There are an increasing number of artificial intelligence options that may have the capability to help your family plan a meal that fits your dietary restrictions and budget.
I tested a couple of options for you.
AI-powered Buzzfeed quiz
First, I started with the AI Grocery List And Weekly Meal Planning Generator quiz. The quiz allows you to input the number of people you’re shopping for, dietary restrictions, budget and even the store name where you prefer to shop.
There’s also a place for you to enter items you already have at home so it can incorporate that into the meal.
For the purpose of this experiment, I entered information for one person, with no dietary restrictions, a weekly budget of $100, and I said that I already had Greek yogurt, almonds, turkey, ham and eggs.
The results? Within about 10 seconds, the site generated seven days’ worth of well-balanced meals, with three meals a day. It included meals that provided a lot more variation in my diet than I typically have!
The meals also incorporated ingredients that I already had, such as a breakfast of Greek yogurt with almonds and fresh fruit.
A list popped up with ingredients - without individual prices. The list includes everything from proteins like chicken breasts and salmon fillets, to produce, garlic and herbs.
Then, I searched the price of each item on the Cub Foods website and totaled it up - subtracting the price of the herbs and spices that I already have in the house. The total came to $83.80. That’s pretty remarkable!
ChatGPT
Since late last year, this chatbot powered by Open AI has been surging in popularity for being able to assist with everything from homework to writing code and even poetry.
I entered the same information — one person, $100, Cub Foods, no dietary restrictions — except I did not mention the ingredients that I already had. I also asked for a price breakdown for every item.
It quickly did just that. The grocery list was sorted into categories like proteins, dairy, produce and more. While some of the prices were slightly off, I cross-checked many items on the Cub website and they were mostly within a dollar. For example, it priced feta cheese at $2.99, and the feta I found online started at $3.39.
Conclusion
Some of these tools can be very helpful. But admittedly, several of them took a few tries until I worked out the kinks. For example, many times the BuzzFeed quiz didn’t generate the full grocery list, or it repeated the same meal every day. When I tried ChatGPT and gave it a budget of $85, it was less realistic: it suggested I buy 19 pantry staple items for a budget of $15.
So while this is a really helpful and creative guide, it’s still probably helpful to provide some assistance to your virtual assistant.
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