Feeding our family with nutritious meals everyday takes a lot of organisation. Without advanced planning, the process can become time consuming and expensive (think hours of circling up and down the aisles or fresh foods that we forget about then get spoiled). So, Kidz Activities has created a free printable weekly meal planner to help busy mums. This weekly meal planner is divided into the 7 days of the week and it includes 5 meals (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner). Also, on the very top, is the MyPlate icon.
The MyPlate food icon was created in 2011 by the USDA to help consumers make healthier food choices. It highlights the importance of having loads of vegetables and fruit in our diet. These 2 important food groups take up half the plate, with vegetables taking a bigger space. The other half is divided into grains and proteins, with grains taking up slightly more space than protein. And finally, a helping of some dairy on the side.
This is a simple way of ensuring that we prepare a balanced diet and a variety of nutritious foods for our family throughout the day. Having this icon on the printable weekly meal planner makes us think each time we create our weekly meal: Am I providing my family with enough vegetables and fruits this week? Are they getting a variety of proteins? Are there too much junk in the menu? This will help give us peace of mind that we are feeding our kids with nutritious foods throughout the week. Also, this weekly food planner makes it easier for us to see our family’s weekly food intake at a glance.
Alongside the free printable weekly meal planner is a free printable grocery list planner. This grocery list contains headings, such as vegetables, fruits, protein and grains, to make the shopping process simpler, faster and easier. By having each item under its specific heading, we can save time through the grocery aisles by purchasing all the things we need in the vegetable section while we are there, instead of skipping from one aisle to another (ie. going back to another aisle because we had forgotten one particular item that section).
Click on these links to get the free printable weekly meal planner and free printable grocery list planner.
And if you would rather type, delete and edit your weekly menu as you go along, below is the PowerPoint template used to create these two useful weekly meal planners. Simply click on the links below to save the files into your computer, then type, delete and edit away every week….
Printable Weekly Menu Planner by Kidz Activities
Grocery List Planner by Kidz Activities
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