Watch the video below or read on to learn how to reduce the time you spend making Meal Plans and making it easier for your clients to use them.

Click on any of the headings below to skip ahead.

The two key things to remember when exploring meal plans are:

To make it easier to explore and organize the data in Meal Garden, we use 'source' to distinguish between your own content and content created by the Meal Garden Team.

Now that you've checked your source, you can use 'sort' to identify recently used.

You don't have time to open each plan to determine if it's a good fit. To address this, Meal Garden provides three vertical dots in the top left-hand corner of the Meal Plans.

When you click on these dots, you can quickly access macro balance, daily averages for nutrients, and ingredient lists.

You can even click on the day headers to deep dive into the daily make-ups.

Now that we've covered exploring and sorting, let's take a look at using templates.

Before you start creating a Meal Plan from scratch, why not do a quick search and see if something in the pre-made category will work as a starting point? With more than 200 pre-made plans, there's a good chance you'll find something to use as a starting point.

There are three ways to search for pre-made meal plans and how to explore the meal plans you find.

This is pretty straightforward, simply type a keyword into the search bar at the top of the screen and you'll see all the meal plans that have that keyword in the title or description.

The search works for tags (conditions and diets), titles, and descriptions. Some examples of searches that would work:

The Tags in Meal Garden are organized by health conditions and lifestyles. (You can also create your own personal tags, learn more about that here.)

To search by tags, simply open the tags and pick the tags you want.

If you're looking for something specific, you can also use Marco Nutrient Balance (%) or daily averages for any of the +90 nutrients tracked in Meal Garden.

If you find a Meal Plan that looks good, click once on the plan, and you'll open it in 'Preview Mode.'

Preview mode shows you what your client will see when they first open the plan.

From the preview, you have two choices:

Once you're happy with the set-up, click download and the system will get your PDF into the queue.

Generally, you'll have a PDF in your Meal Garden within 2-4 minutes of requesting it.

To download your PDF, go to your settings and select 'Generated PDF Files' and then click on download for the PDF you are looking for.

If you'd like to make any changes to the plan, you'll need to make a copy of it. To do this, click on 'Personalize' on the bottom action bar.

You'll be prompted to create a name and then the system will create a copy and will open it for you to edit.

Once you've added a name, you'll be introduced to the meal planning screens and capabilities.

The creating new plans section below describes adding and adjusting meals to a new plan, but when working with an existing plan, it's a little different.

Some of the things to keep in mind when working with existing plans.

You can access all the actions you can perform when adding a new meal by clicking once on any existing meals.

It's easy to adjust an existing plan to meet your exact needs in a matter of minutes.

If you don't want to use a template, you can just click 'create' or the '+' icon and you'll be prompted with a creation wizard that will walk you through the set-up process for a new meal plan.

Like all content in your Meal Garden, Meal Plans have a navigation bar on the right-hand side and your main content area is in the center of the screen.

There are four (4) sections to a Meal Plan.

Section 1: Details

Use the details section to create a description, add tags, and set up privacy settings and active comments if you're running a group or would like to collect input.

You can also create a custom (aka vanity) URL for your plan.

Section 2: Meals

This is where you will do most of your work, adding, adjusting, and editing meals.

Section 3: Cover Page

Select a cover page layout and add an image.

Section 4: Preview

Preview is the final step and provides the actions to share your meal plan with your client, website, or social audience.

Even if you have templates, there's always going to be a need to personalize a meal plan based on a number of different variables.

To make this easier, you can use the settings tab on the action bar in the meal.

Here you can configure the plan to make it easier to find meals that will work and to monitor key Marco and nutrient levels.

1) Selecting the data you want to monitor

Meal Garden provides a data table on the side of the meal plan that shows you the nutritional makeup of your plan in real-time.

You can control the viewable data elements by selecting 'nutrition settings' and then editing the visible fields.

