, oh, it was just a dollar.

Okay. But when you do that 50 times a year,

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: it's $50 a cucumbers. Or if you do that with a $3 spring mix, a $5 spring mix, pick a thing, you're literally, you should start keeping a log on your fridge. Like, well, we tossed this. That's $2. We toss this, it's seven. I actually, this is odd. I actually get so much joy using up an ingredient all together and throwing away a container empty.

Doesn't that feel so 

Roni: it feels amazing. Or like you 

Riley: not wasting it. 

Roni: you use all of the cilantro and you're only throwing away the stems. You're like, yes, I won this week. I did it.

Riley: Yeah. I used an entire container of feta yesterday, like I finished the feta yesterday and I was like, I'm so proud of myself. It got used in recipes, uh, [00:34:00] wasn't just like having all these salads to try to use up the feta, like I actually like it got used.

But that really does feel so good to like, not waste stuff, but just keeping track because it really does start to add up. And having every ingredient have a job will help you lower your grocery costs. It just will.

Roni: It really will. All right. Final myth we're gonna talk about today is a handwritten grocery list is serving me well.

Riley: Oh, we already touched on this man.

Roni: We really did. Yeah.

Riley: Yeah, a handwritten, handwritten grocery list is not likely serving you super well.

Roni: No,

Riley: And by handwritten we are not talking about the notes app on your phone.

Roni: although that's not great either, because as, as I gave my scenario earlier, you're still in that same predicament of trying to get all the things on the list and remember the recipes and all of that.

Riley: Yeah. I mean, if you, let's just say you have four main dinner recipes on your meal plan, and all of those have six to seven ingredients each at on the minimum. [00:35:00] Right? And then you have three sides. 'cause one of those meals doesn't need a side, three of 'em need sides. Those have ingredients.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: And then you're like, well, we also eat lunch and breakfast and I've got children who eat snacks like, and I eat snacks and I want dessert.

Your grocery, you know, like, think about how long that list gets, you know.

Roni: Well, and I'm just also thinking like even if you're using the Notes app on your phone, how are you coordinating with the other people in your household? You know, like you're not, and so then what are you like calling them or texting them when you're at the grocery store being like, is there anything I didn't put on the list that needs to get on the list?

And they're at work and they're like, I don't know, like maybe if I was at the house I could tell you, but like, I don't remember. Maybe we need milk or something. Like, it's just such a inefficient process, whereas like y'all share the same plan to eat account and when you run outta something, you can just go put it in the app.

That's so much easier.

Riley: If my people in my home say, Hey [00:36:00] mom, I need blank. It immediately goes on my list, on my plant eat running list for the week, and that is from soap to trash bags to baking powder. Like pick a category that you purchase at the grocery store and or other store, near grocery store,

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: and it goes on the list.

Roni: Yeah. And if it doesn't go on the list, I'm definitely not buying it because it's gone from my brain in five

Riley: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll stand there in the store and I'm like, Ooh, there was something, oh, there was something. What was it? And then, I don't remember. I mean, if it's rubber bands, I'm never gonna remember

Roni: No. Mm-hmm.

Riley: gonna have to be written down. But I cannot tell you how often I leave a list at home.

If I make a little, like if I make a post-it note list, because I, that was what I had in my hand at the moment that I needed to make the list. It gets left at home.

Roni: Oh yeah. I made a list last week for Target, even though I have a target store in my plan to eat. I don't know why I put it on a sticky note, but I did. It was like half target list, half to do list, and then, [00:37:00] and then I total, yeah, and then I totally left it on my desk, stuck to my desk, and I got in the car and was 20 minutes away from home and I was like, oh no,

Riley: Yep. And you don't go back when you live that far from the

Roni: you don't go back. I mean, even if I was only five minutes away from my house, there's very few times I'm actually gonna go back.

Riley: Yeah, it's not worth it. Yeah, we cannot move on from this one without talking about the quantities because, like, so if you don't use plant to eat, plant to eat, takes all your five recipes and says three of 'em need an onion, which means we need three onions. Or if we don't need three onions, we need two onions because this one only takes a half an onion and this one takes one, and that one takes a half and it adds them together.

