Useful Ipod App: Mealboard

I realized that as I wrote about how much I liked my iPod touch, I did not give very many specific details about the apps that I like and why I like them.  As I would tell my students, I need to provide more specific information, so I thought that I would devote Fridays to highlighting apps that I like to use.

For people who like to plan their meals out in advance, Mealboard is a useful app to have.  This app gives users the opportunity to plan meals a week at a time for as many weeks into the future as they want, and it lets users add their personal meals to the different categories.  The app also gives users the option to change the categories to whatever categories they wish.

The app comes loaded with a few recipes and some basic categories like meat, poultry, veggie, salad, pasta, and dessert.  To help with planning different meals each day, I added a lunch and a breakfast category, so instead of having to search for meals under the traditional categories, I can quickly look at my lunch list and decide what we will have for lunch each day. 

Users can adjust what day of the week the meal plan begins on, which I find helpful for planning shopping trips.  Since I usually do my grocery shopping on a Tuesday, I have my meal plan set to begin on Wednesdays.  That way I can look at the upcoming week and know what items I need to buy.

One feature that I do not use is the shopping list feature.  When users enter a meal, they have the option to add the list of ingredients needed and the directions for the recipe.  Users do not have to enter this information, but if they do, they can run a report for the meal week that will tell them all the ingredients that they need for the week.

My planning usually just consists of the main dish for the meal but not the sides because I am doing good just to plan out the main dishes for the week, but users who like to plan every last detail can enter it all into the program.

One last feature that I also have not used is the template feature, which allows users to save a specific week's meal plan as a template to use again later.  I probably should use this feature as it would say quite a bit of planning time if I just had a handful of templates to choose from each week instead of creating new plans each week.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give this app an 8 because it is easy to use and it serves it purpose well.