2) Setting up goals

Each nutrient that you make visible can also have a goal associated with it; this helps you focus on what's important as you put together your plans.

For example, if you are focused on lower protein and increasing vitamin C, the best way to track them is to create goals.

Goals can be set for any macronutrient specification or nutrient targets such as vitamins, minerals, or microminerals. Once you've selected what to track, you can choose one of the following ways to track them:

Finally, establish the range you want to focus on.

3) Search Restrictions

Search restrictions make it that much easier to find recipes for your plans. When adding meals, the search will consider any restrictions you've set up and exclude recipes/foods that don't meet your criteria.

4) Snacks

Each meal plan has a default snack at the end of the day, but that doesn't stop you from adding more snacks between meals.

With snacks added to your schedule, you can add meals to snacks in the same way you add meals to meals.

With everything set up, you're ready to add meals.

You never know where you'll find that perfect meal. With Meal Garden, you can always easily add a meal to a plan in one of the following ways.

Search and add from the Recipes section of your library

The search filters are the same across all aspects of Meal Garden, so you can narrow down your search from the Recipe screen and add meals to existing plans or create a new plan.

Adding a meal from a collection

Using the same approach (clicking the box in the upper right-hand corner of the recipe) you can also add a recipe to your plan.

Adding a meal from the meal plan search

The most powerful way to add meals is through the plan itself.

All you do is click on the '+' in the meal slot you'd like to work with and you'll be presented with the recipe search from your library, with design enhancements to make it quick and easy to find the right meal.

You'll notice in the GIF above, there are a few improvements in the search screen when compared to recipes from the main library.

The biggest change is the addition of 'foods' and 'pre-made meals'.

When you search for keywords, Meal Garden will return common foods and pre-made meals (think restaurants or grab-and-go from the grocery store) in addition to traditional recipes.

Let's take a minute and examine how this screen will make it easier for you to create your plans.

Once you've found a meal that works, click 'schedule'. This will bring you to the adjustments screen, where you can do a final review and make any adjustments.

You can make the following adjustments to a recipe or meal:

If your recipe includes pre-prep instructions, they will be automatically added to the correct day when you schedule the meal.

More than one meal for a particular time of day? No problem. Just add them and then click the Sort function so you can arrange how they appear.

There are two ways to remove a meal from a meal plan:

1) Click-and-drag the meal to the bottom of the screen. A garbage pail will appear and the meal will be removed.

2) Click on the meal and select 'remove'

Notes are a useful way to share important information about your plan or protocol with your clients.

Notes use the same editing features available in articles and documents and can handle everything from text, images, videos, gifs, and links.

You can attach notes to any meal in your Meal Plan.

Throughout Meal Garden, you can get a quick idea of the nutritional make-up of the foods you're looking at. The options are:

You can access the shopping list at any time by clicking on the shopping list action on the bottom action bar.

From the shopping list, you can:

The last thing you should do before sharing the plan is to click on the preview tab. This is what your clients will see when they initially open the plan online.

The online view is almost identical to a printed PDF. The only differences are the footers on the PDF.

From the Preview page, you can:

Once you've selected download, Meal Garden will create your PDF and display the final product onscreen. You will also be emailed a copy of the PDF via a link accessible for 48hrs.

Meal Garden makes it easy for you to share your plans through all the major channels.

All plans can be shared via hyperlink. Hyperlinks can be added to an email campaign, into your EHR, or used as links on your website.

Watch the clip below to see how easy it is.

Sharing plans via social is a great way to engage your audience, manage a group, or highlight your services to potential clients.

Using the floating toolbar on the right-hand side of the Preview and Details screen, you can share your plans to:

The most effective way to share with your clients is digital; this way, they can take advantage of Meal Garden's tools for clients. To share with a client, click on 'Share' from the Details or Meals screen. From here, you can share to:

Now that you've mastered Meal Plans keep going, and get familiar with the other great aspects of Meal Garden.

Everything you need to know about: