In order to become a better and more consistent cook, I started meal planning. I was interested in this process as a way to save money and try new meals, especially as a way to reduce food waste along with overall carbon footprint (more on this later) .
You can search for recipes and plan your meals yourself, but it can be time-consuming. So, as an editor at CNET, I thought artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, could help. If this generative AI application can be used to negotiate bills, build resumes, and even talk to your doctor about health symptoms, it could also help with something as simple as meal planning. Is it?
This article is part of CNET Zero, a series documenting the effects of climate change and examining what is being done about the issue.
I decided to find out. I asked ChatGPT to create a 7-day healthy dinner meal plan with a few parameters. The situation is as follows.
Read more: ChatGPT 4 review: A smarter AI chatbot, but it comes at a cost
Meal planning with ChatGPT
Prompt: “Hello, ChatGPT. Can you share a 7-day meal plan for easy and healthy dinners for two?”
ChatGPT: “That’s right! This is a 7-day meal plan for easy, healthy dinners for two. Each meal is designed to be simple and quick to prepare.”
We also asked for a meal plan that avoided fish (personal preference) and included a grocery list. The meals provided are as follows:
Day 1: Lemon Garlic Chicken with Roasted Vegetables
Day 2: Stir-fried beef and broccoli and rice
Day 3: Veggie tacos
Day 4: Grilled Chicken with Quinoa and Spinach
Day 5: Pasta primavera
Day 6: Chicken and vegetable skewers
Day 7: Easy Turkey Chili
A short statement with the materials and a description was also provided, but the materials did not have any measurements listed, but you could request specific measurements for your application if you wanted. I was able to estimate how much of each ingredient I would need for my small family of two. I took the list provided and headed to the grocery store to make my first meal of the night.
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Test your AI-generated meal plan
Day 1: Lemon Garlic Chicken with Roasted Vegetables
ChatGPT ingredients: chicken breast, lemon, garlic, olive oil, mixed vegetables (carrots, peppers, zucchini).
ChatGPT Instructions: Marinate chicken breast with lemon juice, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast at 400°F (200°C) with mixed vegetables for 25 to 30 minutes.
I’m glad ChatGPT kept their promise and provided us with a super easy recipe to start the week. I was able to put everything in the oven together and clean up and set the table while it was cooking.
Past experience has shown that zucchini and peppers cook much faster than carrots, so I made a few minor adjustments to this recipe, such as cooking the carrots for about 10 minutes before adding the other ingredients to the pot. I added it. I also added some additional seasonings.
Sheet pan dinners like this one are perfect for weeknight dinners.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 2: Stir-fried beef and broccoli and rice
ChatGPT ingredients: beef strips, broccoli, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice.
ChatGPT Instructions: Stir-fry beef strips with garlic and ginger, add broccoli and simmer until tender. Serve over steamed rice.
This recipe is the one I tweaked the most, but it was still quick to prepare. I felt like the ingredients ChatGPT suggested were missing something, so I decided to make a slightly more elaborate sauce. I was inspired by this recipe I’ve used in the past and ended up with just two additional ingredients: cornstarch and brown sugar. This was a perfect and hearty weeknight meal.
With a few adjustments to ChatGPT’s original recipe, this dish is tangy and delicious.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 3: Vegetable quesadillas
ChatGPT ingredients: tortillas, black beans, corn, bell peppers, avocado, salsa, shredded cheese.
ChatGPT’s instructions: Stir-fry the peppers and mix with the black beans and corn. Fill tortillas with mixed vegetables, avocado slices, salsa, and cheese.
ChatGPT recommended veggie tacos, but I bought the wrong size tortillas, so I ended up making quesadillas instead, and they were just as delicious. One thing to note about this recipe is that ChatGPT didn’t add any seasonings to the ingredients list, so I made sure to add them myself.
This meal would be delicious as a quesadilla or taco.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 4: Grilled Chicken with Quinoa and Spinach
ChatGPT Ingredients: Chicken thighs or breasts, lemon, olive oil, quinoa, fresh spinach.
ChatGPT Instructions: Season chicken with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 25-30 minutes. Serve with cooked quinoa and sautéed spinach.
