A Grocery Capsule – the New Meal Plan
Over the last few years, spending any time physically in the grocery store has been a rare occurrence for me. When we lived in Michigan, we didn’t love the local grocery store – so most of the time we opted for grocery delivery or curbside pick up. Those services are amazing. We mastered the convenience of grocery shopping, now it’s just a matter of getting the meal plan aspect down.
While in the store recently I couldn’t help but feel extremely overwhelmed by all of the choices. The amount of foods available – granted, I was in a Super Kroger so obviously it was insane, but still. It just felt like too much. Now, I love to eat and try new things but I hate meal planning and meal prepping. I had a vague plan when I was in the store but I just couldn’t help but think how can I make this simpler? So that got me thinking, what if I treated our groceries or the way we eat like a capsule wardrobe?
If you don’t know anything about a capsule wardrobe – it’s essentially 20-30 items that can be mixed and matched to create enough variety in your daily wardrobe. I’ve seen capsules done by season, for vacation or by type of activity. I’ve always been intrigued by it for myself but admittedly I don’t have a capsule wardrobe.
But, my thought for our groceries or meal plan is to think about what we typically eat and buy and come up with set meals for us in an effort to simplify. We’ll call it a grocery capsule. I’m thinking we will put it to use in January. I know December will be too hard to start with the holidays. And of course now the month is nearly over!
I’m not too concerned about the lack of variety – some of you reading may have that concern. I don’t mind eating the same things – and I don’t really think this would look like having the exact same meal for multiple days in a row. We do also enjoy eating out so I can always get extra variety in my diet with those meals.
As an aside, I should probably discuss what our typical diet looks like. My husband and I generally have a high protein, low carb diet. We eat a lot of meat, mainly red meat from trusted sources – we typically buy ½ or ¼ cow from a local rancher a few times a year. Sadly we are still looking for a good replacement for our supplier from Michigan! I am one hundred percent of the mindset that red meat is not the enemy in a health conscious diet. Not trying to get too much into that statement here, that may be a future post if there is interest! I feel confident in our eating patterns based on my own research. Certainly, if you have any health issues – be sure to discuss your own dietary habits with your doctor – especially if you are considering making any changes!
Ok, off the small soapbox. In general, we try to avoid a lot of processed foods – we don’t typically eat a lot of pastas, breads etc. and we eat a decent amount of fruit and some vegetables.
So, in thinking about our grocery capsule – I think this is what would be on it.
In making this list, I feel like my capsule is larger than I anticipated! I imagine that’s what happens if you try to make a capsule wardrobe as well. For example, thinking about ground beef – I have 4 meals that we make with that – tacos, monster mash (a ground beef and rice dish), a sweet potato and ground beef one pot dish and hamburger patties. The other proteins mentioned don’t necessarily have quite as much versatility but the sides could be mixed up with those.
I’m going to make a plan for 10 dinners for us that will be on rotation. My thought is 6 nights a week we have a set meal and the last night of the week can be reserved for carry out or a restaurant meal. Most of the time our kids eat what we are having but there will have to be nights that they don’t eat the same – mainly the salmon and chicken wings nights. But I’ll keep trying!
Our Meal Plan
With this top 10 list, my original plan was to just go down the list. For example, start Monday, January 2nd. Monday – Friday – dinners #1-5, then Saturday will be our freebie and Sunday will be #6. Starting then on Monday, January 9th #7-10 and Friday will be #1 and so forth.
However, in thinking about simplifying even further – and in discussing it with my husband (he says I’m over-complicating the whole thing); I think it will make sense to have a set order for each week. So, I’ll make a week 1 schedule and a week 2 schedule and those will just be repeated.
The calendar above is going on our fridge. That will make this crystal clear for us. Do you think we will stick with it? I’m going to challenge us to at least make it through the month!
Our lunches will be a different story – I anticipate rotating between leftovers when we have them (about 4 of those dinners usually give us leftovers) and then having a lunch that consists of yogurt, turkey, string cheese and fruit. (My lunch staples generally). I just didn’t add those items to my list above. Bryan tends to make something for himself at home – he works from home, so that’s manageable for him – leftovers or eggs or some kind of beef. Neither one of us typically eats breakfast or if I do, I’ll have a protein bar at my desk at work.
What are your thoughts? Can your family do a grocery capsule? Any good meal ideas you would add to our list? I feel kind of funny sharing our meals and food items in such detail. It feels like very personal information to share. Is that weird?
I wish I was computer savvy enough to create some digital downloads / printouts for a calendar or worksheet for you to try this also – but this is not my day job. Maybe I’ll work on it! Hey, I’m still impressed with the couple images I created above. Thank you Canva!
Let me know your thoughts below, and please feel free to add your email to get on my notification list!