This question kept me up late last night:
Why don’t you make shopping lists for people instead of meal plans? let people make what they want, when they want it. when the food is out, you’re done eating until the next shopping list is published.
Really, its a very good idea.
A predetermined weekly shopping list that contains a set number of calories, fruits and vegetables provides an incredible amount of flexibility while at the same time helping people ‘target’ a certain calorie intake.
Basically, take a weekly calorie goal, and eat it through out the week in any manner you like. Once meal per day, three meals per day, 32 meals per day….what ever suits you best. BUT, when the food runs out..the food runs out.
This would be a great way to learn what a certain calorie intake ‘feels’ like.
The simplicity and logic makes this an intriguiging idea.
I checked with John Barban and his meal plans do indeed include a weekly shopping list. So if you are interested in meal plans, but crave diet-flexibility the same way I do, then this approach (as suggested by Travis) may be something you want to experiment with.
BP
PS – If you want to check out johns plans while they are still half price (I think the sale ends today) visit www.qualitymealplans.com
PPS – Obviously there are certain limitations to this plan, like if you shop for a family of four, but if you can manage it, it might be worth the experiment.
I did something similar for a while – kept an “allowance” of portions of meats/dairy/bread/fats/etc (minimums of fruits & veggies, maximums of everything else), with a certain amount allowed each week. It worked very well, but ended up more complex than I expected (fortunately I cook a lot from scratch, so I could tell how much fat/flour/sugar was in something like cornbread). But it worked. I’m not sure how it would work in a household with more than one person.
I like this idea. I remember a while back when I was out of work and didn’t qualify for unemployment. I lived on food pantry items and charity from fellow church members. When the food was gone it was gone.
I have plenty of nonparishable and frozen food in my house but I keep buying more each week rather then eating up what I have. I think I am afraid to have no food in the house. This would be an interesting challenge to myself to over come a compulsion to buy food so frequently.
This just shows how messed up my thinking can be about food. Food is fuel. I may not want to cook up the dry beans in my pantry and eat them with some rice instead of meat, but I could live on that. At the moment I think I probably have two weeks worth of food if not more not counting the dry beans and rice. I need to over come this compulsion to always have so much food on hand.
I think I might try going for a while just buying cat food/litter, TP, other hygiene items, milk, eggs and fresh veggies and fruit I wonder how long I can go just doing this and NOT eating out. It is not exactly the plan mentioned above but to follow that plan, I would have to get rid of the food I currently have.
As far as a family doing this, many families buy a certain amount of food each week and when the food is gone it is gone. That is the lifestyle of people living on food stamps and food pantries.
It can be done with a middle class family but the kids might raise a big stink if they eat up all their cold cereal for example. If the whole family was invested in trying this plan as a way to live more simply, or sacrifice to give more to charity, or to save money for something they all wanted like a vacation it could work.
It might even work for me. I could see how much I have been spending at the grocery store and save up that money to buy something I want but wouildn’t normally buy for myself because I see it as a luxury item not a necessity. That might be a good motivation.
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I think shopping list is very good idea. If you add to it list of exercises which need to be done during the time when food run out will be even better.