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

weezl74

Allegra wrote: »

I will have a bit of time on the PC to spare today - I'll do the "you can help" bit for "about us" first, I can't go any further on the Kitty batch cook/weekly list until I have the monthly shopping list and menu plan fully confirmed - did you want Shirl Week 3 and 4 shopping lists, or can I do anything else for you ?

Oh, and did you find Susan's post you were after yesterday in the end ?

yes please and yes that was the right post

SusanC_2

weezl74 wrote: »

a couple of other questions: If we did publish months 2 for both kitty and shirley, I personally feel we have lost an incentive to fully ever learn to fish (meal plan nutritionally). This may be great, since if it takes me with all my background info 4 full-time weeks, then is it faesible to expect shirl to get there?

NB By this I don't mean that folk on a more normal budget can't do this.

I think if you gave me the same task on a more normal but still frugal £200-250 pcm I think It'd be doable in a couple of evenings plus publishing time.

Am I making any sense?

(Just catching up so haven't read everything yet.)

I don't think it would be feasible for Shirley to be able to make an 80p/day planner after using one or even two months of our planners. However based on the figure on the website, the average person currently has a £3.63 planner. I think the planner would definitely help Shirley to reduce her food bill for herself in a number of ways:
1) She incorporates various shopping/cooking methods into her lifestyle. (e.g. she makes more things from scratch such as bread, she buys more of the cheaper veg and considers dried/frozen/canned as appropriate and she buys lower brand products rather than always going for brand names)
2) She incorporates some specific recipes into her cooking on a regular basis.
3) Due to the existence of the planner, she is more aware of nutrition and how cheaply it can be done so pays more attention to these things.
4) £2/day doesn't seem extreme to her when she knows it can be done for 80p.

Maybe she will end up doing an ongoing £2 planner for herself but that is an improvement on what she was doing before so if it sustainable for her and saving her money then we have helped her.

Realisitically I think the only way she could sustain being on an 80p planner would be if we produced multiple monthly planners at that level. (e.g. if there were two for Kitty and two for Shirley so four months to choose from and rotate through for variety) I can't imagine anybody would choose to continue rotating through the same one month ad infinitum and given the work involved in producing a planer at the level of 80p I don't think she could do it for herself on an ongoing basis.

Apologies if other people have already said these things or the discussion has already been resolved - I haven't had time to fully catch up yet.

weezl74

very important post please don't skip!

I notice that avocet's introduction is (rightly) a huge part of making the hardcore month ok.

Avocet was very clear that anyone landing on those pages MUST come via the introduction page.

This will not be possible for technical reasons.

brief example: say in the hardcore planner somewhere is written the phrase, 'what can I do with 40 kilos of spuds?' (just thinking of something unlikely to be on lots of websites!)

joe public person has acquired 40 kilos of spuds off his farmer mate, and just happens to type exactly the phrase 'what can I do with 40 kilos of spuds?' into google.

guess what page google will offer him?

hardcore planner page, but not avocets intro.

there are some work-rounds to this, but they damage some other things that dad and I have worked hard to create, so I'm reluctant to go that route.

How much of a deal-breaker is it for people if avocet's rule that the intro page MUST be landed on first can't be followed?

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

How much of a deal-breaker is it for people if avocet's rule that the intro page MUST be landed on first can't be followed?

But once he has found what to do with his spuds, then he'll either leave happy that the spuds have been taken care of and not become aware at all that the site offers a monthly menu planner without the five a day (or whatever his own personal mantra is), or - far more likely, I'd say, simply cos people lacking curiosity to that extent are quite rare - he'd have a look around the site and once he becomes aware that it is all part of a big masterplan, he'll also get the intro.

Hang on, I need to try and make this a bit clearer.... What I'm trying to say is that you will, of course, have no control over which page google throws at Joe Public. However, I would imagine that no page on its own would cause alarm to Joe Public because to see the alarming hardcore-ness of the planner he first needs to take a step back to see the overview of the planner, which is when he'll also see the intro page explaining why the planner is the way it is. I hope.

twinkle_star_2

Was about to write a big spiel but essentially I agree with Allegra. People will either take little bits that they want and ignore the nutrition info or read it all.

It would be a very rare person that did a whole month of meal plans without reading all the additional information as it tends to be very helpful.

Also, if you're really worried could you pop a link at the top of each page involved with the 'extreme' plan that points back to the intro.

E.g. 'This recipe/menu/plan is part of a nutritionally balanced monthly plan. Please read more here. '

Though the same could be said of all recipes that stand alone. No one recipe provides all your daily needs!

weezl74

morning twinkle

guess what, I began a bit of research into our powerhouse veggies last night and guess how much carrot you need to give your body it's entire day's supply of Vitamin A?

twinkle_star_2

oooh guessing games.....ummmmm 3?

That's what I'd imagine anyway. But, i'm guessing it's far less than that since you have the happy face

weezl74

twinkle_star wrote: »

oooh guessing games.....ummmmm 3?

That's what I'd imagine anyway. But, i'm guessing it's far less than that since you have the happy face

3 carrots did you mean, or 3 '5 a day portions?'

twinkle_star_2

3 carrots. But being simple I'd count a whole carrot as 1 portion even though when I'm thinking clearly I know it's less than that.

Allegra

About half an inch ? I seem to recall that an average carrot has something like 20 times as much vitamin a as the body needs in a day, so half an inch sounds about right to me