And it looks at all your recipes and says, these five need Italian seasoning. We need five tablespoons of Italian seasoning. And you go in your pantry and you have one tablespoon of Italian seasoning. Okay, I need to buy that. So it add, it adds everything to your list. You are, you are in charge of taking off what you don't need.

But that is the [00:38:00] different, it's a huge difference. Because technology is so cool, then me making a handwritten grocery list of all those recipes, because I'm gonna have to sit there and be like, okay, so if this one calls, I have to do that for every ingredient, all 50 ingredients. I have to say, well, I don't just need one cup of milk, I need 5, 5, 7, I need six cups of milk for these recipes.

Plus we're gonna have milk for breakfast, which means I probably need two gallons of milk for the week. I don't know. All of that headache of, I mean, I don't like math in general, but like just the headache and the time spent totaling your ingredients, making sure you are buying enough in the store, and then in the store panic buying more because you don't know how much you actually need or buying not enough.

And then you get home and you're like, well, I needed two cans and I only bought one. All of that is eliminated with the plant eat grocery list. And that is, if that's not a selling point for plant eat, I don't know that I'll ever sell you on OnPlan to eat. It is my number one favorite feature.

Roni: Oh, but wait. [00:39:00] Riley and her family are coming over for dinner on Thursday night, so I'm gonna increase the serving size of, I'm gonna double the serving sizes of this recipe. So if you're doing that by hand, then you have to make sure that you double everything that you wrote down for that recipe. But do you even remember which items you put on your list for that recipe?

And are you, are you sure you're gonna buy all the right amounts? Well, with plan to eat, you just double the recipe and it changes everything on your shopping list, so you don't even have to worry about it. It tells you you need two boxes of pasta.

Riley: Yep. It's a dream.

Roni: It's a dream man. The grocery list, the shopping list, it's 

Riley: It's a dream. Yeah, it's a dream. , It does it for anything. If you add. If you add, if you add something to your list manually, it adds it. It groups them together. So, okay, let's talk about that too, because not only does it give quantity, it also groups things together. Think about when you're making your psychotic, handwritten grocery list and you're like, what it is.

Have you ever, [00:40:00] have you seen me take notes? They're crazy. Like they're sideways and added onto the corners, and I'm like, okay, we need Italian sausage, then we need onion, then we need canned goods. Then we need it's spices. Okay, now repeat that over and over and over down a list, which means you're going meat section, dairy section, canned, good section, pick another section and you're not getting everything you need.

Then you're zigzagging all over the grocery store. You're not getting everything you need in a concise way. You are like bing bong all over the grocery store and then it never fails. Like, have you ever crossed off five things and you're like, oh, I didn't even see that that one wasn't crossed off. That's what I'm talking about.

It's crazy. Don't do it.

Roni: Okay. I will sometimes, if I have to zigzag, if I backtrack across the entire grocery store, sometimes I'll be like, it's lost. I'm not gonna do it.

Riley: It's not worth

Roni: this one, this. It's not worth it. I'm not gonna go get that one item.

Riley: Yeah. Let's hope I've got [00:41:00] a substitute at home, so

Roni: We didn't need toothpaste that bad. I guess. I didn't get toothpaste on the way in. It's not gonna happen.

Riley: it's a good thing you LA added a handwritten grocery list to is serving me well to the list last because I feel like I'm the most passionate about this one. It is the myth. I was excited to bust the most.

Roni: like psychotic as a descriptor for a handwritten list. It's amazing.

Riley: I mean, it is like, it's probably the best word to describe it.

Roni: Oh, funny. All right. Well, hopefully we've convinced you that you need to be a meal planner and that all of these things that you're believing, well, maybe you're not believing all these things that people, that the, the royal we think about meal planning are just

Riley: You're not, you're not believing these

Roni: You are not believing these, 

Riley: no,

not you.

