Access meal plans, grocery lists and more with the mobile app from Emeals!

Developer’s description: The eMeals app allows mobile access to one of over 50 weekly meal plans based on a user’s preferred food style, family size and grocery store. The weekly plans feature 7 dinner recipes with simple to follow recipe instructions and an organized grocery list for easy shopping. The plans are even based on the weekly sales at selected grocery store chains such as Walmart, Publix, Kroger and Whole Foods. Food style choices include Classic meals, clean eating, paleo, slow cooker, low carb, low fat, simple gourmet, natural & organic, gluten free and vegetarian. More information can be found at www.emeals.com.

Cost: Free with subscription

Category: Fitness, Productivity, Other, Food & Drink

Author: eMeals

Platform: iPhone/iPad, Android

http://www.emeals.com

JUDGES REVIEW

What’s for dinner tonight…and tomorrow night…and the night after? It’s not always easy planning out a week’s worth of meals when it’s time to go grocery shopping. So eMeals provides the inspiration a week’s worth at a time. You can choose your family size and a meal plan that follows one of a number of different diets, including Simple Gourmet, Portion Control, Gluten Free, Slow Cooker and Vegetarian. Plans start at $5 per month. For each meal, you get recipes for a main course and side dishes. You can then select which meals you plan on making and skip the others. Prep and cook times are listed with each recipe, but it would have been nice to have photos as well. At the end, you have one easy-to-follow shopping list. Each item on the list reflects the total amount needed for the week. So if you need zucchini on two nights, there’s one entry for zucchini. However if you’ve skipped a meal that requires zucchini, the app isn’t smart enough to adjust the quantities you need, though it does tell you when you need to check quantities. And staples, like sugar and olive oil, are listed separately for each meal. So if you’re using olive oil in every meal, you’ll have seven separate entries. The shopping list is sorted by the type of aisle where you’ll find each item, a big time-saver even for those familiar with their grocery store layout. And, as you shop, you can cross items off your shopping list. You can also manually add items to your list. While there are a few areas for improvement, in all, eMeals makes the chores of creating a weekly meal plan and requisite shopping easier.

- Suzanne Kantra