Meal Planning With Nutrition and Variety In Mind

It is often the case that when you set out to do meal planning, your goal is either to save money, time or effort.  However worthy these goals are, and however important these are to you personally, the truth is that these goals do not mean much to your family.  Nutrition should still be of utmost importance.  All the time and money you save would be in vain if you plan meals at the expense of the family’s health.  True, those 15-minute meals may be easy for you, but do they supply the nutritional needs of your family?

Another essential aspect to consider is the need for variety.  Kids, in particular, easily get bored when made to eat the same foods every day.  It is thus important to do your meal planning with a pair of keywords in mind—nutrition and variety.  Here are some tips to provide both adequate nutrition and interesting variety.

Plan each meal to have foods of different colors.

The traditional dietary guidelines and the old Food Pyramid has a complicated way of counting calories, balancing food groups and measuring portions.  The new Food Pyramid, however, simplifies things for us by just advising us to eat foods of a rainbow of colors.  The rationale is based on the scientific finding that the natural colors of foods represent different nutrients and antioxidants.  This means that when you dish out a plateful of colorful foods, you are essentially serving a nutritionally balanced meal.

Plan each meal to have dishes of different temperatures.

The overall gustatory experience is not just based on taste alone.  The temperature of foods also plays a role.  To make your nutritious meals more palatable, introduce foods of different thermal signatures.  For example, an interesting breakfast may consist of hot pancakes and ice-cold smoothie.  An enjoyable lunch would be made up of cool salad greens and warm casserole.  A piping hot soup would be balanced off with a baked potato at room temperature.

Plan each meal to have foods of different textures.

Sneaking in different textures into each meal also heightens the pleasure of eating.  Deliberately tuck in crunchy grains, silky pasta, crisp greens, tender root crops, creamy soups and juicy fruits in your meals.  Think about the common food pairings we love—crispy tortilla chips and creamy dips, crisp salads and silken dressing—and you’ll understand the magical effect of textural contrasts.

Plan your diet around fruits and vegetables.

In the final analysis, you can take care of overall variety in color, texture and temperature when you simply plan your meals around produce.  If the bulk of your diet consists of fruits and vegetables, and meat serves only as condiment, your plates would always be bursting with color, texture and nutrition.

Try different, even new foods, from time to time.

To perk up your family’s tastebuds, occasionally introduce novel foods.  Buy a foreign fruit, a strange herb and cook an international recipe.  Don’t be afraid to try, as all natural foods have nutrients to share.  Every family ought to take gustatory adventures once in a while.