Roni: our people,

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: but now you've got some great ammo for the Thanksgiving dinner when somebody's like, who needs a meal plan?

You're like, lemme tell you what, you need a meal plan.[00:42:00] 

Riley: Yeah. And here's this podcast episode. Share with your friends.

Roni: Yeah. All right. Now we're just getting silly. Okay. Let's, let's go to on system dinner dilemmas.

All right. Okay. Lisa says. I cook for three people with a variety of diametrically opposed food preferences and allergies. Ah, love that phrase.

One loves meat, hates vegetables and has no allergies. One is vegetarian with several food allergies. I love almost all foods, but have dietary a dairy intolerance.

I love to cook, but sometimes end up making two meals to accommodate everyone. Not only does this take more time, but makes more dirty dishes, not to mention adding to food costs. I need ideas for meals that can be customized other than tacos and rice bowls.

Riley: Which, I mean, we're guilty of giving those as ideas, right? I 

Roni: I feel called out. I feel called out about the rice bowls.

Riley: Um, well, one, this is tough.

Roni: This is [00:43:00] tough.

Riley: This is a lot of things you're navigating at the same time. My first thought is like three or four dinner dilemmas ago. I said, stop doing what you're doing.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: You remember it was like, I think we talked about this just a little bit ago in the episode, but like you're making all this meal prep but you're not knowing he doesn't have a job just sitting in your fridge.

It's like aspirational meal prepping, right? I think you need to meal prep because I think that would probably serve your family well. So you are meal prepping a ton of edge to either be cooked like as meal prep or prepped. So it's easier when you do go to cook it. I'm thinking that covers several of these people.

You're meal prepping, whatever that means. Maybe you're a meal, you're grilling a ton of hamburgers for the week and you're roasting a bunch of vegetables. Maybe you make sourdough. I bet you don't because you've got a lot going on at your house right now. You might. But prepping a lot of [00:44:00] things and then using those prepped things to piece together meals.

Instead of creating two meals, you've meal prepped things and then you, maybe you make one thing to go with whatever you're having for dinner. So you've got all these meal prepped, you've got meal prepped meat for the person who loves meat. You've got meal prepped vegetables for the person who's only a vegetarian.

And then you make another side dish and everyone kind of comes to the table. It's a bunch of sides. It's not just like you're not making a single main. 'cause that making a single main to serve all of these different needs is gonna be pretty tricky. So I would say meal prepping to serve the different people is gonna make your week a little less stressful.

And then doing dinners that are, I have suggested this to somebody else too, but protein, starch, vegetable, and that's the way you organize your meal plan. And then everyone gets to pick their pieces.

Roni: Right. That was basically what I was gonna say too, is you, you do the, the, the plate assembly thing and then, you know, maybe to [00:45:00] make things interesting, you have like a sauce that you know that everybody likes. Or yeah, some type of like, you know, a sauce that could double as a dressing if the person who's a vegetarian really likes to eat salads, you know, the sauce could be the dressing on their salad or something while everybody, while you and the other person have more of like a, a meat plus vegetables as a side kind of a thing.

I don't, I can't really think of any other assembly types of situations besides tacos and rice bowls. Like, because the person who, 'cause Lisa, who wrote this in, has a dairy intolerance. It can't be like, well you could have pizza night. Like, that gets hard when you have a dairy intolerance. Let's be honest, dairy free cheese is iffy 

Riley: It's a little, yeah,

Roni: Yeah. Especially the kind that's supposed to be melty.

Riley: yeah,

yeah. But adding, I'm thinking like. Adding maybe fruit to every meal. Like the person who loves meat but hates vegetables, likely will eat that.

Roni: Yeah. True.

Riley: So you have a big fruit side with all of these dinners, and maybe you have, um, maybe you [00:46:00] have like, you make different types of breads or like those kinds of things.

You know, like a pasta salad is gonna serve the vegetarian and you can make them dairy free, no problem. And then you're a person who loves meat but hates vegetables, like might be into a pasta salad. Um, but coming up with like, like you said, sauces is great. And I think, honestly, I think just prepping a ton of stuff with a purpose, planning them with a purpose is gonna be really helpful.

