Anyone subscribe to e-meals?

[MommyX8]

Looks interesting. I hate planning meals so for $1.25 a week, I may have to give it a try.

 

http://www.e-mealz.com/

[Ferdie]

There have been a few threads on e-mealz in the past months so try searching on the boards for more details.

 

I have been using it for several months. I use the Walmart Weight Watcher plan. I like it much better than the Walmart lowfat, (too much condensed soup recipes) and the Walmart vegetarian, (yuck!).

 

The big benefit is that the recipes are so easy to fix and you don't have to think about what it fix for dinner. The food is good, but not so delicious that you over eat.

[MommyX8]

So there has. Silly me for not even looking.

 

Now I am veering toward The Six O'Clock Scramble but I am not finding a free trial link. :confused:

[sassenach]

I used if for 3 months.

 

The positives-

 

*I like the format of the shopping lists. Very easy to eliminate a meal and find the ingredients in the store

 

*Most meals were palatable. Some were keepers.

 

*inexpensive for what you get.

 

*Kept me organized and saved me from the 5 o'clock panic

 

 

The negatives

 

*the ingredients were not as cheap as advertised, BUT (big but) we live in NorCal and didn't have any of the listed stores. I expected it to cost me more.

 

*There were a few meals that were down right gross. I am NOT picky and if I can't eat it, that's a problem.

 

*This is the #1 reason for me not continuing with it- Most of the meals are heavy in processed foods. Not surprising, considering that the goal is to create cheap meals. The regular meals were often high calorie/fat, the lowfat menu was just a ton of low fat substitutions (who knew that there was such a thing as fat-free half-and-half?).

 

I am glad that I used it. I really needed help to get back on track and I was otherwise overwhelmed by life. It was super helpful for me to be able to tell my family that THIS is the plan and I'm sorry if you don't like it. Coming from a third party took away the complaining, because I wasn't choosing to feed them that meal, it was chosen for me. I did walk away with a few new recipes (maybe 5) to add to my rotation. I'm back to doing my own meal planning, but if I ever find myself in that same place, I would do it again.

 

Hth,

[k10coon]

I subscribed for the Aldi meal plan. We have been using it for six weeks. (I actually learned about it from this site!)

 

I agree with the pp that not all recipes are great, but we have been having fun trying new things. I still plug in some of the standards like a roast, spaghetti, etc.

 

Having a shopping list printed out is great - I haven't forgotten anything.

 

The best part is that for the last six weeks, we haven't spent any money on dining out for lunch or dinner due to the fact that there was no plan in place or I was missing some key ingredient for a meal.

[heatonsmom]

I think I might check this out - thanks for posting the link! I used to use a traditional foods one, but just got out of the habit. Still have some great recipes from it though!

[PollyOR]

I think it is worth a try. I know some here have raved about it, and some find it just okay.

 

The positive points:

 

 

• There were only two pieces of paper to print out
  
• The recipe instructions were short and sweet but still easy to follow
  
• Loved the grocery list which you can add to.
  
• I didn't have to think about what to cook
  
• There was variety instead of eating the same thing every evening (no "Spaghetti again?")
  

 

The negative points:

 

 

• Some of the items weren't stocked at my grocery store
  
• Use of more processed foods than I normally cook with...when I cook ;)
  
• Because the recipes used items I didn't normally have in the cupboard, the grocery shopping trips were agonizingly long!!! I didn't know where to look for some of the food items which slowed things down considerably.
  
• My kids didn't like the shock of having an unfamiliar dish almost every night.
  
• Cooking time increased due to recipes I was unfamiliar with.
  
• Most of the meals were okay.
  

 

You may notice that some of the pros and cons contradict each other (i.e. the kids complain about eating the same thing every night but with e-mealz it bothered them to have so much unfamiliar variety).

 

I really, really wanted this to work for me. I'm tired of the afternoon question, "Oh man, it's almost time to start dinner. What am I going to cook tonight?"