#130: The Truth About Why Dinner Feels Exhausting

This week, we’re talking about why meal planning can feel more exhausting than other household chores. Tasks like vacuuming or folding laundry can usually wait, but feeding yourself or your family happens every single day, multiple times a day!

From deciding what to cook, grocery shopping, managing preferences, and actually making the meal, the mental load adds up quickly. We explore the invisible work behind feeding a household, why thinking about food can feel so relentless, and how the emotional and mental weight of meal planning makes it different from other chores.

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Transcript

why is meal planning hard
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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 podcast. I'm joined today by Riley, of course, and today we're talking about why meal planning is more exhausting than other chores. I don't think that anybody expected us to say that we're always talking the praises of meal planning.

However, today we're going to the deep dark side. I think we're talking, we're talking some negative side effects of meal planning.

Riley: I mean, here's the deal though. We are meal planners and planners at heart and we are all in on plan to eat. We are also like real people who really plan and who really get. Exhausted by cooking and meal [00:01:00] planning and shopping and all the things associated with it. Just I think people need to know that we know it's not perfect.

Roni: yeah, we also feel the mental load of having to feed people every day. Let's just jump right in. That's one of the reasons why meal painting is exhausting, is because you're having to think about it every single day basically. I mean, a meal plan of course helps with that.

Because you're doing that work ahead of time. Maybe you're planning out for a week or two weeks. Some people are good at doing it for a month, but even still, you're just thinking about food all the time. It seems like I'm thinking about food all the time.

Riley: Yeah, I feel like it's almost hard. It's exhausting in a way that's really hard to like articulate or like clarify, like in preparing for this podcast topic. I, I really had trouble naming it, like, why is it a problem? Or like, why is it exhausting? But I think that that's part of the exact problem is that the [00:02:00] entire process has so many parts that come together to make up meal planning, cooking, cleaning, like the whole thing.

And like, that's why it's so exhausting. 'cause there's so many aspects of it that are invisible and visible, not just like vacuuming.

Roni: Right.

Riley: Hey, here's a vacuum. Here's the dirt. Vacuum the dirt Done.

Roni: up the dirt. And also there's an aspect of when it comes to something like vacuuming or folding your laundry or unloading the dishwasher, you can kind of like put those things off, you know, at least for a day. Or maybe some people do a couple days if, like putting off some of the regular household chores is like not that big of a deal.

However, when it comes to meal planning or just getting food ready for people, you can't really put that off because people need to eat. People are getting hangry. You're looking in the cupboards thinking, what the heck is happening? What are we gonna do? It needs to happen fast.

Riley: Mm-hmm. And if you are a single person. You can just take [00:03:00] yourself to the store. Right? But if you have people that you cook for you, they're relying on you to have done the work. if you have kids who can't take themselves to eat, you know, I'm thinking about my husband, like if it was just me and him, like, he'd be like, all right, Well's, go.

But you know, like there are other people who don't get that option, you know?

Roni: Well, yeah. And if you have little kids that you're like, okay, we have to go to the store before I can cook dinner, we gotta load the kids up and do the whole thing. It becomes its own rodeo in and of itself. You, it's not a simple, let's just stop by the grocery store and grab three things.

Riley: Totally. Yeah. I feel like, like vacuuming and housekeeping, it does compound over time.

Roni: Oh yeah,

Riley: You can only wing it or put it off for so long, you know, this is the idea of like, well, now we have nothing. Or now our house is so dirty, like we cannot put it off anymore. But also I think the, the more you get out of the [00:04:00] habit of meal planning, the harder it is to get back into it.

It is not like just going to grab the vacuum out of the closet. Right? It's, it's so much harder to get back into the rhythm of planning and thinking about what you have and making a grocery list and thinking about the whole week and your schedule and like putting those puzzle pieces together. So they have some similarities and definitely some differences, but I feel like they're, uh, I feel like they're just both ones that do pile up on you and suddenly you're in a bigger mess than you were before, maybe.

Roni: I think part of the difference though for me is that if I put off vacuuming, I don't. Feel guilty about it necessarily. You know, like I'm just thinking like, oh, my house just looks bad right now. You know? Like I hope somebody doesn't just randomly drop in 'cause I haven't vacuumed this week. But when it comes to meal planning and planning food for other people, I feel kind of guilty if it's like I didn't do this.

But like you said earlier, other people are ha are expecting this [00:05:00] because this is like my role in the household. So. You know, food is just, it just has a different connotation on it compared to other chores.

