I first heard about eMeals from Amanda. The idea was intriguing, but I held fast to my own meal ideas. In the last year, I’ve been hit or miss on whether I make a weekly menu, or, frankly, even get all the items I need from the store {I tend to forget what I don’t write down}.

Two weeks ago, I waved my menu planning white flag and bought a 3 month subscription to eMeals.

There are tons of great options, ranging from gluten free to vegetarian; portion control to family favorites. They have seven meals planed out {as shown above} and then give you a list of what you need from the store ::

Since joining, we’ve been doing the natural and organic plan. But we just switched over to the clean eating plan. Based on the sample menu, the clean eating plan more closely matched our family’s eating habits {more produce, fresh foods versus pre-package foods, even the organic ones}.

So far I’ve loved the service. We don’t usually make all seven meals, because weekends tend to lend to eating out, with friends, or lighter meals than during the week. But, we consistently have four to five of the preplanned meals a week. Having everything laid out for me has been such a relief. I grab what I need and don’t think about it again until it’s time to make dinner. Love that!

However, there has been some draw backs – some weeks have been meat heavy, which isn’t really budget friendly. Another week relied a lot on prepackaged foods {though “organic”} which I really don’t like {so made things fresh instead}. But, eMeals just introduced their clean eating plan, so I’m hopeful that this will solve any issues I have. We are in the middle of our week, so won’t try out the new plan until next week.

Even with some minor draw backs, I highly recommend eMeals. It’s easy, fast and has given us some yummy meals {hello chicken curry soup!}. I love not putting so much effort into meal planning and not worrying about what’s for dinner each night.

The cost is $17 for a 3-month subscription. Because you can download each week’s menu, I’m saving them on my computer as we go for future reference – in case we cancel in the future.

*UPDATED INFORMATION* 5/17/12

As I mentioned, we were switching to the Cleaning Eating Menu. We are entering our second week of that menu and I LOVE IT! So far, all the meals have proven to abide by the rule of shopping the perimeter of the store, so we are eating a lot of fresh foods {asparagus, corn, broccoli, etc}. If you’re looking for a healthy option, I’d recommend the cleaning eating over the natural and organic!

Have you ever tried eMeals or any other meal planning service?

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