Living Cookbook 2011 - Recipe and Meal Planning Software

My favorite meal planning software has been updated. You can now get Living Cookbook 2011 from Amazon.com.

Living Cookbook 2011 is the eighth major release of the award-winning recipe management software from Radium Technologies. Designed to work seamlessly with every version of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows 7, the new version includes over 50 major enhancements including:

* Scan images directly from your flatbed scanner, digital camera or iPhone.
* Interative image, video and attachment views.
* User-defined recipe, ingredient and menu data.
* File attachments for recipes, ingredients, menus, glossary items and techniques.
* Support for multiple recipe, ingredient, menu and glossary item images.
* USDA SR-23 nutrition data.
* Import Cook'n DVO files.
* Compressed export file format (FDXZ) resulting in 50% smaller export files.
* Customizable recipe capture and import units.
* Scale menus to any number of servings.
* New image preview window.
* Automated support system (in addition to e-mail, support ticket system and user forum).

Use Living Cookbook 2011 to organize recipes, plan meals, create menus, calculate nutrition information, create shopping lists, publish cookbooks, export, e-mail and much more. The software is extraordinarily flexible and easy-to-use and Living Cookbook's comprehensive help file, tutorials, demo videos and customer support will ensure that you can find and learn to use the features you need. The software comes with more than 1,000 recipes, and thousands more are available online. Find out why Smart Computing Magazine, Choice Magazine and Which? Magazine all chose Living Cookbook as the best cooking and recipe management software.

Living Cookbook 2008 is an award-winning recipe management software, designed to help you:

- organize recipes
- plan meals
- create menus
- calculate nutrition information
- create shopping lists
- publish cookbooks
- and much more!

If that's not enough, the Living Cookbook comes with more than 1,000 recipes, and thousands more are available online. Living Cookbook lets you type in your recipes, scan them in or copy them from the Internet, making entering your recipes quick and easy.

The meal planning calendar lets you drag and drop your recipes onto the calendar. You can view your meal plans by day, week or month. Creating a shopping list for a meal plan is as simple as clicking on the appropriate days and selecting "Add to Grocery List" from the Action menu.

If you're dieting or just trying to eat healthier, Living Cookbook lets you calculate nutrition for any recipe, ingredient, menu or meal plan. You can customize your display to show over 150 different nutrients including calories, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and more. You can even calculate Weight Watchers Points.

One of my favorite features - and the one that saves me the most time - is the shopping list creator. Living Cookbook can create shopping lists organized by grocery aisle. Just add your ingredients, recipes, menus and meal plans and the software will do the rest. Also, if you enter the prices of your most commonly shopped-for ingredients, Living Cookbook can calculate the total cost of your grocery list as well as subtotals for each store - very cool!

Meal planning may sound intimidating, but it's really not that hard. It's basically just deciding what you're going to cook for the following week and putting it on paper.

The first step is to write down all of your family's favorite dishes. I keep a recipe book with all of my family's favorite dishes in it, and pull it out whenever I need ideas for dinner.

Next, grab the grocery ads and look to see what's on sale that week. If you don't get these in the mail or in your weekly newspaper, just jump online and visit your favorite grocery store's website. Most grocery stores have their weekly ads listed right on their websites now, and some are even interactive (allowing you to create a printable shopping list - very cool!). If you're on a budget, planning your meals around the weekly grocery sales is a great way to save money.

Next, look at your calendar for the week. Do you have any family or work activities that will keep you from getting home at a decent hour? Those nights are great for leftover buffets or pre-cooked (freezer) meals.

The next step is to see what food you already have in your fridge and pantry. Do you have any food that needs to be eaten right away? This is one of the greatest benefits of meal planning. You waste much less food because you only buy what you plan on using that week.

At this point, you should have an idea of what you want to cook for the week based on the grocery store ads, what you already have on hand, and your family's activities for the week. Go ahead and write out the meals you plan on cooking for the week, and fill in your grocery list for the items you don't have on hand.

