MEAL PLANNING CHECKLIST

Create a meal plan for a few days, a week or even a fortnight. A fortnightly plan can probably be repeated without diners experiencing meal fatigue and then updated throughout the year to reflect seasonal changes.

Step 1. Choose a variety of protein sources for the week: eg, 2-3 red meat meals (maximum, for optimal health), 2-3 chicken, one seafood and one vegetarian. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, your plan will differ, so create what fits your food preferences.

Step 2. Chat with your household and write down a list of favourite meals. Use a spreadsheet or small whiteboard to assign the meal ideas to the various protein or vegetarian slots. Ideally, try alternating protein sources daily to prevent meal fatigue, eg, Monday - beef, Tuesday - chicken, etc.

Step 3. Check out recipe websites, cookbooks and social media for healthy recipes to fill the remaining spaces.

Step 4. Be intentional about including 3+ servings of vegetables and whole grains into your daily meals (ie, choose brown rather than white rice or potatoes with skins on).

Step 5. Aim to bulk-cook some meals to reduce your workload. For example, cook a double batch of beef casserole in a crockpot on Monday, save the second batch for a pie or shred into burritos on Wednesday, or freeze for the second week.

Step 6. Create a standard shopping list of the ingredients required for the weekly/ fortnightly meal plan. Some great smartphone apps are now available that store recipes and automatically create shopping lists; this can significantly reduce the time and effort of meal planning, too.