Riley: Totally. It really, that's like one of those invisible attributes, right? It's invisible weight of like, well, other people's needs, right? That that's an invisible weight, but it's also like, almost like perfectionism, like, I don't know, like when, when dinner is not good. Like, don't you just feel so guilty and like when you, when you I don't, I don't feel guilty when I don't vacuum.

Roni: Right? Yes.

Riley: It's not, maybe not, guilt is not even the right word. It just feels like a failure. Like you let someone down, like, and you absorb it like personally in a way that you wouldn't like your bed not being made or your back, you know, floor's not being vacuumed.

Roni: I gain a lot of value from people liking the food that I cook. Now I should probably untether myself from that a little bit, but it's the truth.

Riley: Do we need to have therapy time? Roni? worth is way more. Your worth is way [00:06:00] more than what you made for dinner.

Roni: I, I had, my sister and her fiance over for dinner over the weekend, and I planned dinner. I like marinated chicken and we grilled it and I made these like smashed potatoes.

Oh, and then it was like an avocado salsa kind of thing that was supposed to go on top of the chicken. I messed up like in multiple ways.

For one, I forgot to add any salt to the marinade.

Riley: Oh, bummer. Yeah.

Roni: So then I didn't like add any salt to the chicken otherwise. 'cause I thought like, oh, it's salted in the marinade, it's gonna be delicious. And then the chicken was super bland. And then these stupid smashed potato things I've made them before and they've turned out really good, but I don't know what I did differently this time.

You like get those like mini potatoes and you boil 'em and then you put 'em on a baking sheet and you can use like the. Bottom of a pint glass and you like squish 'em down and then you bake 'em and they get crispy and they were so dry.

Riley: Oh

Roni: Like I [00:07:00] was like, what did I do? They were like, oh, this is really great.

And I was like, no, this was not my best showing and I don't wanna talk about it.

Riley: Oh, last night I had a similar thing last night and that was only my family. So I do feel like kinda, you know, like I didn't have guests, which I. I think if my sister was over, yeah, she's family, but I'd still feel like guest, like with the food, you know, like, but last night I made this dinner and it was, I followed the recipe. It did not look like the recipe. It was so beige.

Roni: Was it a Pinterest fail?

Riley: I mean, maybe, I don't know. It was definitely like a, here's the problem. My kids don't like, uh, spaghetti. And my older daughter kind of is weird about sauce. Like she's like, um, I actually think the problem is that they don't like pasta.

Roni: Oh sure. Yeah,

Riley: doesn't like pasta.

My

kids 

Roni: great question.

Riley: yeah, I know. But my kids are so weird about pasta. They actually really don't like mac and cheese very much either. But, anyway, [00:08:00] I made pasta because I really wanted to eat pasta, but my daughter, I like went through a bunch of recipes like, do you want lemon chicken pasta? Do you want garlic chicken?

Like something that was not a sauce, more of like a light olive, oil based sauce. So I found one and I thought it was so mediocre. It was so mediocre. And everyone in my family is like, this is amazing. And I'm like, okay, it's fine. And it's ugly.

Roni: What did you, what was, what'd you decide on for the flavor? Was it lemon? Was it

Riley: It was garlic.

Roni: Oh, nice.

Riley: It was like a garlic, it was like garlic and olive oil and white wine and pepper butter kind of sauce. Really like light. I mean, sure. In theory. The recipe sounded great. Just Okay, look, I thought it was mediocre anyway.

Roni: Well, igl, at least everybody else, you were the only one ragging on yourself. Everybody else thought it was great.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: Does this therapy be time for Riley right now? Why is it that you didn't like it? That's a bad thing.

Riley: Oh, I don't know. I think I just felt like it was kind of like I just kind of [00:09:00] threw it together and I was too tired to really put like my heart into it, and so then I think it didn't taste good 'cause it had no heart in it. That's probably it, but.

Roni: Anyways. That is why. That is why food and meal planning feels more exhausting. That is, that is a big thing right there is that we do, I think that a lot of people do attach their emotions to the food they 

Riley: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roni: And like you said, like there's an aspect of perfectionism and I mean, I 100% get it.

Riley: Yeah. Let's see. What else makes dinner feel more exhaust or like meal planning? Feel more exhausting? I would say the monotony, 

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: It's not one bad dinner or like one dinner. I think that was it last night. I just was like, this is what my life has come down to. Dinners that I don't enjoy 'cause I'm just tired.