All you have left to do at this point is to do the grocery shopping, post your menu on the fridge for all to see, and create your meals each day. The rest of your week should go much more smoothly now that you don't have to worry about "what's for dinner" at the end of each day. See how easy meal planning can be?

If you're like most people you have a family and a job and a hectic schedule. So you know how hard it can be to get a healthy meal in. Our crazy schedules are probably the number one reason why Americans eat so poorly and are overweight. Meal planning can help by allowing you to eat healthier, save time and save money. Here are three ways in which meal planning can help improve your life:

Get All the Nutrients You Need for a Healthy Body

Planning your meals in advance is a great way to ensure that you get all the nutrients you need for a healthy, balanced lifestyle. By doing meal planning you will always have healthy foods on hand, and you won't be tempted to buy food that you don't need or isn't good for you. Using meal planning software, you can make sure you get all the protein, vitamins or other nutrients you need each day. Meal planning software is a great way for diabetics to manage the amount of sugar they consume, and for people in general to manage the calories and fat they take in each day.

Spend Less Time at the Grocery Store

With proper meal planning, you will already have a grocery list planned out before you go to the store, because you will know in advance the meals and foods you will be shopping for. With a grocery list in hand, you will be less likely to buy things you don't need and you'll spend less time wandering the aisles. In addition, you will go to the store less often because you will already have purchased the food you need for the week. Imagine how much time you'll save when you don't have to stop by the store after work in search of something to prepare for dinner that night!

Save Money by Only Buying the Foods You Need for the Week

By planning your meals in advance, you will only buy the food you need to prepare your meals for the week. This means less money spent on food you don't need, less food wasted (which equates to more money in your pocket), and less trips to the fast food restaurant. This is by far one of the greatest benefits of menu planning and can definitely improve your quality of life by allowing you to use the money you save for other things.

Meal Planning Software Can Help

There are meal planning software programs available that can help make your life and your meal planning needs a whole lot simpler. Programs such as Meal Plans 101 can actually determine your individual nutritional needs, making a healthy diet much easier to attain. As you can see, meal planning software can help you eat healthier, save time and save money - that's three ways meal planning software can help improve your life.

In today's hectic world losing weight can be very difficult. You live a busy life; with work and your family it's hard to always eat right, especially if you're waiting until the last minute to prepare dinner. More likely than not, you'll end up fixing something quick and easy (but not necessarily good for you), or even worse, you'll stop by the drive-thru on the way home from work. Not exactly what you need to do to lose weight.

Meal planning can help you lose weight quicker than just dieting alone because it takes away the temptation to prepare something unhealthy just because it's quick and easy or to stop and pick up fast food on the way home from work. With meal planning you always have healthy meals either waiting to be prepared or already prepared and just waiting to be heated up. Even if you prefer to prepare your meals fresh each day, meal planning is still a huge help when you are dieting because you will always have the ingredients you need to prepare healthy meals on hand. When you plan ahead and have healthy food ready to be cooked (or ready to be served), your dieting will be much more successful than when you're scrambling to come up with something for dinner every day.

The way I do meal planning is to scan the grocery ads each week, then prepare a meal plan based on what's on sale or what's in season, or even what just happens to look good that day. I do my shopping on the weekend, prepare one or two meals ahead of time, and make sure I have all the ingredients I need to prepare the remaining meals for the week. Whether I'm cooking a meal from scratch or reheating one I prepared ahead of time, I know my family will have a healthy and delicious meal every day. If I'm dieting or if anyone has any special diet needs for any reason, by doing meal planning, I make sure that we always have lots of fruits, veggies and other healthy food on hand.

If you need to keep track of calories or other nutrition information, or you just want some help keeping all of your recipes, meal plans and grocery lists organized, meal planning software can be a huge help. Meal planning software can save you time and help you achieve your diet and weight loss goals much faster.

With most meal planning software you can:

- Create menus
- Create shopping lists
- Store and organize recipes

No matter which software you use, meal planning software helps take the guesswork out of dieting and counting calories, which helps you achieve your weight loss goals quicker and easier.