Meal plans

Meal plans are under the Week item. The Week start page shows what is cooking today (Cooking today), the rest of the week, the next shopping trip and pills with previous meal plans; the Show all button expands below them a list of all older meal plans with their dates and number of meals (Show fewer collapses it). At the top right is the Plan another week button.

New meal plan

The New meal plan page has four steps one under another.

1. What are you planning? – A regular week (or A regular period if you set another start or length in Household) or Weekend or event (1 to 7 days, with guests too). When the regular period starts and how many days it has is set in Household → Tastes and rules → Planning period.
2. When? – for a regular period you choose Next week, In two weeks or This week; it always starts on the day set in Household (Monday by default). For an event you fill in an optional Name, the From date and the Number of days.
3. Who will be eating? – you see the household members and their meal schedule (edited in Household). You add Extra guests: adults and children.
4. Any wishes? (optional) – tap the quick choices (for example More fish or Pizza on Friday) and/or write in your own words what the AI should know for this meal plan: "on Wednesday we are visiting", "one guest is vegetarian". The field supports formatting, see Editor for instructions and wishes.

Wishes apply to this one meal plan only. The standing principles of the group (what you don't eat, allergies, time for cooking) belong in Household → Tastes and rules.

Suggesting

At the bottom is a summary (for example "Week 12–18 Oct · 4 people") and the Suggest a meal plan button. While it works, four steps are shown (reading recipes, watching calories, choosing without repeats, working out the shopping list). You can leave the page open. When it finishes, the … is ready panel offers View the week or Straight to shopping. If something fails, an error with a Try again button is shown.

The AI receives:

• a compact catalog of up to 250 recipes you may use. The app selects them in advance: they fit the time limit, have a reasonable calorie value, suit the meals that are eaten on the given days, were not in the meal plans of the last two weeks, and those matching your wishes come first,
• the tastes and rules of the group and its instructions for the AI,
• the members of the group with their calorie targets and meal schedule on each day,
• the recipes from the last two meal plans (so they are not repeated),
• your wishes.

Breakfasts and snacks may be suggested by the AI as simple own meals with ingredients. If your interface is in English, the AI writes its notes and the names of its own meals in English; the recipes themselves stay in the language they were uploaded in.

Guests

Guests are counted as extra portions of a meal: an adult 1 portion, a child about 0.6. They are counted in the shopping list, not in the calories of the group members. Unless the wishes say otherwise, guests eat all lunches and dinners. The number of extra portions can be edited for every meal.

Meal plan detail

Click a meal plan to open it. At the top is a switch:

Next to it are the Print / PDF button and the … menu with Export (Markdown and HTML) and Delete meal plan… (the app asks first).

Editing a meal

On a day card click a meal, or + Add a meal. A panel opens on the right:

• Suggest another meal – the AI replaces only this meal with a new suggestion (you can write a wish in the field above the button, e.g. "something lighter"). It takes the other meals of the week into account, and the shopping list is recalculated. It costs 2 operations. Unsaved changes in the panel are discarded, so save them first.
• Open the recipe – shows the recipe in the Recipes section.
• Choose another recipe – search in the recipes, or below your own meal (e.g. "yoghurt with granola"). The ingredients of an own meal were suggested by the AI; a meal added by hand has no ingredients, add them to the shopping list by hand.
• Who eats – tap to switch on or off the members the meal is counted for.
• Extra guests – extra portions, counted in the shopping list only.
• Note.
• Save, or Remove from meal plan.

A meal in a meal plan remembers the name and ingredients of the recipe. If you delete the recipe, or when someone stops sharing a cookbook with you, the meal and the shopping list stay, but the original recipe can no longer be opened from the meal.

Meat-free meals have a meat-free mark.