You know? Like I think that was part of it is like, okay, I'm like making dinner really fast. I'm really tired. I'm bored. I. Of cooking and it's like, it's not that I'm bored, it's just by the time I get to dinner I'm tired. I've made content about this [00:10:00] lately. It's relentless, right? It's the same task repeated over and over, like with the expectation that no one's bored, no one is bored of the dinners you're making and you're not strayed too far from everyone will actually eat.

But like, 'cause like my daughter, like, I was like, okay, this is a new recipe, but you might actually eat it because it's different and it's not a sauce. It's like a, or it's not a heavy sauce. Right. And anyway, it's just, it's just the thing you do over and over and over again till you die. And how do you keep it not so monotonous?

Roni: And you were really feeling that yesterday, you were feeling like this is the rest of our life.

Riley: Yeah. For whatever reason last night I was like, this isn't, this is what it is now.

Roni: Well, I relate with this as well because we've, I've mentioned before on the podcast that I am. Very interested in variety in our meal plans for, for literally my own reasons, not because my husband is like, we need to have lots of variety in our meals.

You know, I do personally like to have different [00:11:00] flavors and different vegetables and different meats and everything, but I think that I often put way too much pressure on myself to make sure that we're eating different things. Especially because a lot of the advice that we give people is like, look, only try one new recipe in a week, because otherwise.

You're basic, like you're overburdening yourself by trying too many new recipes in a week. I often don't follow that advice and it's to my detriment.

Riley: Mm-hmm. I think, you know, you and I live in a space where we also look at recipes constantly, and so there is, there we are inundating ourselves with that kind of content, which then does kind of have the ripple effect of like, oh, well I wanna make that, oh well, I wanna make that. And, and seeing so many different kinds of recipes makes you feel that added pressure.

Of like making new things all the time. I feel like I actually do follow the advice that we give in that regard of just like, hey, only try one new thing. Like last night's recipe that was kind of mediocre, like it was my one new recipe for the week. Everything else is pretty [00:12:00] much things that we all like it do feel the pressure of making it different all the

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: because I do make a wide variety of recipes.

We are not the family that eats, you know. Tacos, hamburgers, sandwiches, and pizza. Like we, that's not our staple weekly meal plan. Which is probably why my kids don't like pasta or macaroni and cheese. 'cause I have just like, we just make a lot of different things. But that is one why something like plan to eat such a useful tool and, and I've tried the meal delivery kits.

I, I tried it as a test to see, okay, what is this all about? What is this? And. They are helpful in that they come and they kind of teach you how to cook to a certain regard to kind of teach you how to put together a recipe. Some of it's done for you, you know, like a lot of it's pre-chopped or prepped or whatever, and it's ready to just like, go into a pan, but it doesn't really solve that problem of like, well, my family doesn't really like that, or My family doesn't really like this.

But a tool like Plante allows you to kind of see, these are the recipes my family likes, these are things we're having this week, and we're gonna try this one new thing. It helps you build that, [00:13:00] variety in, and it actually can take away some of the monotony because you can schedule out for so long, you're not having to do the same tasks every single day, uh, or every single week.

You really can like, plan out for a long time and just feel like, yeah. Okay. It's done. And I've already got some variety. It's already built in. I've done the work. Uh, did I just talk myself into a word hole? We need to delete all that. I don't even know what I'm saying

Roni: No, no, you're good. No, I think that you're totally right. Like that's, that's one of the benefits of using a program like Plan to Eat. And I think to piggyback on what you said is another benefit is being able to go back and look at your past meal plans. Which, you know, can both help add variety because you're like, oh, we haven't tried that recipe in a long time.

And it can help you get out of a rut because you're like, oh, the last three weeks we've eaten a lot of the same stuff. And so just having that record of your meal plans can help with that a lot. But as far as variety is concerned, I do think that it helps manage it because of [00:14:00] some of those things.

Riley: Well, and there is that looking back on last week, the last two weeks, that helps you see what you've already done because sometimes it's so easy to forget like you, what did we have for dinner last Tuesday? I mean, I'd have to work pretty hard to think about it, but inside of plant, I don't have to work that hard.

I can go look and I know what we had last Tuesday, and so. It does allow you to have some mental freedom, right? Because like, you don't have to like, you don't have to think, oh wait, did we have smash burgers last week or two weeks ago? Okay, if you go look at your meal plan, it was two weeks ago. Great, let's have 'em again.