This was probably the easiest recipe of the week, but it was my favorite. I really liked the taste of the sautéed spinach and quinoa. No matter how many cups of spinach you sauté, it’s still not that big of a deal, so this is a great recipe to make when you have some leftover spinach in the fridge and it’s about to go bad.
If you want to add more flavor to your quinoa, you can cook it with chicken or vegetable broth instead of water.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 5: Pasta primavera
ChatGPT Ingredients: Pasta (such as penne or spaghetti), cherry tomatoes, zucchini, green pepper, olive oil, and parmesan cheese.
ChatGPT instructions: Boil the pasta and sauté the vegetables in olive oil until tender. Toss the pasta with the vegetables and Parmesan cheese.
It’s hard to go wrong with pasta, but this recipe hit the mark. ChatGPT’s instructions say to stir-fry cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and green peppers in olive oil, then toss the boiled pasta with vegetables and Parmesan cheese. There were no seasonings listed so I added them, but it was still a bland meal.
I still had it for dinner (and lunch the next day), but if I make this meal in the future, I’ll add fresh garlic, a few more vegetables, and lemon juice for more flavor.
Vegetables that can be added to pasta primavera are onions, asparagus, and carrots.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 6: Chicken and vegetable skewers
ChatGPT Ingredients: Chicken chunks, bell peppers, onions, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and your favorite seasonings.
ChatGPT Instructions: Thread chicken and vegetables onto skewers. Brush with olive oil and seasoning. Grill or bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.
This chicken thigh kebab was very tasty and filling. What I particularly liked about ChatGPT’s meal plans is that the meals are basic and allow for some adjustments. For example, this recipe lists bell peppers, onions, and cherry tomatoes as vegetables, but you can easily replace these vegetables with anything you like.
I didn’t use cherry tomatoes because I had plenty of them in my pasta primavera the night before, but the mushrooms would be a great addition to this meal.
These kebabs can be cooked in the air fryer or in the oven.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
Day 7: Turkey
ChatGPT Ingredients: ground turkey, canned tomatoes, green beans, chili seasoning.
ChatGPT Instructions: Brown the ground turkey and add the tomatoes, beans, and chili seasoning. Simmer for 20-30 minutes.
People either love chili peppers or hate them. I’m in the former category, so this meal was the perfect way to end my week (and welcome fall!). After browning the ground turkey, most of this meal cooks automatically while it simmers on the stove, making it an especially great recipe for days when you don’t want to spend all night in the kitchen.
Turkey chili is usually a healthier alternative to beef chili.
Colin Cesaric/CNET
My overall opinion on using ChatGPT for meal planning
I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t like grocery shopping. So one of the things I love about using ChatGPT for meal planning is that it comes with a grocery list.
Thanks to this application, it has become very convenient to group products by category, making my trip to the market easier. I copied the list to my iPhone’s Notes app and was in and out of the store within 30 minutes.
While the quick meals ChatGPT provided me with weren’t groundbreaking, I appreciated being able to keep asking the app questions and getting exactly the type of meal I wanted. Whether you want a week’s worth of meals that can be made in 30 minutes or less, or you want vegetarian, gluten-free, or zero-waste meals, you can ask ChatGPT to customize your meal plan.
But most importantly, I realized this week that I wasn’t throwing away any food. My fiance and I either ate all the food the night we cooked it or had leftovers for lunch the next day. And it felt even better than a simple trip to the grocery store.
How meal planning can help reduce food waste
It is estimated that 30% to 40% of food is wasted in the United States each year. Food waste occurs at every stage of food production, but it can (and often does) also occur directly in the kitchen. This mainly happens by buying too much food or not eating it before it spoils.
Read more: 11 ways to stop throwing away food scraps, reuse them and save money
This level of food waste can have a negative impact on the environment by forcing an increase in food production and increasing carbon emissions based on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere during the food production process. . And food that rots in landfills actually releases methane into the environment. Methane is the second largest contributor to climate warming (after carbon dioxide).
But there is also some good news. Meal planning can help tackle food waste. Meal planning makes it less likely that you’ll end up buying too many ingredients at the grocery store, and you can also plan how to use leftover food and ingredient scraps.
