Table of Contents
PlateJoy Review
Are you looking for a platejoy review to see if this custom meal planner is the right choice for you? PlateJoy is a platform that creates personalized meal plans tailored to your dietary needs and preferences. In this platejoy review, we’ll cover the pros, cons, and costs associated with PlateJoy so you can decide if it’s right for you.
Pros
- Designed and endorsed by a nutritionist for a highly personalized plan based on an extensive intake survey.
- Free with some health insurance providers.
- Generate shopping lists for digital purchases that also aim to reduce food waste.
- Seamless cloud sync between devices, plus syncs with fitness and calorie trackers.
Cons
More expensive than competition with no added value like free ingredients.
PlateJoy’s highly personalized meal plans are a boon for those with specific dietary restrictions. Users take a lifestyle survey, which includes things like food preferences, fitness goals and calories, allergies, and schedules, and the app uses 50 data points to create a unique meal plan just for you. It even suits diabetics or people on a low FODMAP plan.
Meal plans are designed by nutritionists, who are also available by phone or chat, and recipes include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The meal plans will automatically generate a shopping list, which can be integrated with Instacart or other grocery store delivery services. You can also add your own recipes manually.
Nutrition information
Users can sync the app to their FitBit, so it will automatically add the nutrition information for their meals to their calorie tracker. Even better, if your health insurance provider has joined the company’s PlateJoy Health division, you can get a free subscription, free Fitbit, and free scale.
With over 50% of meals planned within an hour of eating, I would guess that a lot of those meals are comprised of frozen and convenience foods. There is no shame in reaching into the freezer for a quick option when the masses are starving, but the problem is when this turns into a usual routine.
There are 3 keys to getting a healthy dinner on the table for your family:
- Planning
- Buying
- Cooking
All 3 of these parts need to happen synergistically in order for family dinner to happen. For some, you made excel in 1 or even 2 of these steps, but if you are missing the third, you could have a disaster, or at least, no dinner.
Finding the right option for your family to plan, buy and cook dinner is essential. There are dozens of meal planning apps, programs, software, and services, but which one is the right one for your family?
Guesswork and decision making
If you are looking for a tool to help you take the guesswork and decision making out of planning meals, making a grocery list and knowing what you are going to eat each day, then you don’t want to miss my completely honest review. I will walk you through the steps how to use this program and how PlateJoy did at solving our family dinner dilemmas. Allow me to point out all that it can do for you and what it can’t.
Then, you can determine if this might be a solution for your family. AND, don’t miss the discount code at the bottom of the post, if you want to try it out!
Step 1: Fill out the Personalization Quiz
Upon setting up the online service, you will be asked to fill out a 3-minute Personalization Quiz. The purpose is for PlateJoy to fully understand your nutrition and weight goals, food preferences, family composition and home-meal frequency. This is the primary way it selects recipes and customizes your meal plan to help you eat the way you want to eat. Your preferences get saved, but you can come back and change them at any time. And, because your goals may differ from your spouse’s goals, the quiz asks some individual and group question.
Step 2: Review the Meal Queue
Next, you need to review the Meal Queue, where PlateJoy lists recipes that fit your criteria. This allows you to keep any recipes that look amazing and remove any recipes that don’t appeal to you or your family.
Make sure to review each tab:
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Batch
- Snacks
By taking just a few minutes to remove any meals you wouldn’t want to make, you will ensure that the menus it creates for you are filled with foods you love and want to eat. Simply click on the recipe picture to find the preparation/cooking time, ingredients, and nutrition for each family member. Photos are available for almost all of the recipes and give a really accurate picture of what the completed meal will look like.
Step 3: Create a New Menu
Before it creates your menu, PlateJoy wants you to identify 2 items:
How many meals will you be shopping for this week? Include the number of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks. What ingredients do you want to use up? You can include up to 3 ingredients on this list so that the recipes pulled for your weekly menu can use up these items.
Then, click “Create Menu” to see what yummy meals you will be creating this week! Review the menu. If there are any recipes that populate your menu that just don’t look appetizing or are not what you are in the mood for this week, you can “swap” the recipe for a different one.
Step 4: Populate Your Shopping List
PlateJoy wants to know what you have in your pantry and fridge so that it can create a list of what you actually need to buy. This is an awesome feature! It includes every ingredient, even spices, so that you can make sure you don’t end up running back to the store in a rush later in the week.
This is also the opportunity to decide if you want to use a substitution. For example, if a salad uses pecans, but you have walnuts on hand, you could decide to use what you have to keep your grocery bill down and avoid food waste. You can also ADD an ingredient if you want to buy an ingredient that is not on your meal plan- this means you don’t end up sorting through 2 grocery lists while you are grocery shopping.
Step 5: Rate the Recipes
After you make the meal, PlateJoy wants you to rate the meal (1 to 5 stars) and add any comments you have. When you give a recipe 5 stars, it turns into a “Favorite” and you can add favorites to menus in the future if you wish.