Everybody loves that. That's a winner. It's easy, it's simple. Because cooking requires such, this is another way, it's different than like vacuuming. It does require such a continuous engagement. Sometimes you do need those autopilot meals, um, just not every single night, right? Because then you get into that monotony thing again.

So it helps you kind of create that, build in that variety and take away that mental load of having to [00:15:00] remember.

Roni: Well, that's one of my favorite parts about using plan to eat. And I don't know if this is necessarily related to meal planning, feeling exhausting. I think this is actually part of the solution,

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: You know, plan to eat. Does really help with that mental load because for me, once I've made my meal plan, I forget about the meal plan.

Riley: totally.

Roni: Which I think is amazing, right? Like it's no longer an exhausting task anymore because I can just like forget about it because I know it's just on my phone and when I need to reference my meal plan, it's there for me when I need my shopping list, it's already there for me. My recipes live in the app so I can cook from 'em super easily.

Really, that's such a powerful solution to it being like, wow, meal planning is so exhausting. Well, 'cause man, once it's done, it's just gone.

Riley: Yes. Yeah. You can set it and forget it, which is such a in the, like why, why meal planning is more exhausting than other chores. That's another one of those reasons, right, is the tiny little itch in your [00:16:00] brain 24 7 that says dinner is coming. And, or I haven't grocery shopped yet, but I don't know what our meal plan is yet, or like, whatever the weight of it is, because there are so many parts to planning, right?

Planning, shopping, organizing, cooking, cleaning, like there's all those parts. And so you're right, plan to eat really does alleviate, some of that mental tick. And, and only people like us are gonna know what that mental tick is. But just the thing that says, okay, dinner's coming, but I have no plan. Oh, I have no plan for dinner.

I better start thinking about that before five o'clock. But you're too busy doing every other task you have to do in your life to think about it. And then you get to dinner and you're thinking, okay, well I guess I'm gonna thaw out some frozen chicken at 5:00 PM Like, and that just really doesn't, it's just really not ideal.

Right? But taking away that tick. 'cause I do the exact same thing. I set my meal plan, get my grocery list rounded out. Either go grocery shopping or set a grocery pickup. And then there have been times when I've been grocery shopping and I'm like, I don't even know what this ingredient's for[00:17:00] 

Roni: Totally.

Riley: because I planned it and I forgot about it.

There'll be times when my family asks me what seats for dinner, and I'm like, oh, I don't know. Let me look. And it's not an, I don't know, panic. It's an, I don't know. Let me go look. 'cause I've already done it.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: And that's a very different mindset.

Roni: that feels great. Yeah.

Riley: Yes, it does, because it's not lingering and looming over my head all the time.

Roni: You said this at the very beginning, I think you were talking about like you the invisible, there's like an invisible load and I think that that. Is another reason why meal planning is exhausting is because I think in most households there's usually one person who is taking on meal planning, and it does become that like invisible workload.

I think that like the person who takes this on often really feels the full burden of it. Because it is the planning and the shopping, and then you're organizing the groceries when you get home and you're cooking and then you're cleaning up.

And even if some of those additional tasks on that list are like [00:18:00] broken up and like spread out to other people, you're still the one who's like micromanaging it in your own head to make sure that all of the pieces fit into place with each other.

Riley: Totally. Yeah. Yes. Like one brain in that house carries all of that load.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Typically,

Roni: Yeah. Yeah.

Riley: I'm thinking, I mean, my husband is awesome and sometimes he'll go grocery shopping for me, but. I've already, you know, like I've already made the plan. You know, like we, that is a task that is mine. You know, like, and I've already made the plan.

I make him the list and I send him to the store. He might do the grocery shopping or something like that, or even might cook the dinner for me. But I've done 75% of the pre effort, just the cooking and the presenting and the, the plating and probably the cleaning. You know, it was not mine that day,

Roni: right. Yeah. Yeah, but there's still, there's still an aspect of you get to dinner, you get to time to start dinner, and like you're still the one who he's going to, to be like, what, what am I cooking for dinner tonight? Right. Like you're still holding that in 

Riley: right. [00:19:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Let me send you the recipe or, okay. I gotta find, yeah, he, last night he was gonna start dinner for me early and I said honestly. I'll just start it when I get there. I, it's just easier, like, uh, easier than, because I just basically said make sure the chicken's thawed and, 'cause I had had it out, but it wasn't quite thawed when I had left for the day.

And so I just said, make sure that's thawed and it'll all be fine when I get there. But it does, it just, it usually falls on one person and most households can attest to this. And if your household actually doesn't do it like this, I would love to hear how you share this load. I know that in working in like Plan to eat support.

