Menu Planning Is at the Heart of Easy Cooking!

Since it's the first of the year and many people find themselves trying to get a handle on good habits and a healthy body, it's a great month to look at some really good web sites that can provide you with help so you don't have to go it alone.

A couple of years ago, we found ourselves with new information about our health. Some of us were diagnosed with an allergy to gluten. Just the thoughts of trying to prepare meals without gluten was overwhelming to me, not to mention the cost involved to finding gluten free alternatives. As I prayed for wisdom on what to do I came across two weekly meal planning services. Not only were they affordable for the year but one of them was being offered on Groupon and through the website of well known financial planner, Dave Ramsey at a discount. As I dug in and did some research on customer reviews, I was sold on the idea. I tried them both. They each had their strengths and weaknesses so be sure to fully explore their web sites to see which one fits your lifestyle. 

For a minimal fee, I had a yearly subscription to a weekly email. It automatically arrived in my email box with pre-planned meals, a shopping list, a calorie counter, and the recipes and directions on how to prepare each meal. All I had to do was add a vegetable here or there as a side dish, and dinners were planned for the week. To conquer our gluten free woes, I just had to figure out a few gluten-free breakfast items and lunches and my weekly menu was complete. It was awesome!

The great news is, if you are not gluten-free, one of the web sites has other kinds of menus to choose from like southern cooking, paleo, vegetarian as well as several more. Another added feature was getting to choose how many mouths I was feeding so that it adjusted how much food actually had to be purchased to cook the meals. For a small added fee, they also have a lunch menu you can use for preparing lunches for your children to send to school. 

If you are finding yourself lost and confused over menus and meal planning. I highly recommend this as a valuable choice. It saved me the frustration of having to change a life style and it didn't blow the budget because of smart planning. Here are two menu planning companies to check out:
http://www.thefresh20.com/
http://emeals.com/?gclid=CJz1_P71ktICFQwTgQodgtQAkQ