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It’s 5:00, the kids are breaking down, and they need to get something in their bellies before they destroy something or someone. Too late to break out the recipe books and create that healthy home-cooked meal you’d promised yourself, so out comes the mac and cheese, frozen pizza, or some other filler food that is fast, convenient and usually over-packaged and expensive.

Sounds all-too familiar? This is the stressful, unhealthy and expensive eating track we all get on in times of overload. But with just one hour of planning a week, we can get out of that pattern. How’s this for an alternate scenario:

Dinnertime in Heaven

It’s 5:00, and the kids come into the kitchen to check about dinner. They’ve already had some reheated casserole leftovers for after-school snack, so they’re not totally out-of-control. And they are reassured by the smell the stew in the crock-pot that you put on this morning after checking the weekly food schedule.

It just takes one hour.

Honestly! Tuck the kids in bed Sunday night then break out the recipe books. Find foods that will turn you on for the week, that incorporate leftovers, and that take into account when you will or won’t have time for elaborate food preparation. Keep a big shopping list beside you for your once-a-week shopping trip the next morning. By the end of the hour, you’ll be looking forward to finally making those home-made perogies on Wednesday that you’ve been wanting to try for ages.

8 Benefits of Meal Planning

1. Save money: Do it right and you might get down to one shopping trip per week, buying only the things you know you’ll need. Less waste, less impulse buying. And most important, less of those expensive pre-packaged last-minute meals and even more expensive take-aways.

2. Save time: Less shopping trips. Only once a week having to search through recipe books. Effective planning for leftovers means that the big pot of beans you cook on Monday also becomes the staple for Wednesday’s burritos and Friday’s taco salad.

3. Less stress: You know what’s for dinner, and know that you’ve got the ingredients. It’s one big huge thing less to worry about all week – for you and for your food-security-challenged youth.

4. Better for the earth: Less shopping means, for most of us, less gas and car exhaust. More home cooking means less wasteful packaging. Integrated weekly meal plans means less waste. And if you take the extra step to base the mealplan on what local foods are in season, you drastically reduce the carbon emissions from food transport as well as supporting your local economy.

5. Better for your belly: With better planning, you can ensure a healthy, balanced diet, while at the same time finding creative, delicious new creations.

6. Share the load: As the culinary-challenged partner in our marriage, I often sluff off cooking duties, or whip up hotdogs-du-jour, simply from not knowing what else to do. Being part of the Sunday night planning makes my cooking nights less paralyzing and more appetizing. This increases the odds of me, and eventually our older children, signing up for regular (and successful) cooking shifts.

So, one hour a week to replace many hours of worrying and last-minute scurrying, eat better, save the earth and improve our marriages. How’s that for a great recipe?

[Photo by ||!prliignore2||]