Recurring foods are useful for quickly getting the meal plans to reflect your existing eating habits. We've found if our meal plans look mostly like what we already eat, just with better portions and some tasty new recipes once in a while, we stick to the plan much better.

Tips for success:

If you have a breakfast you like to eat every morning, select the foods or recipes to show up "always" during your breakfast meal. If you want your breakfasts to have some variety, but only between 3 or 4 recipes, select those recipes to recur "often." If you ONLY want those recipes, you can tell a meal type to "only use recurring foods," and then the generator will only use your selected foods while still handling the portion control.

The best way to have total control over the meal plans is to find a bunch of foods and recipes that you know you'll like or you want to try, set them to recur "often" in a meal, and have the meal only use your recurring foods. Ideally select 15-20 foods if you want some variety, and the generator will build your meal plan from only those foods.

A good routine is to set Breakfast to always have one or two staple foods that you like, lunch to have a handful of foods that you like to rotate between (or a standard restaurant meal if you eat out), and leave dinner a surprise that will round out your nutrition targets with whatever nutrients are missing.

 

 

To add a Recurring Food on the website:

1. Click on the food or recipe you want recurring to view its details page. Then click on the pin button below the image of the food:

 

 

 

 

This will then bring up a pop-up that will let you decide what meal type you want it recurring, the frequency ("often" or "always") and the amount if you choose the "always" option. Once you hit the "set as recurring" button and regenerate your meal plan (or the plan is auto generated the following week) the changes will take effect.

 

 

 

 

 

To add a Recurring Food on the app:

1. In the app you can add Recurring Foods when editing a meal's settings. Tap the 3-dot menu button next to the meal you want to add Recurring Foods to, then tap "Edit meal settings."

 

 

 

2. From here, tap the arrow next to "Recurring Foods" and then the "+" at the top right of the next screen to search the food bank for the food/recipe you wish to add as recurring.

 

 

 

 

3. Tap on the "+" next to the food/recipe you wish to add as recurring, then tap "Add" at the bottom of the screen. You can then choose to either set it as recurring "Often" or "Always" from the drop-down menu.

 

 

 

 

4. When you're finished adding the foods/recipes, tap the back arrow. You can then toggle the "Suggested Recipes" off if you'd prefer to only use Recurring Foods for this meal when your meal plans are created. When finished, tap "Save" in the top right of the screen.

 

 

5. Another way to add Recurring Foods is from the recipe's details page itself. When viewing a recipe's page, tap on the 3-dot menu button that says "More" and then tap "Set as Recurring" to do so.

 

 

 

How to view your Recurring Foods:

You can view any Recurring Foods you have from your Meal Settings. From the left sidebar of the site, click "Meals & Schedule" and then "Meal Settings." From here, you can click on a meal and you'll see the Recurring Foods section that you can adjust to your liking. You can also locate this from the main meal planner page by clicking the three-dot menu button for any meal to find the "edit meal settings" option.