What would make Mealime better for you? 🚀

[jeff]

I’m honestly seeing the majority of the recipes I pick (vegetarian) to be above 700 calories. I also think an option to get servings in odd numbers (3 instead of 4 for example) would be great because then I could divide the recipe in 4 anyway and reduce calories that way.

It sounds like recipe customization would be useful for you (in order to hit the nutritional values you’re looking for). Another solution, however, could be to have some kind of filter where you let us know the calories / macros you want, and we only show you recipes that fit this criteria. Would this satisfy your needs better @Jgal?

[Jgal]

Yes. Either of those would be great

[Sophie]

There are already a lot of replies, so I hope this isn’t too repetitive. But I would love if Mealime expanded to include every aspect of food prep for the week. Like if there were somehow to input the number of people per meal, number of meals to cook at home, how much time you had each night, and if Mealime could calculate how to best do that with the least food waste. It would also have to be relatively quick to put it all in to!

I know that’s already a lot to ask, but if you wanted to take it further, if there was a way that when you click “I cooked it!” you could say how the portion size was for you and that way in the future recipes could be made smaller or larger depending on your individual preferences. Maybe in a machine learning way?

These are just suggestions that I think would make Mealime even better, but it’s already my favorite app and you guys are doing an awesome job, so thank you!

[jeff]

Hi Sophie! Thanks so much for your feedback and kind words about the app

In general, it looks like you want customization on a more granular level (which is definitely something we’re committed to improving upon). May I ask, does the number of people you cook for and the time you have available to cook vary drastically throughout the week? Consequently, do you find yourself having to change your Settings often?

Your second suggestion is very cool - I could see this being super valuable. As a first step in this direction, we’re working on a Notes feature right now which will allow you to record your thoughts about the recipes you cook (for ex., modifications, cook times, etc). It’s not smart like what you suggested, but it’s something! I’m sure we’ll build more functionality into this in the future.

Thanks again Sophie!

[Josh]

I recently started using this app over the weekend once I got fed up with spending hours trying to find recipes that fit within a particular diet. So far I have absolutely no complaints and thoroughly enjoy the ease of cooking with Mealime.

The only suggestion I have as far as making the app better for me personally, would have to be an overall meal planning feature. Such as being able to input what I had for breakfast, lunch, dinner that day and getting an overall calorie consumption as well as a breakdown for nutrition. Pretty much something like MyFitness Pal. Something that would probably be even better than adding a tracking feature like mentioned above would be integration with the MyFitness app itself.

Aside from that, I’m perfectly content with everything else. I definitely appreciate a simple and easy to use app that is well designed. Kudos!

[Sophie]

Hi Jeff,

I might be strange, but on average I cook for myself 4 nights a week, for myself and one other person 2 nights a week, and for a group of 4-5 1 night a week, and I try to shop once a week but at most 2 times a week because I really just don’t have the time to go more often. This can vary week to week though. Usually, I set it for the 2-person plan for 5 or 6 nights, then I come up with my own plan for when I am feeding more people. This isn’t a huge gripe and probably something pretty specific to my situation though. Mealime has definitely simplified most of my week in dinner and lunch planning.

Also, one thing that would be nice is if the ingredients needed were slightly more seasonal based. For instance, today I wanted to do the pork chops with peach salsa (it sounds so good) but no chance of finding peaches in my local grocery store, and I’m even spoiled being from the Bay Area.

I’m sure you have thought of this, but just in case, for modifications, you might want to be careful to take them with a grain of salt because of the differences in ovens, altitudes, etc. that can effect the cook times. Although that would be a super cool thing to incorporate if you moved into machine learning. Also, the second part is more of an idea for building in the future, I know it’s a tall order so I hope you didn’t take it as a critique!

Best,
Sophie

[Barbozak]

Another thought, would be to be able to see the nutritional info for each part of food that I’m cooking. Like I made shrimp coconut curry with rice tonight, it would be nice to see what the nutritional facts were for the shrimp curry and then the carrot rice. Or like when I made the stew that had a side of bread that I omitted, it would have been easier for me to get the correct nutritional information if I knew how much was added for the bread. So we could see the total and then the breakdown of it. Like approximately this many calories and protein, etc. are in the soup, and this is how many we estimated for the side of crusty bread. Just for times when there are separate items… in case I decide I don’t want part or if I get home and see someone ate part of my grocery list. (;
Might make the nutritional info page much longer… but could also be helpful for getting more accurate nutritional info.

[lmgriese]

I have seen some requests for lower calorie options. I would love a lower calorie option - say between 400-500 calories per meal and in conjunction with that and maybe more importantly would really benefit from a “Heart Healthy” meal preference.

[jeff]

Thanks @Josh! It’s awesome to that Mealime has been working well for you so far

The only suggestion I have as far as making the app better for me personally, would have to be an overall meal planning feature. Such as being able to input what I had for breakfast, lunch, dinner that day and getting an overall calorie consumption as well as a breakdown for nutrition. Pretty much something like MyFitness Pal. Something that would probably be even better than adding a tracking feature like mentioned above would be integration with the MyFitness app itself.