Roni: Yeah.

There's a part of me that thinks that like maybe the vegetarian aspect is. Maybe part of the base for a lot of these meals, because I think a lot of times it's easy to make like a pasta dish or like a hash or something. And then it's easy to have like either meat on the side, like meat on the side, or you just like put meat on the top or something to serve everybody else.

But it's a lot harder to take meat out of something for the vegetarian. This is also a place where breakfast for dinner really serves [00:47:00] everybody well, I

Riley: Yeah. Pretty well.

Roni: And I don't think, like when I'm thinking about the vegetarian part of it, I'm not necessarily thinking that it needs to be like a bed of vegetables, right? Like I said, like it could be like a pasta,

Riley: yeah.

Roni: you know, like a pasta that's already done up and like maybe there are some vegetables in with the pasta, but it's not like the main thing.

Or like a potato bake situ or like a frittata or something maybe. And then like meat is easy to add on top of it. I don't know.

Riley: Yeah. Some vegetarians eat eggs, correct.

Roni: Vegetarians, I think typically eat eggs. They just don't eat the meat.

Riley: meat. Yeah.

Roni: But they will eat dairy products. I believe in eggs.

Riley: Yeah. Okay. I'm just thinking, I'm just trying to think of some more ideas. Looking up recipes within the Paleo family might be helpful, um, because that would, if you want to make a dinner for everyone, paleo is gonna cover vegetarian and the dairy intolerance,

Roni: Right.

Riley: uh, paleo eats meat, but like, you could re, [00:48:00] you know, if you're, as long as the meat is something you can choose or not choose.

Yeah. Um, but it might give you some great side dishes.

Roni: If everybody beans like center, some of your meals like around that, because there's also protein in beans.

So like, I don't know, this is a, this is a tricky one. You're, you're definitely, up against some issues with this, but I think this is why meal, this is why meal planning is important. Because imagine if she wasn. Planning ahead to do these things. It would be super hard.

Riley: Yeah. I, I'm, I'm thinking right now about the one who loves meat but hates vegetables. Um, and I, I know people who hate vegetables, but they are still staple vegetables. They eat. And I don't know this to be totally true, but like I'm thinking about my, per the person in my mind who hates vegetables, they still eat potatoes and green beans.

Roni: Yeah. Right.

Riley: And so like potatoes can be a really great base. Like, I mean, ta potatoes go into the tacos and rice bowls category. So I hope this person isn't like rolling [00:49:00] their eyes at me, but like, that can be such a great base. You mentioned hash, like sweet potato, hash potato, hash, and then just the. Topping options are varied from person to person.

We're having baked potatoes. You can put these six things on it. Every, you know, you can have three of them. You can have two of them, and you can have five of them, seven, six of them. But you just kind of pick and choose the things that you, that go on them for you. Either, either, things like that.

Instead of making two dinners, come up with things. I mean, I, I know other than tacos and rice bowls, the reason why that becomes a very common thing for us to pitch is because you made one dinner and people pick what goes on their plate. And so. But choose, like coming up with different things as the base.

Maybe quinoa is our base. A quinoa salad is our base. A pasta salad is our base. And then you can pick to have this or this or not. It's why the idea of taco and rice bowls is common for [00:50:00] us because it eliminates a workload, but like, and rice bowls can be flavored in a hundred ways. But breakfast for dinner is another really good option.

Roni: Yep. All right. Lori says family members either don't like or are allergic to the most common seasonings in meals, IE, onions, pepper, garlic, and anything spicy. We don't know anything about Lori's situation, but potentially like one of the people that, uh, we answered their question last time, like potentially this is just a season. Like if the people, the family members that, I mean, being allergic to things is different, right?

But if, if the issue is just like, well, we don't like anything spicy, that could change as people as like small pals change and, you know, mature. So hopefully this is just something maybe you're navigating for season.

