Best Apps for Planning Healthy Meals

Today, guest blogger Jane Johnson from GoingCellular is going to share some of 2012’s best healthy meal planning apps to help you organize your family’s chaotic dinner routine. Whether you have an Android, smart phone, iPhone or iPad you’ll be able to use these clever apps to make life easier, nutritious and more delicious!

Top Healthy Meal Planning Apps for 2012

As a busy mom who works from home, I have the luxury of preparing most of our meals in house. However, I often find that food shopping and prep is shoved to the end of the workday when time allots for little else than picking up another fully cooked chicken and salad from the grocery store.

Eating well in a rush is hard when you’re expected to fuel and nourish an entire family! However, I realized that with my new Android-enable smart phone, I had the convenience of the Internet at my fingertips. So I decided to use my new phone to help streamline my family’s often chaotic dinner schedule with the following four healthy and convenient meal planning apps…

1. Grocery List – Food on the Table
I love the idea of not having to scramble to put together a meal at the last minute and so does my family. Grocery List – Food on the Table saves me a lot of time stressing about “what’s for dinner?” and a lot of money on groceries if I use it to plan my meals for the week based on the current sales at the grocery store. This app tells me exactly what’s on sale at my nearest supermarket, locates recipes that integrate those ingredient items, and organizes my grocery list based on what I’ll need to prepare all my meals for the week. No running out last minute for a bunch of broccoli or a bag of nuts. This app keeps our family meals and our health a top priority.

2. Menu Planner
The Menu Planner app is my go-to recipe and meal planning database. Not only can you search recipes, but you can create shopping lists and meal plans based on what you already have on your pantry shelves. This central system for food will plan a weekly menu, locate recipes, organize your grocery shopping list, guide you step-by-step through meal prep, and even offer advice on food storage so that everyone will actually eat the leftovers!

3. Ziplist
The Ziplist app focuses on making your grocery shopping that much easier. Instead of blindly grabbing items at the store, Ziplist will create an online shopping list that tells you exactly what you need for the week’s meal prep. Plus, it stores that list on its database so you can update or delete items as you run out via email or simple text message—so, for example, if you’re sharing a list with your hubby and kids, you won’t overlap on buying any ingredients. Ziplist also offers an extensive meal planning database with hundreds of recipes. When you choose one simply click on the recipe, and all needed ingredients will be automatically updated to your shopping list.

4. What’s for Dinner
“What’s for dinner?” I used to utterly dread my husband or kids asking that question as soon as they walked through the door. But no longer with the What’s for Dinner app, the mobile recipe book and meal planning app for moms on the go! I take this app with me when I grocery shop so I never forget an ingredient for a weekly meal. Plus, it helps me plan my weekly menu based on thousands of meal ideas from popular recipe websites—such as FoodNetwork, Allrecipes, and Epicurious. This way I can build a weekly meal plan and shopping list with ease and then simply check off ingredients as I put them in my cart.

Bio: Jane Johnson is a writer for GoingCellular, a popular site that provides cell phone related news, and commentary, as well as reviews on popular providers, phones, mobile devices and accessories like the high impact resistant T-Mobile D3O cases.

Contact Cate for more ways to start improving your health now!