Meal planning: how to automate menu creation using IT tools?

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Modern technology can significantly simplify the routine process of menu planning and calorie counting. Instead of spending hours on notebooks and calculators, you can use specialized smartphone apps, cloud spreadsheets, or even write your own automation scripts. This is especially relevant for developers and people who are used to optimizing any processes in their lives.

The first step toward digitizing your diet is choosing a recipe database. You can use popular culinary apps or create your own database in Notion, Airtable, or Google Sheets. Add your favorite dishes there along with their macro breakdown (proteins, fats, carbs, and calories) and preparation time.

To automate the process, you can use the following approaches:

1. Set up formulas in your spreadsheets so that selecting a dish from a drop-down list automatically sums up all the required nutrients for the day.
2. Use ready-made nutrition trackers with a menu generation feature based on your goals, allergies, and excluded foods.
3. Write a simple Telegram bot or a Python script that randomly selects dishes from your database based on given tags, forming a balanced weekly meal plan.

The main advantage of this approach is flexibility and scalability. If you need to adjust calorie intake or exclude a specific ingredient, the system will recalculate everything in a couple of seconds. Over time, you will build a huge digital library of proven food combinations, which will turn meal planning from a tedious chore into a fast technical process.

Meal planning: how to automate menu creation using IT tools?

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