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Tools That Help Keep Your Nutrition on Track

Life has been really hectic.  REALLY hectic.  One of the things that I have to make time for each week is meal planning and all that comes along with it (grocery shopping and the actual cooking). So, imagine my delight last night, when I came across this Lifehacker article, presenting the 5 best meal-planning apps, as voted on by their readers.  I have wanted an app that would help with my meal planning, but to be honest, I’ve barely done any searching for it.

Many people say that they don’t have the time to plan their meals, and make it to the grocery store or cook.  It definitely takes time and requires making it a priority.  It can be time-consuming and even stressful.  That all makes just grabbing something from the freezer section of the carry-out restaurant sound like the best choice.  But we know that it’s not the best choice.  Right?

CookSmarts.com

I want a Nutrition Tracking App that can do the following:

•  Collect and manage my recipes (preferably with a web-clipper browser add-on)
• Let me tag those recipes as I see fit
•  Make shopping lists of these recipes’ ingredients list
• Compile all the items on the shopping list into totals

You may not have the recipe library built up yet. Some of the recommended apps can help with that portion, too.  The first app listed in the article, CookSmarts, offers just that.  The fee of $6/month seems pretty reasonable, if you really need a hands-off method or need to build a recipe library from the ground up.  It might even help if you are trying to modify your diet, since you can specify dietary preferences, including vegetarian, paleo, low-carb, etc. The service also includes cooking videos. Pepperplate is a free mobile app and meal planning tool. It assists in organizing your recipes, meal planning and grocery lists.

There are a variety of other features offered by the 5 Apps outlined in the article, and there’s almost certainly one that will suit your needs in terms of providing or organizing your recipes and grocery lists, and also in terms of how you prefer to interact with these services (computer, tablet or phone).

If you are working on the dietary portion of your lifestyle, or are just hoping to save some time managing your meal-planning, I encourage you to check out this article and the apps.  I know I intend to!

One Response

1. Eric Lichtfuss says:

   September 23, 2014 at 9:21 pm

   Oh, man, that’s so awesome to hear! Glad it’s helpful!