Riley: Yeah,

Roni: so my sister-in-law, she's probably listening. [00:51:00] Uh, she has, uh, an allergy to onions and garlic, anything. She's like, kinda like low FODMAP situation. And so we had them over for lunch a few weeks ago, and I was trying to be sensitive to the things that she could eat. And so we had tacos, which, you know, may, this doesn't always help everybody, but it's an easy thing to like, please a crowd, I think.

And so I made like, like a cabbage slaw to go on top of the tacos. And normally I would put, uh, maybe like, uh, green onions in there, and garlic and, you know, I didn't do that. All I did was. Cabbage, cilantro, olive oil, lime, and then salt. So it's, I feel like there's ways to still make, and it was delicious, right?

Like, I feel like there's still ways to make delicious food without [00:52:00] what we would consider like common seasonings.

Riley: Yep.

Roni: And just like getting outside of the box a little bit. Like there's a part of me that feels like it's almost like related to like the beginning that we were, we're talking about the punchy, you know, uh, like there might be some basics of cooking that that could actually really help, like this salt fat, acid heat idea.

Like you can still make really delicious food with just like really basic things. And a lot of the times the food is missing either the salt piece or salt piece or the acid piece to make it really tasty and you don't necessarily need what we would consider as common in, flavors in order to make it tasty.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think these are actually avoidable, with salt, um, salt, an Italian seasoning blend that does not have garlic in it, I think is pretty easy to find. You might have to work harder for an onion free one. 'Cause sometimes they put onion flakes, but maybe not. I, I have been doing a little research in the [00:53:00] background because I wanted to come up with some real things that could help, but,

see, like herbs if you don't have them at homegrown an herb garden, if not buy them dried. It's no big deal. Dill in salt, cilantro, and lime. Parsley in salt, you know, I'm thinking like,

Roni: Basil.

Riley: basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, like all of those things add a ton of flavor brightness to foods that don't fall into that list.

I can think of a lot of recipes that if I eliminated the onion, I don't know that I would be bothered.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Yeah, sure. It might add a little bit more depth of flavor, but if you are feeding people, I mean, we don't know anything about this person's situation, but I'm thinking about like, my children are never gonna be like, mom, this does not have enough depth.

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: Well, I left out the onion because you, it's

Roni: It's not punchy enough,

Riley: yeah. Um, if you are allergic to an onion, sometimes people are capable of eating oh shoot. It totally left me. Uh, chives.

Roni: Oh, right.

Riley: The onion [00:54:00] bulb is sometimes the problem, but chives may not be the problem. So looking at chives, things like ginger,

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: fennel, those bring a lot of flavor to meals, and don't fall into this category.

Nutritional yeast can sometimes add a lot. I mean, this is, I mean, it's a dairy free sub all the time because it adds a cheesy, savory flavor, but it could fill in, some of that depth of flavor you might be missing.

Soy sauce,

Yeah. Yes. Apple cider vinegar. Lemon juice. Lime juice. Ginger juice. You can buy ginger juice just straight up.

And if garlic, I mean, garlic is a tricky one. I feel like I measure garlic with my heart and I use a lot of garlic. But I feel like it's possible to come up with, I

Roni: don't think you're gonna come up with a, I don't think you're gonna come up with the same, same. I think garlic is just one that you're just Well, we just don't, when we make our sopa toscana or whatever, it just doesn't have garlic in it. Maybe we put a bay leaf in it [00:55:00] instead, while it's cooking and it gives it a little bit of a different flavor.

I would, I wouldn't, I was gonna say related to your, like sometimes the garlic bulb is the issue. So for my sister-in-law, onion and gold. Yeah. Sorry. Onion bulb. So for low fodmap, my sister-in-law told me that she can have some of the dried version so she can have some onion powder and some garlic powder.

So there's an element of it that's like, maybe you could, I understand that people don't necessarily like it, but also if you're dealing with allergies, you don't wanna go heavy on a seasoning that somebody's allergic to anyways. But like there's an element of it that's like, if that's part of the issue, maybe, doing a little research you could find out that like, oh, we could have the dried, the powdered version of this, where instead of just having like actual diced onion in the recipe.