There have been times when people have contacted us and said, Hey, my husband and I shared this task. Like, can we both log into the app? And that's great. Like, that's a great solution. Then you can both see what each other's doing in real time.

It's not like two different, it's not two different apps. It's one app, shared, shared account, you know, uh, and maybe that is the way that it works really well. But I would love to hear more about how people actually do this in like reality.

Roni: Yeah, I would too. 'cause I think it, to me, it sounds like [00:20:00] kind of like a special situation where like both people are working on the meal plan. Both people are like contributing to shopping list creation. What do we have at home? What's in the pantry, Grocery shopping is like fluid as far as like you could go or I could go and it's not a big deal and everybody knows what brands we like. Like that's a, that can be a hard thing to navigate if you are a household where one person normally does all of these things. My husband loathes. Grocery shopping.

And so I don't mind grocery shopping. I actually really like grocery shopping. And so that's a task that I have taken on in our household. And if I had to send him to the grocery store for like an entire list of groceries, it's fine. If we need like five things,

but if I was sending him for like a whole list of groceries that was like 75 things, I would just be on the phone with him the whole time being like, no, we like this brand of this thing.

Riley: Yeah, I, I just keep thinking about the mental load and I think most like. I dunno what to call these [00:21:00] people because it really does vary family to family.

But when it comes to like my kids. Like I am with them 90% of the time because I'm home with them, you know? And so even though I work, and even though I do other things, like I, I do, I am the one who's primarily here, right? And so, like, I'm also the one who's like making the doctor's appointments and, scheduling the dentist's appointments and taking them to play dates and things like that.

And the mental load, which is such a popular topic of discussion, right? But like the mental load of all those things. I think that's why meal planning can feel like the cherry on top sometimes, because you're like, well, I've got all these thousands of to-dos, like running through my mind at any given moment.

Plus, I also have to worry about what I'm feeding them and getting the groceries and the meal planning. I think that they can feel more exhausting to the person this like primary cook, especially if they do all those other tasks too, because then you're like, your mind [00:22:00] is never off. You know, like there's just like something spinning in it all the time.

And just to go back to our vacuuming thing is like, well, when I vacuum I'm like listening to a podcast. Or when I vacuum, or sorry, when I fold laundry, I'm also listening to a podcast or. You know, like I just don't have to, like, I'm not having to like actively like process the meal plan or the, or the, have I made that appointment, or, oh, they're gonna be this age in a month.

I probably need to call and see if they need a checkup or like, you know, all those thoughts. Like, I don't have to think about any of those things. When I'm doing those tasks, like there's like a turnoff, but with cooking, kinda like I talked about earlier, like it does require that continuous engagement, be like the meal planning part of it, plus then knowing that the next meal is coming,

Roni: Yeah, there's no like zoning out while you're making your meal plan.

Riley: right? Yes.

Roni: But like you can, like you said, you can zone out while you vacuum. You can zone out while you fold laundry. There. Of course, there are other chores and tasks that you can't zone out on, like you [00:23:00] said, like scheduling doctor's appointments and things.

But those don't happen every single week

Riley: They don't. Right. Yeah. Well, the other things all do.

Roni: Yeah. Whereas it's like, well, meal planning is something that is happening continuously in our lives and we can't zone out while we do it. We have to be engaged, we have to be looking at our schedule, thinking about what activities people have going on, what's the weather gonna be like, what's everybody liking right now at this

Riley: totally. 'cause that's a whole nother thing too, is managing preferences.

Roni: Yeah. It's like, do we have dietary things that we have to work around? Do we just have people who are going through a picky eating phase that we have to work around? Does somebody, does somebody just decided they're gonna be a vegetarian for the next couple months or something? You know, like there's, there's.

Potentially this, we saw this so much in the dinner dilemma, so we know that

these are, this is something that, that households are really struggling with and this definitely adds to the mental load is like, and this ties back to the, I think the emotional part of food too, is like you want a plan and cook food that [00:24:00] is good quality and nourishing and pleases people all at the same time.

And that can be so hard.

Riley: Yeah, and it kind of has that feeling of like threading a needle.

You have to just get it right and it has to just be like that. Like so particularly with managing preferences, right? It's just like managing everyone's preferences or needs or dietary requirements, like finding the recipes that work can just feel like you're threading the tiniest little needle with the tiniest piece of thread, which is also very brain heavy, right?

