Mind-blowing EASY Meal Plan

Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #119 [vol5, 12.4]

My sister-in-love interrupted mall shopping yesterday by sending a text that has rocked my world. I mean I really can’t stop thinking about the ramifications of this.

She sent a screenshot of asking ChatGPT to plan her meals based on Aldi’s weekly ad.

Immediately I showed it to my college age son, arguably the most tech savvy in our family. Had he thought to use ChatGPT in this way?! Noooo?

Once home my fingers began to play with other options:

Meal plan using some ground beef, puréed pumpkin, limiting grains. Use some tomatoes. Put it in a chart.

Mind blown.

10 simple meals to make from Costco using 5 ingredients or fewer

Mind blown.

top 10 meals from Alexandra Cooks website and compile grocery list of those top 10”

This could be life changing. Insert your favorite food blogger or site.

I’ve highlighted where you can copy then paste the results somewhere else.

ChatGPT spits out ideas in less than a second: Here’s a comprehensive grocery list based on the **top 10 main dishes** from **Alexandra Cooks**:

Produce: (for brevity I’ve truncated the list…)

• - Garlic (about 4-5 cloves)

• - Shallots (4-5)

• - Lemons (2-3)

• - Fresh herbs: parsley, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, dill, and sage

• - Carrots (2-3)

• - Fresh tomatoes (for shakshuka, 4-5 large)

• - Bell peppers (2-3, for shakshuka)

• - Potatoes (for braised pork, about 4-6)

• - Butternut squash (1 medium)

• - Leeks (2-3)

• - Cabbage (1 small head or ½ large head)

• - Fresh mint (for lamb meatballs, optional)

• - Fresh basil (optional, for pasta dishes or garnish)

• - Fresh spinach or greens (optional, for side salads)

I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right. I simply used chatgpt.com (as evidenced, above). I texted my SIL for more ChatGPT advice she said:

About 6 months ago, I was put into an early adopter AI group at the hospital. You will be amazed at what information you can find and how efficient your life will be when you start using it.

Except for when I need images, I’ve 99% replaced Google searching bc it’s so bad at results. AI is mostly accurate but not completely so be sure to check results.

Each company has its own large language model (LLM) and the data is trained by different source data, so the different apps will present data in their own their style. I use ChatGPT, Copilot and Grok and like them all for different reasons or go to them for different types of uses cases. The updates and iterations are so fast that the versions I started using 6 months ago is pales in comparison to the results I’m able to pull today.

I’d love to see what you come up with. Also, it can do all kinds of complex mathematical computations. You should experiment with different sourdough scenarios.

What do you think?

Of course I texted some culinary friends right away! One answered back, “AI creeps me out. Not sure I’m ready to use it by streamlining meal planning.”

I agree that AI can be creepy…but this?! This could be an incredible tool for the mundane yet sometimes difficult daily/weekly duty of planning meals.

I’m so curious to hear others’ thoughts. Have you used ChatGPT in this way? Would you? How? and which key words?

---

Life is hard, food doesn’t have to be.

Julie

---

PS - Thank you to those who lifted the spirits of my friends last week.

PSS - Beautycounter’s site will shut down in January. If you wanna catch up to 65% off, check out their end of year sale which includes the fragrance. Full size bottles are normally $96 but on sale for $33 and includes free roller ball of the same scent. Thank you for shopping through my link - if you don’t see my name at checkout, enter the Beautycounter site through this link (and not an email from Beautycounter.)