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moments for meal planning? When you consider that food costs are usually the second largest monthly expense-after mortgage or rent payments-reducing that expense can raise the budget savings significantly. Take a closer look at the long-term savings in money, time, and health that come with taking the time to think ahead about what you’ll be eating.

       SEVEN SIMPLE STEPS TO MEAL PLANNING

      1. Determine your food budget.

      2. Decide how often you will shop.

      3. Know how many people will be eating each meal so you don’t buy too much food.

      4. Plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks incorporating store specials. Stay flexible so that you can switch meals around if your plans change at the last minute.

      5. Check what’s in the pantry, then make a list of ingredients that you need to purchase to prepare each meal and snack.

      6. Keep the shopping list handy in the kitchen and add to it during the week as you run out of staples.

      7. Make meal planning a habit.

       How Planning Meals Helps

      Planning your meals a week in advance enables you to:

      

Provide healthy meals for you and your family. When meals are planned ahead, you can be sure that the meals are balanced.

      

Take advantage of special sales. Review your newspaper’s grocery store advertisements and find foods that fit your budget. Plan meals around the specials for the week to take a bite out of your expenses.

      

Grocery shop from a list. Studies show that without a list in hand you can spend almost twice as much at the store.

      

Resist impulse buying. If you know what you need for the week and stick to your list, you are more likely to avoid high priced/low nutrition items like snack chips and sugar-free candy.

      

Save time. By planning meals in advance you’ll be able to do all of your shopping at one time. You won’t have to make several trips to the store to buy foods you forgot, which translates into gasoline savings.

      

Save money. If you have your menu planned ahead of time, you’ll be able to buy the right kind of food in the package size to fit your needs.

      

Save your energy. Meal planning lends order to time-crunched lives. There’s no longer the stress of wondering, “What’s for dinner?”

       How Do You Plan Menus?

      If you are following a meal planning approach, such as the Choose Your Foods: Exchange List for Diabetes, the Diabetes Food Pyramid, or the carbohydrate counting system, you are already off to a great start.

      Your meal pattern will tell you which foods you need and how much of each to include. If you are following an exchange/choices diet, you will know how many servings you need from the starch, vegetable, fruit, meat or meat-substitute, milk, and fat lists each day. If you are following the Diabetes Food Pyramid, use the serving guidelines from each section of the pyramid. The carbohydrate counting system outlines the number of grams of carbohydrates you can include at each meal and snack.

      No matter what your method of diabetes meal planning, the foods you eat and the timing of your meals should be based on your personal diabetes treatment plan and blood glucose results.

      Your meal plan is the basis for your menus and shopping list for the week. An RD can help you develop a meal pattern that is right for you. Having a meal pattern gives you the freedom to decide which foods meet your budget needs.

       MEAL PLANNING CHECKLIST

      After you try your hand at planning a week’s menu, take a moment to review the checklist below.

      Do the menus:

      

follow your individualized diabetes meal plan?

      

use a variety of foods from all parts of the pyramid?

      

emphasize nutritious, economical foods?

      

take advantage of weekly store specials?

      

include planned-overs?

      Use the Ready, Set, Shop! Menus for This Week template below to assist in menu planning. The Ready, Set, Shop! Shopping List template on p. 21 can help organize your shopping list for a speedier trip to the market.

      To save even more time, keep a master list of all the meals you plan, making it easy to select from these tried-and-true combinations rather than planning new menus every week. You will soon accumulate a large list of economical meals.

       PLANNED-OVERS

      Leftovers may be your budget’s best friend, but no one wants to see the same dish three times in one week. You can save time and money while avoiding mealtime boredom by using planned-overs, foods intentionally left after a meal for use in another meal. Using planned-overs is quite different from reheating yesterday’s supper for today’s lunch. When you use planned-overs, you are planning ahead for leftovers.

      Many of the recipes in this book are designed around the planned-over concept. For example, the chicken left from “Marilyn’s Spicy ‘Fried’Chicken” is ready for use in “Southwestern Chicken Wrap-Ups”. You can plan to use the extra turkey from “Golden Roasted Turkey Breast” in “Tempting Turkey Pot Pie”. (See Recipes: Meat and Others for recipes.)

      If you start thinking about your meals in terms of planned-overs, you’ll find easy and interesting examples everywhere. Make a pork roast with vegetables on Sunday, and plan to use the leftover pork later in the week to flavor black beans and rice.

      A large round steak in a family pack can provide at least four meals. Cut the steak in half lengthwise, then slice one portion into thin strips (across the grain for tenderness) for use in stir-fry and burritos or fajitas. Freeze the remaining half. You can defrost it at a later date and cube it to make hearty beef stew. If you have scraps left, dice them to use in vegetable beef soup. Be sure to label and date your planned-over foods so that you’ll know what you have on hand and use it safely.

       NO TIME TO PLAN?

      Begin by reviewing the One Week’s Sample Menu at the end of this chapter, which can be individualized to suit your needs. These low-cost meals are planned around recipes found in this book. Use the menu as a starting point to plan your week and make a shopping list. If you are still overwhelmed by the thought of planning a week’s worth of menus, start by planning five meals.

      Planning five meals will take only five minutes-time you can surely find while waiting for a doctor’s appointment or for a pot of pasta to boil.

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