Riley: Yeah. And I think about kids who look at something inside of like, oh, this has something green in it. I will not eat. You know, like I think about how many kids are anti-green, right? For whatever reason. But using a dr, okay, if [00:56:00] they saw an onion piece, if their issue is that they don't like it and not the allergy, and they see the onion hunk and they're like, no way.

Using onion powder is invisible.

Roni: Exactly. Mm-hmm.

Riley: inside of the recipe. So that might work, but I would say This is overcomeable with just broadening your spice. Like you said, the cooking, your cooking skills might need to be broadened just a little bit. Like reading a book like salt fat, acid, heat to help you say, okay, well we can't have garlic, but we could add a blank.

Like maybe, maybe this recipe is cumin. We can't add garlic, but cumin is gonna fill in that gap and not forgetting that sometimes if something is lacking flavor, it might just need salt, or a little bit of acid like we talked about. But I think expanding your, uh, herbs, expanding your seasonings, you're gonna be able to have really great tasting food without these things.

Roni: Totally. Yep. I think just doing a little experimenting is probably key here. And, and looking

Riley: leaving it [00:57:00] out.

Roni: Yeah. Leaving things out and maybe looking into the low FOD map and, and, like finding people who write recipes for low FOD map, because I know those don't include onion and garlic, so,

Riley: Yeah. I would say also just as like a kind of a blatant like overarching thing is like leave something out and then taste it. Okay, well we can't have the onion so we can't go back and add the onion, but it feels like it needs something. Okay, what can we add that's not in these, like what can we add to this?

Like you said, does it need a bay leaf? Does it just need a little extra salt to give it a little bit more flavorful? Like, but like cook it without the thing, like as a test drive, cook it without the thing. You can't have, follow a regular recipe, cook it without the things you can't have taste and add and taste and add.

Roni: Yeah. Or if like a recipe, right? The start of a lot of recipes is like saute your onion. Well, maybe you could do a, like some celery stocks, right? Like dice some celery instead and just like, it's gonna taste a little bit different. But it's still this like same idea [00:58:00] of like you're sauteing something.

Getting it a little like caramelized and like maybe that's the part that makes the recipe good. I don't know.

Riley: . All right. Next up is Shelly. Decision fatigue. I'm a full-time teacher. My husband also works full-time. We have three teenagers that are busy with sports and jobs after school. At the end of the day, I'm exhausted.

There are times when meal planning works really well, but there are also times where I'm too exhausted to come up with ideas. My husband does all of the cooking and he rings every day to say or to ask what is for dinner. I dread that call because I can't answer it. Sometimes we take, sometimes we'll get take out even though we have a house full of ingredients, the rolls around when I do my meal planning and meal prep, but I'm too exhausted to do it sometimes. Well, one, I get it. This is everybody. I mean, everybody has these seasons.

Roni: Mm-hmm. I, the first thing that came to my mind listening to this is you say there are times when meal planning works really well, and so I'm thinking if you use plan to eat those times when meal planning has worked really well, [00:59:00] save those meal plans as menus and just reuse 'em for these. Other times when you say you're too exhausted to come up with ideas and you know, every, obviously week to week things are in your life are gonna be a little bit different.

But there are, I'm, I'm certain there are some like essential pieces of those meal plans that worked really well that would work any week and maybe there's just one or two recipes in there that you could swap out with something different. Or you just make the decision of like, we're gonna, we're just go, I'm just gonna plan for takeout because that's the simple option this week.

And sometimes we just need that. That's what comes to my head first is like looking at those meal plans that work really well. Saving 'em and reusing 'em.

Riley: Yeah. Building in a night of takeout so that you don't, aren't wasting groceries and money like we've talked about extensively. This episode, just build it in so that if tonight is that night, it doesn't matter if you planned it for Friday, let tonight be that night. We'll regroup on Friday, we'll cook something we bought ingredients for, but we [01:00:00] planned this night to go out.