That would be awesome if Mealime could do this, eh? It’s something we’ve toyed with, and we’re still considering all the possible ways we could solve this problem. We could build a dashboard of some sort with stats, or integrate with MFP or Apple Health, for example. The trick is keeping the app simple, which is surprisingly tough to do as more features are added! We’ll think more on this though. Thanks again Josh

[jeff]

I might be strange, but on average I cook for myself 4 nights a week, for myself and one other person 2 nights a week, and for a group of 4-5 1 night a week, and I try to shop once a week but at most 2 times a week because I really just don’t have the time to go more often. This can vary week to week though. Usually, I set it for the 2-person plan for 5 or 6 nights, then I come up with my own plan for when I am feeding more people.

This is pretty interesting, Sophie; thanks so much for sharing. It seems to me that you sound like a bit of an outlier, but then again I wonder if more people have cooking schedules similar to yours? I’ll have to investigate this.

Also, one thing that would be nice is if the ingredients needed were slightly more seasonal based.

Seasonality is definitely something we’re planning to build into the meal plan builder logic in the future. I think this would help a lot with ease of grocery shopping, keeping costs down, and having fresher food.

I know it’s a tall order so I hope you didn’t take it as a critique!

Please, be blunt! We don’t take offence. Really, the only way to reliably make Mealime better is to hear as honest feedback from our users as possible. So don’t hold back! Thanks Sophie.

[jeff]

Another thought, would be to be able to see the nutritional info for each part of food that I’m cooking.

This is a great idea! Design implementation might be tricky, but I can definitely see the value in this type of feature. Thanks!

[jeff]

I would love a lower calorie option

Thanks Linda! Calorie / macronutrient customization is something we’re thinking deeply about for the future. I think this could be a huge value add to the app - thanks for bringing this top of mind.

[jcregan]

Agreed! If there was a list of things to prep for the week, such as taking an hour on Sunday to prep for the week, would be very helpful!

[jcregan]

Also, Through this week, as I noticed I was out of things, I added them to the grocery list but when I chose my new menu, all those items went away!!! Ahhhhh! and I can’t find a way to recover them… or have them transferred to the new grocery list… hopefully, I can remember them all…

[Deirdre]

I This is AMAZING!! I can not WAIT to try it!

[mitch]

Yuck! That sounds really frustrating @jcregan! This seems like a really important problem to solve, to me. You should be able to add items to your grocery list as you think of them throughout the and have them appear on your next week’s list.

Maybe when you’ve completed your grocery list for the previous week, we should have a button that says “Start your next week’s grocery list”, or something. You can press that and then start adding items which will automatically be added to your grocery list when you create your next meal plan.

Thanks so much for bringing this up. I bet it is something that other users have gotten frustrated with!

[KateGRD]

Hi there. I’ve attempted to read through what suggestions have already been given as to not repeat, however I’ve seen it come up over and over again. The two things that I would like to see you to make me a lime better are: 1. nutritional information and 2. A way to filter further than only choosing 1 eating preference…I’ll explain.

1. I am a dietitian, I practice in cardiac rehabilitation and have never found an application as easy as this, to use for myself even, to make healthy eating easy. I have recommended this app to countless other dietitians and patients that I see because I am so impressed with what you have made. Here’s where the problem lies. I only feel comfortable recommending this app to patients who have a moderate level of food and cooking knowledge because there are no calories, sodium, carbohydrates, or fat information for lower health educated individuals to assess that the recipe is OK for them to use.
   This is where my second point comes in. Even if you didn’t want to divulge all of the nutrition information you could provide filters that could disseminate between recipes that are higher or lower in sodium ( or other various nutrients, such as you do with “low carb”) as we give our patients actual number goals for nutrients.

With that said…I cannot rave enough about a free app that has saved me $, made my life easier and, shh, has lost 3# for me

Thanks,
Kate G

[jeff]

There’s nothing wrong with a 3# weight loss! Great job @KateGRD, I’m glad Mealime has been working well for you so far

I only feel comfortable recommending this app to patients who have a moderate level of food and cooking knowledge because there are no calories, sodium, carbohydrates, or fat information for lower health educated individuals to assess that the recipe is OK for them to use.

I appreciate your feedback, Kate. That makes sense. We do have full nutritional information available, but it’s currently only shown to Pro subscribers. It’s tough to strike a balance between making a simple app that most people can follow without making it too simple by withholding too many features or information. Nutritional info fell on the “too-much-info” side of the fence for us, but I can see how it is required for some people.

Have you found that some of your patients and colleagues upgrade to Pro in order to access nutritional information, or has it not come up?

you could provide filters that could disseminate between recipes that are higher or lower in sodium ( or other various nutrients, such as you do with “low carb”) as we give our patients actual number goals for nutrients.

This would be awesome! We are currently considering how to make filters / this type of granular meal planning available for a future release. I agree that it would be a big value add to the app. It’s a big’ish project, but I’m sure we’ll post updates in the community here to keep everyone informed of our progress

Thanks again for your feedback!

[mealimemileaem]

I thought a nice addition would be to provide a sustainable seafood meal plan option. In “settings” there would be a check mark that would look something like…

☐ Only include seafood recipes not on the “avoid” list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch List

or

☐ Only include seafood recipes that are on the “Best Choices” or “Good Alternative” lists of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch List

[jeff]

I thought a nice addition would be to provide a sustainable seafood meal plan option

That’s a cool idea! Thanks for sharing.