And I, I'd be so curious to know what the research is on things like that require your brain to be actively engaged versus where you can zone out. Like, 'cause to me, I'm thinking like, what does my brain do when I start learning versus thinking, like when I'm listening to a podcast, I'm intaking new information and I'm processing it and I'm learning and I am thinking. But when I'm just thinking about all my to-dos and then accomplishing to-dos or trying to like work through to the to-do list, it can feel, it feels very much more [00:25:00] exhausting to do that one than the other. And so I'm curious what your brain, like, what's actually happening in your brain with those different things? Because like the zone out time, like when you are just folding the towel, you can just fold a towel 'cause you, you know, you can autopilot fold a towel. What is, am I giving my brain a break? Like, am I resting it in that time because I don't have to be actively engaged with the task I'm doing or what's, you know, what, how does it, what is my brain?

Is it growing my brain, shrinking my brain? Is it healthy for my brain? Oh, Roni's , Googling. I'm just curious like how this like plays out because it feels so different to me.

Roni: Well, so I was, the thing that I was Googling is I read a book a couple years ago and I can't remember the exact title of it, but, um, it's from a lady named, Dr. Barbara Oakley. And I don't know if she's a doctor now that I say that. Her name's Barbara Oakley. I dunno if she has a PhD or not. It's called like How to Learn or something like that.

Like learning how to learn. And [00:26:00] she was a professor for a long time and she studied, neuroscience in some regard. And, but I think it was because she was like a math teacher or something originally and she got really interested in the way that people learn. I don't, I might call these the wrong things, but I think she called them like, focus mode versus diffuse mode for your brain.

And so focus mode is like when you're in that like deep work and you know, you're, you're writing a, a blog post or I don't know, what do people do for their jobs? Working on a spreadsheet.

Riley: Writing code,

Roni: Yeah. Writing code.

Not brainstorming necessarily, but like actively putting pen to paper. And then the diffuse mode is like why you get all of your amazing ideas in the shower is because when you're not like the two work in, in concert with each other. And so like when you go into the focus mode and then you take a break to let your mind go into the diffuse mode, it your brain like starts to make those neural connections about the things that you were [00:27:00] then focusing on.

So like things like folding the laundry and vacuuming, if you're doing those things, I think if you're doing those things undistracted, so like you're not listening to a podcast as you do those things, that's actually the best time for your brain to make those like neural connections. 

Riley: I just read a thing by Arthur Brooks about this and he said the same thing, like he actually said that going, his thing was going to the gym. And not listening to a pod, like going to the gym first thing in the morning, not listening to a podcast, not listening to music will have the same effect as have the same effect on you as, as the shower in that you will have your greatest ideas in that workout time or in like, kind of like you do in the shower.

And I, I'm trying to find it 'cause I can't remember exactly why he said that, but it has the, it's the same concept.

Roni: it's why the, if you've ever heard of the Pomodoro method for work, it's like you work in chunks of 30 minutes, but you set a timer for 25 minutes and that's your work time. And then you take a break for five [00:28:00] minutes. So like a Pomodoro timer is a 25 minute timer, and then you take like a five to 10 minute break.

And in that five to 10 minute break, you don't think about work. You go and make a sandwich or something instead, and it helps your brain process the things that you're trying to both either learn or like work really hard on.

I would say that meal planning, meal planning is not a diffuse mode for your brain. Meal planning is more of that like active thing, which is why if you're like meal planning and then you do go take a shower or you do go work on a different chore, you're like, oh yeah, we should totally have Smashburger tacos this week.

Riley: Yeah, maybe. So. That's great. What else, Roni? Why else does this feel so hard sometimes?

Roni: I think something that we've only kind of brushed past a little bit is the taking an inventory of what's in your house, and including that in your meal plan, trying to plan around what you have on hand.

Is makes the task of meal planning more difficult [00:29:00] overall. Right. You're kind of like reversing reverse engineering the process rather than let's just plan these five recipes and I'll go shopping for them and no big deal.

But when you're actually trying to use up the things that you have in your house, it's definitely creates more of that Tetris situation.

Riley: Yep. Yeah, it's like a puzzle you have to keep solving.

Roni: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Riley: Yeah, what's in the fridge? What's gonna go bad? Did we finish all that pasta the last time we ate it? Or do we have some left? Did I, what was that spice that I ran out of? Did I write it down? Oh, no, it was salt.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Um, do we have enough food for tomorrow's lunch?