I like you said, with like saving menus when he calls you and says, what's for dinner? Like, if you don't, if you don't want to answer that question, like that's the thing that's the key is going back to past menus and meal plans. It, because even if it doesn't air quote sound good, you can at least have an answer.

You know, like if you, you scroll back two weeks ago and you're like, okay, we had, that was really easy and that was really good. It doesn't sound amazing, but here's what, here's what we had two weeks ago. Can you make this, yeah, I just, it'll help that dread. Like we all have those times where we dread meal planning, we dread or too exhausted to do any kind of meal prep.

And so like when you can reuse what you've already done in the past, it's amazingly helpful. It just fills in that gap. And that feels good. 'cause that weight is immediately lifted.

Roni: Yeah, this is really interesting. 'cause sounds like she does the meal planning, but her husband does the [01:01:00] cooking. So there's an element of it where I'm like, maybe it needs to be a little bit more of a collab. The meal planning might need to be more of a collaborative effort to like, ask your husband, like, what does he want to cook this week?

Or does he have any idea? Right? Like, and maybe you guys already do that a little bit, but if he's calling you to, to ask what's for dinner, then maybe, maybe like getting him involved, involved in that process a little bit more. Just like helps take some of the burden off of you, right? Like dispersing that load a little bit of like the two of you can come up with more ideas than one of you can by yourself.

Riley: Well, and instead of him calling, have him download the Plant to Eat app and open the Plant to Eat app. And you have planned baked potatoes. I'm gonna use it again. Baked potatoes. Okay, cool. Got it. I don't even have to ask her. And that is a very simple thing that takes that pre pressure off of you. He has the app, you share the app, he sees the shopping list, he sees the meal plan that you made for him.

He's doing the cooking part. You're doing the planning part. That's [01:02:00] great. But the collaborative effort kind of culminates in having both the apps. The app is downloaded on both your phones. Um, there is no cost to an additional app download. All you do is download it and log in one shared account. So I think those, I think that would be really helpful too.

Roni: This is, this is a, a struggle because I think that a lot of people resonate with this of like, I'm just exhausted and a lot of times I, I, I'm too exhausted to even want to meal plan, but I'm gonna go back to the thing that we've said multiple times, which is we all have chores that we do that are hard and we don't wanna do them, and we don't like them, and we do them anyways because we know that it's a future, a favor to our future self.

Riley: yeah. I also think, um, I, I mean I use this one example a lot. We're gonna get this as pushback eventually. I know. But, um, crock Pott,

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: like if you're not exhausted when you get up in the morning, put the food in the crock pott, do your future self a favor. Like, that's what I keep thinking with this is like, what [01:03:00] can we do that is a future favor for ourselves?

Because then, because I know I'm gonna be tired, I know he's gonna call me. I know I'm gonna not wanna do it. So tho everything we've suggested so far is eliminating it. It's a, it's doing something that your future self will. Thank you for having him download the app. Um, meal planning from previous meal plans and putting something in a crockpot so it's ready when you get home.

May and, and all of those things. I, I'm not gonna suggest meal prep because you're too exhausted to do it sometimes, like, but putting it in the crock pott before you go to work, then he doesn't even have to cook it, it's already done. Maybe he cooks the pasta that goes with the thing that you put in the crock pot in the morning or whatever.

But just like saying, I know I'm gonna be too tired. What can I do right now?

Roni: Yeah. So I'm not a teacher, however, I know people who are teachers, and I know that being a teacher doesn't necessarily mean that your entire summer is free. A lot of, you know, a lot of teachers have to take continuing education classes and stuff like that. [01:04:00] However, I'm seeing the summer as kind of like a prime time to do a bunch of batch cooking and stock up your freezer

Riley: It's a great idea.

Roni: if you have the space to be able to have some recipes in your freezer.

I think maybe like, you know, the end of the summer rolls around and you're just like, we're gonna spend two days, we're gonna cook a bunch of recipes, or we're gonna make a bunch of dump crock pot meals or whatever. And we're gonna, I'm gonna stock myself up for the next like three months of weeks that I don't want to cook, or weeks that I am too exhausted.

