Mom Goals and Resolutions: Meal Planning

by Christine Steendahl⁽²⁾
Dine Without Whine

Being a mom is a rewarding job, but it's also a tricky one. Between all of the cleaning, homework help, laundry, and worldly advice, we have to find time to prepare meals that are both nutritious and yummy to the children. If we don't have a game plan, it's next to impossible.

That's one reason that meal planning is often overlooked in favor of convenience foods. While children generally like frozen pizzas and microwavable snacks, they are usually lacking nutritional value. If we plan meals in advance, we can reduce the amount of convenience foods our families eat and increase the amounts of important vitamins and minerals they get. So why not make meal planning one of your New Year's resolutions?

How Do I Go About Planning Meals?

Meal planning does take a certain amount of time and thought, but it makes things much simpler when it is time to cook. When you plan ahead you're guaranteed to have all of the ingredients you need, and you can plan easy meals for days when you know you won't have much time. Here's how to do it:

1. Begin your meal plan the day before you plan to go to the grocery store. You don't have to plan by calendar weeks, but planning for 7 days at a time makes it more manageable.

2. Decide what you are going to fix for breakfast, lunch, and supper each day. Be sure to include at least one of everyone's favorite foods each week. You could make a separate list of favorites for easy reference. You could delegate this task to the kids so they feel like they are a vital part of the meal planning process.

3. Remember to incorporate some variety from time to time. Trying new things is good for us. And it's a great behavior to role model to kids.

4. Make sure that each meal is nutritionally balanced. If you're not a health expert, get a food pyramid chart to look to for the proper number of servings per day of each food group. You may not be able to hit a perfect balance every day, but you should be able to come pretty close.

5. Once you've planned the meals for the week, make a grocery list. Go through your menu plan and figure out what ingredients you need to buy for each meal.

6. When you go to the grocery store, don't forget to pick up some healthy treat options. Fresh fruits are a popular type of healthy treat among children, and they are loaded with beneficial vitamins.

There are numerous benefits associated with planning meals. It allows us to feed our kids healthy food with less fuss and stress. It saves us time in the long run. And it lets us keep everyone happy by having their favorite foods on a regular basis. Planning meals is a great way to start off the New Year.

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If you would like more assistance with your meal planning, and a sample one week menu and grocery shopping list, log onto http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com

Article submitted Sunday, December 28, 2008 & read 878 times.

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