Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

Allegra

I think - but perhaps other people feel otherwise - that with things such as apple curd or bean pate or whatever it's really not worth the effort to make just a couple of spoonfuls in order to try it Sometimes you just need to take a risk - otherwise you'll only ever eat the same meals all the time and your shopping bill will never go down (generic "you" here, I don't mean you "you", Jwil !).

SusanC_2

weezl74 wrote: »

quick clarifying question for dumb weezlie here,:o:D

when folk are saying shirl doesn't want to spend all that cash at once if it might not work... erm... why is she buying it all at once? like, is a massive monthly shop really normal? (just that I've never done it)

I'm a bit puzzled about this issue too because according to the figures on the website, the average family spends that much each week usually and even if people hate loads of the food and loads goes to waste I can't see how they could not get at least a week's worth of food from it.

weezl74

Wendy:A, do we think there is a week of planner meals which don't need any batch cooking? Or have I built it so that everything needs that?:o

(and again, being a bit dumb, are we counting something like one of the pates and spreads as batch cooking?)

If she doesn't batch cook much for starter week, she's prob having identical lunches each day (the bonus of the batch cooking is that it gives variety of lunch spread choice) do we think that's ok?

All thoughts/opinions very welcomed!

Allegra

wendy+5 wrote: »

Not thick at all Allegra. I just thought that maybe a really basic shopping list with maybe not *too* much batch cooking involved might help Shirl to see that it is do-able.

I dunno - maybe looking at the planner as a whole month might just do Shirl in! It's just one more thing for her to have to deal with.

Ah, I getcha now

weezl74

so maybe it's another mini article called 'help! I don't want to do all that all at once!'

and it says things like, week one, have one stab at making bread and make one batch of bean pate.

If a total disaster, turn the bread into panzanella and zoppa toscana, and use the bean dip as the topping for a nommynom pizza. You will have spent less than £1.10 even if it's a total flop, but we're sure it won't be!

weezl74

Lesley, I sent over the spreadsheet

Do let me know if it isn't clear how many meals/portions/batches anything should be

I mainly concentrated on getting the number of times of making it in the month right, and often that meant fudging the other maths

artybear

weezl74 wrote: »

so maybe it's another mini article called 'help! I don't want to do all that all at once!'

and it says things like, week one, have one stab at making bread and make one batch of bean pate.

If a total disaster, turn the bread into panzanella and zoppa toscana, and use the bean dip as the topping for a nommynom pizza. You will have spent less than £1.10 even if it's a total flop, but we're sure it won't be!

I like this idea.

I have been here right from the beginning, know all the ins and outs of what has been talked about and I STILL bought loads of milks at the start of the month which went to waste.

I think that because the shopping list was in a monthly format I just followed it without thinking logically, when really I should have done a weekly break down for myself.

I think the point that I am making is that still with all the background knowledge I have had, I still messed up a bit-so maybe a little bit of hand holding is ok?

jwil

weezl74 wrote: »

so maybe it's another mini article called 'help! I don't want to do all that all at once!'

and it says things like, week one, have one stab at making bread and make one batch of bean pate.

If a total disaster, turn the bread into panzanella and zoppa toscana, and use the bean dip as the topping for a nommynom pizza. You will have spent less than £1.10 even if it's a total flop, but we're sure it won't be!

I think this is a great idea :T

weezl74

bit of a booster from google analytics:

• 3,764 Absolute Unique Visitors

• 67,224 Pageviews

Sian_the_Green

If I think back to my university days I know we looked at attitude change and the mental frameworks people had. We use stereotypes to save us cognitive energy and then can sometimes be useful to us (Big hairy creature with large teeth lumbering towards me, probably not coming for a cuddle!) but when we receive new information we hold it up against our beliefs and if it does not match, we often discount it. If it keeps flying at us we can either ignore the source of it altogether as we don't feel it is trustworthy based on what we know of the world, or we can let it change us which is a costly thing to do. Shirley will probably have false ideas on her framework (as will most of us) like "fat is bad", "cheaper food can't be as healthy". "fresh is best", "my kids need milk in their diets"... A lot of these things we absorb without realising because we trust the sources they come from, advertisers throw in a little bit of science and have us eating out of the palms of their hands.

We are hoping that Shirley will be able to change some of these false ideas and some Shirleys will be able to do this all at once. Others may not know they can trust you enough to change everything they believe around food all at once, this is where a trial week or a few 'tester' plan recipes sounds like a great idea as a 'safe' option. For 'diets' like slimming world, often by showing a sample week to follow for free, after this, if people like it, they are invited to join (and pay some money!)


Maybe having something like the pizza in there would be good because teenagers in particular love pizza and there is a massive difference between the cost of ready made and shop bought. Also the pasta recipes would be good as they are not that different to things she will recognise and the ingredients aren't too 'out there'. Then when she sees how good the food tastes and feels more confident, her attitudes are changing and she is able to look at more of the options for change because you have become a trustworthy source of information and worth her expending that cognitive energy.

I hope all of that makes a little more sense of what I have been trying to say.