Do we have enough food for dinner tomorrow night? Like, when can I, when do I have to go to grocery shopping? Because I don't remember what we have. Do we have enough of it? And it's like.

Roni: Are we trying to save money on groceries this week?

Riley: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Uh, I've low grade inventory management.

Roni: Absolutely. Yeah.

Riley: Yeah. And I think that ultimately that is another reason why plan to eat really does come in. Clutch [00:30:00] because while it doesn't inventory what you have, it presents you with the list of things that you need. And I take it to my pantry and I check 'em off. And then I am then for sure that every single ingredient that I need, I've, I've looked at before I went to the store. So, so if I did run out of a spice. And I didn't write it down. If the recipes this week require garlic or garlic salt or something, something that you just have, you know, use a lot, you run out of easy.

Like, I know I need it and I know I'm out of it because I checked, I put my eyes on that inventory. I don't have to keep it in my brain. I can just take the list of things that I need to my pantry, to my kitchen, to my fridge and say, okay, oh man, we don't have any more fruit and we're gonna have fruit with breakfast this week, or we're gonna have, you know.

Grew fruit and granola bowls for breakfast all week, but we don't have any fruit. Okay. Well I've gotta have fruit for that and so like it's just, I don't have to keep it in my head. I can, I can kind of do that reverse engineering of the process and I've got the list. Confirm I [00:31:00] have it. Move on.

Roni: Yeah. Or you can look in your refrigerator and be like, we have lettuce and cilantro and. Artichoke carts, and then you can just like do a search and plan to eat and be like, oh, let's find some recipes that use up these things. Like, But I remember like long bef, I mean, Clint was probably designing plan to eat at the time and I just was in college or something, so I didn't know anything about it, but I, I remember being in college and like looking for a website to be like, can I just put in the five ingredients and you can tell me what recipe I can make with these things?

Riley: And as you're saying this, the thing I'm reminded of is that Plan to Eat works for so many types of brains.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: And the reason why I'm saying that is like I was talking about planning from like the direct way of meal plan, grocery list, confirm what I have at home, go grocery shopping, and then come home and cook it.

Right? And you're talking about plan to eat in that you're looking at what you have and planning with what you [00:32:00] have. So you're sitting saying, okay, I've got these ingredients. Okay, now these are my recipes. Put 'em on my meal plan. Okay, then

Roni: are the extra things I 

Riley: What are the extra things I need? And no matter which way your brain works.

Or which or which way do you need to use it? I find that it is much more of a budget friendly way to plan when you look at what you have already, right? Of course it is, right? Like you already paid for that. And so whatever your needs are, plan, it really is so customizable for who you are as a person.

It, while it is designed for people who are planners, it's so, it's so easy to use for people no matter how your brain works.

Roni: Yeah, that's a really good insight that, that it really does work for different. Like processing, however you, you process information in your brain like it, because of the amount of customization that I feel like the app has, it really does work for people who struggle with A DHD or you know, people who just like to be, we would consider like type A and like things to be very organized [00:33:00] and linear.

It is really interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way, that it really does work for lots of different brain types.

Riley: I think one of the reasons why it does that is because plan to eat is so customer focused that we have taken so, so much of our customer requests and ideas and implemented them into plan to eat nearly instantaneously, right? I mean, as long as it takes to make a feature. And, and, and because of that, we have introduced all these new features that works for the people who suggested them, and none of those people are the same.

Roni: Right.

Riley: And so because it is built, you know, it was created by one person, but it was built by customers in a sense. Like it really does. It's kinda a beautiful thing that it, it lands for so many personality types because our customers said, Hey, this is how I meal plan and this would be so helpful. And then we heard that and said, wow, that would be really helpful.

Done.

Roni: So true.

And on that note, if you have a feature request, you can [00:34:00] always email us at help@plantoeat.com. I'll probably be the person who replies to you. What else we got Riley? Anything

Riley: I don't know this. This is gonna go live on April 1st, and I think people are gonna think we're kidding.

Roni: Oh, that's true. We're not kidding. isn't a April fools joke.

Riley: I think it's just that the mental look gets heavy, you know?

Roni: Well, 

Riley: but we're for real about that. That's not an April

Roni: yeah, we're are for real about that, but, but I do think that it is important sometimes to look at the realistic way that things affect us, rather than just always talking about like, here's why it's so amazing and here's how we solve your problems. Like, let's just take a moment to be real and be like, look, this is hard.

Sometimes maybe it's hard. A lot of the times actually.

