You may be wondering why a health and environmental blog would include an entire section on meal planning. Well, did you know that up to 40% of food in the United States is thrown away?!?(1) That is astounding considering the lack of food security worldwide. If food waste were a country, it would be the third top emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China.(2) Additionally, the amount of water, resources, packaging and chemicals required to produce, process, and sell this wasted food is immense. Fifteen percent of waste generated by each household is food.(3) That does not include the packaging that is thrown away or recycled.
But, fear not, there is a better way. Here at Green Life Philosophy (GLP), we believe that meal planning is the key to cooking in a healthy way, avoiding waste, and saving time and money. Home cooked meals made with fresh ingredients are worth the investment. That means that food is a priority for our family and requires a prime spot when budgeting our time and money. By making a plan you will ensure that you consume what you buy. Planning will also allow you to prepare for shopping by bringing your own containers to avoid excess packaging. My hope is to share what we have learned over the years. Come back to this site weekly to see what we are eating. I hope you can use this as inspiration and to save you loads of time. We’ve done the hard work, you just need to make your shopping list. Use the notes to see what can be prepped in advance and how to make the most of the meals and I will include green tips for shopping, cooking, and storing. Each week a new plan will be posted to the blog and is an exact replica of what we are actually eating for the week. You can also find old plans by clicking on the Weekly Meal Plan category. It is real and doable, I promise. Enjoy!
Some notes on what you will find in these meal plans:
- We live in the Midwest and cook as much as we can based on what is available seasonally. We get a food share from a local farm for 20 weeks of the year. The rest of the year I am at the mercy of our local grocery co-op so I may tweak the plan after I do my grocery shopping and find that broccoli is cheaper than cauliflower right now. I encourage you to make changes to the plan as well in order to fit what is available at your local grocer or farmer’s market that week.
- We do not follow one specific diet plan. In general, we eat minimal sugar and starch (bread, pasta, rice, flour). We load up on vegetables and protein. Which brings me to…
- We are not vegan. I try to reduce our meat consumption for environmental reasons and will incorporate at least one vegetarian meal per week, but we eat plenty of meat, cheese (we live in Wisconsin!), and seafood.
- I will provide links to recipes as I can, but often there is no recipe – mashed sweet potato is simply that, mashed up cooked sweet potato with nothing added unless noted in the plan.
- Most full meals can be made in 30-60 minutes from start to finish. Some may require additional cooking time and you may need to do some prep work the night or weekend before. I typically make one meal per week that requires more time investment. I also have 2 meals per week that are quick to prepare on the days when I work later or if the kids have activities. Sometimes this involves using previously frozen meals. I’m talking meals I’ve prepared and frozen, not the TV dinner type.
- We have a family of 5 with 3 kids under the age of 10. You may need to tweak the plans to fit your family size or food preferences. For the most part my kids eat what I make or they don’t eat!
- Pizza night is once every week. We have it down to a science and don’t even have to think about it. If you look in our kitchen you will find ingredients on hand at all times to make homemade pizza and a salad. This helps to make meal planning easier and the kids really look forward to it. In fact, they are mad if we skip it!
References
- https://www.nrdc.org/issues/food-waste
- http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3347e/i3347e.pdf
- https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/web/html/