And then maybe you do the same thing again at winter break. And like, I know like you want your winter break to be relaxing, but maybe you take a, maybe you take a day and you restock your freezer with some more recipes and uh, you just take some of that load off of the every day by doing it all at once.

Riley: I mean, this sounds a little crazy, but you could also meal plan for the entire semester.

Roni: Oh, wow.

Riley: [01:05:00] It's a little crazy,

Roni: Ooh.

Riley: but you could, even if it was just,

Roni: even if you just put two recipes every week, even if you just put two recipes on every week, then at least you have two recipes that 

Riley: Or even if you, even if you only made two months worth of meal plans and you did that for two months and then you did it again, you just like, you made two months, you made eight weeks worth of meal plans, and you eat the same thing for eight weeks. You know, same meal plan for eight weeks, and you flip it and you do the same.

You just duplicate. You just do it again

Roni: I mean, let's get crazy.

Riley: It's possible with plant to eat.

Roni: It's so possible. Yeah.

Riley: And I think our goal with this person's entry is just like, how can we lift the burden? How can we lift the load? And I think any of the, any combination of those things is gonna lift.

Roni: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think we've, me mentioned this before is like the idea that, like, I really like that idea or like creating way far out meal plans because I even experience when I, if my husband is like, [01:06:00] Hey, let's have this pot roast or whatever, and I'm like, okay, cool. I'll put it on next week's meal plan.

Then when I go to start next week meal plan, I'm like, oh yes, we already have a recipe. That's amazing. And so, yeah, and or you could get there and be like, Hmm, it's not a pot roast week, it's supposed to be like 75 degrees. You know, so, so like there's also that, but there's this element of like having a jumping off point.

You can look at the recipes and say, yes, super happy, so proud of myself for doing this already. Or you look at it and you say, Hmm, not hitting right now, but at least I know what we don't want. And I can, I actually, you know what? This other pasta recipe sounds really good, where I'm gonna plan that instead.

Like there's just an element of like, when you have too many decisions to make, because you're looking at your recipe book, it has 500 recipes in it. It's really hard to decide. But if you're looking at the meal plan that has three recipes on it, and you can say yes, yes. No. Way easier.

Riley: that's a great idea. Yeah. Um, another option is the meal plan, like template. 

Roni: Yes. 

Riley: And [01:07:00] then when he calls you and you're dreading the call because you don't know what to say, you can say, well, it's Taco Tuesday, you got this.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: But that is, that's a really good point. Like, I, I keep thinking like I'm trying to put myself in this person's position because I've been there where I am too tired.

I do not 

Roni: Mm-hmm. 

Riley: not want to have the effort. Um, and that's where I think like somebody would give pushback of like, Ooh, but I can't make a meal plan for six months because I don't know what I'm gonna wanna eat on Tuesday, November 17th. If you're in this position where you are decision fatigued completely, you work full-time, you have three busy kids and you don't wanna do this anymore, you might not care.

And you're like, well, I planned it. Cool. We're having a lasagna. I don't care. Love it. Well, it's, it's on there already. I did that work for myself.

Roni: Yeah, it sounds like your husband's really flexible. He just calls you and asks what he's gonna cook, so just make the plan.

Riley: yeah. And then just say, look at the meal plan and be like, woo, all this sounds gross. Let's figure it. Let's do something different. Maybe you've got the energy to do it that week.

Roni: Yeah, I [01:08:00] like it. Okay, well, I think we might have found out some good ideas for this one. Okie dokie. Well. We're wrapping up for today, but we appreciate you guys listening. We really appreciate everybody who has sent in their dinner dilemmas. It's been really fun to talk through some of these and come up with some more interesting ideas and, you guys are definitely challenging us to think outside the box.

Riley: I was just thinking that.

Roni: Yeah. So if you liked this episode, this is a great episode to share with somebody who you love, who maybe isn't into meal planning yet, but you think they would be a great meal planner. So share this episode with them. We'd really appreciate it, and we will talk to you again in two weeks. I.