Riley: And I, and I hope that we do a good job on this podcast of saying, Hey, like, like our dinner dilemmas, like, Hey, we know you have dinner dilemmas because we have dinner dilemmas. What are your dinner dilemmas? Like, let's see if we can like, you know, hive in a hive mind. What's the idea? Just like, let's all think about this together and [00:35:00] help you come up with solutions for your problem.

Roni: Well, we've ended the last few episodes talking about what's on our meal plan. Do you wanna talk about that? I thought that's fun for a little recipe inspiration.

Riley: I do. So last night we had garlic Parmesan pasta,

Roni: Oh, yeah.

Riley: which I've literally said was terrible. Um, it might not be terrible if you make it. I think that there was just some emulsifying issues. 

Roni: Mm. 

Riley: end. So the sauce wasn't quite as like nice as it could have been.

Okay. And it also needed to weigh more salt than the recipe called for. But that's usual. That's, that's the huge over here.

Roni: Everybody knows I've had some rants about salt, so, and yet I forgot it in my one recipe, so.

Riley: Yeah. Um, this is one of those weeks where our weather is kind of all over the place, or was supposed to be all over the place. We were supposed to have snow and 70 degree weather and rain and 75 degree weather.

Right. I know. We just shrug. Tonight is a fridge clean out because we have lots of things that need to be eaten before they are done. I'm gonna make a [00:36:00] cheeseburger soup because again, thought it was gonna be cold. Might not be cold, but I need it in the crockpot. So we're doing it. We're gonna have chicken teriyaki with rice and vegetables, and then we're gonna have some tacos, just like some kind of standard ground beef tacos.

And then we're gonna have sheet pan vegetables and sausage with potatoes.

Roni: That sounds great. 

And, and yeah, we are in that like really awkward springtime phase

Riley: Yes. Yeah.

Roni: in Colorado. I'm, I'm sure other places in the nation experience it just as bad as we do, but it's so inconsistent and unpredictable in Colorado.

Riley: Yes. It's not a slow, it's not a slow, like drive into spring. It's like a roller coaster into spring.

Roni: it's so true. so let's see. Tonight, uh, last night we just ate some leftovers. I, we had some leftover, that chicken that I made when my sister was here. I just made some rice to go with it and like a white bean dip. I really love making a bean. [00:37:00] It's basically like hummus, but you don't always have to use chickpeas.

And tonight we're having like a chicken and tuscan vegetable skillet situation. Tomorrow night we're gonna have this is one of my all time tried and true recipes, and the title of it is. 10 minute sausage skillet with cherry, cherry tomatoes and broccolini. It is literally a 10 minute meal, particularly if you buy the sausage that's like the pre-cooked kind, and it's so good.

It's such a hit. It's good earlier in the season right now because like broccolini is in season right now. Sometimes you can't find broccolini later in the summer, but it is also great later in the summer when cherry tomatoes are popping. Because you do like two whole pints of cherry honey house.

Riley: Cool. What do you serve it with?

Roni: Um, often we'll just serve it with like crusty bread or something, or rice, I don't know, noodles, potatoes. You could serve it with any starchy thing that you want. And then we [00:38:00] have, um, we'll have ramen at some point 'cause we were supposed to have cold weather. And then I also have a Big Mac salad on the 

menu.

Riley: Yeah. I love those.

Roni: I do too. My husband likes salad, but he likes it to be a salad with lots of things on it. He doesn't wanna just have like a plain green salad. And the Big Mac salad is all time fave.

Riley: Yeah, we, we like that around here. It's been a while since we've had it though.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: We've been eating like Italian grinder salads

Roni: Oh yeah. You talked about those maybe

Riley: a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. And we had 'em again since we recorded before, and, they're so good. 

So good. And they last in the fridge, which I cannot say for a lot of salads.

Roni: No. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I don't know if it's 'cause you got the like salami, like there's like the some fattier things in there that are maybe holding it all together. I don't know.

Riley: I don't know. I don't, I agree. I also, there's things that contain, like maintain their crunch, whereas the lettuce may not be as crisp as it was, but it still holds on even in the fridge for like a, like a next [00:39:00] day kind of thing.

Roni: Yeah, it's definitely fine for next day, but we've gotten away with for two days for sure, when we've made like an extra big one.

Yeah. All right. Well we hope you enjoyed this episode and. If you wanna support the plan podcast, we always appreciate a share with a friend or a family member. Or if you just wanna leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, we always appreciate that as well. And thanks again for listening. We will talk to you again in two weeks.