I Let ChatGPT Plan My Meals for a Day!
My job as a copywriter might seem fairly easy to some, but it is far from a picnic in the park.
With all the news about artificial intelligence, it’s pretty hard to find something entertaining to write about, especially if you want to be authentic and unique.
So, while browsing the Internet and looking for some enlightenment on a subject, I noticed that I was hungry as a wolf, and god knows how much I hate thinking about what I want to eat daily.
So, being lazy and wanting to kill two flies with one stone, I had an idea; what if I let ChatGPT plan my meals for a day?
This way, I can replace my brain with a chabot and, at the same time, be fed and happy. So, stick with me throughout the whole article to see what happens when I let ChatGPT plan my meals for a day.
Phase One: Feeding ChatGPT more information about my eating habits!
Before starting the meal planning, I wanted the chatbot to know my preferences and eating habits. I wouldn’t say that I’m a complicated person regarding food, but I do eat less than an average person would eat in a day.
I think I am eating pretty healthy and balanced meals, but if you’re a grown-up who works a 9-5 job, sometimes you just don’t want to cook for the rest of your day to have a balanced and healthy meal.
So, I wanted to note that to ChatGPT, so I don’t end up in the kitchen the whole time.
The second thing I noted was that I don’t like to eat loose minced meat or, if I’m being childish, anything that’s not a burger I don’t eat. Basically, I noted my food preferences.
Prompt: Okay Chat, I want you to plan my meals for the day. I don't have any particular preferences, but I do not eat minced meat unless it's in a burger. Otherwise, I'm pretty okay with eating whatever you provide me with. Please include the time that a meal should be eaten, the recipes, and a list of the ingredients.
To really play this out, I decided to do the challenge, do the recipes, and eat the meals that ChatGPT has planned for me. This is how it went:
The most important meal of the day, Breakfast!
When it comes to breakfast, ChatGPT wasn’t being original with its idea for breakfast, but I am not a person that’s going to wake up at 7 am and do all these excessive recipes, so this one was perfect for me.
ChatGPT suggested that I do scrambled eggs with avocado toast, which, I must say, is pretty nutritious and very filling; I was not used to this much food in the morning.
Although I didn’t get the full grocery list that I wanted, I’ll brush that away since I don’t think my prompt specified how I wanted my grocery list to be written, and I was very satisfied with the answer.
🔮 You might also be interested in reading: I Played Quiz With ChatGPT! It's Awesome
The recipe itself didn’t require many professional skills, so I can say that it’s easy enough for everyone to make it at their homes.
I started with two whole-grain pieces of bread, toasted them until they became crinkly and crispy, and then I proceeded with the scrambled eggs.
Just as my chatbot sous-chef suggested, I cracked two eggs in a bowl, beat them with a fork until I had a smooth consistency, and seasoned them with salt, pepper, and a little bit of garlic powder(if you have garlic salt, it would be even better).
I cooked the eggs on low heat in a non-stick pan with just a touch of butter(you can also use oil). I like my eggs a little bit on the runny side, so I took them out of the heat pretty fast.
After placing my eggs aside, I opened up the avocado, mashed it with a fork, and seasoned it with garlic powder, chili flakes, a pinch of salt, and a crack of black pepper.
I assembled everything together, and even though I am not a fan of eggs over toast, I found the taste pretty remarkable. I guess simple really is better.
Lunch: The one that I usually skip
Okay, so I cheated a little bit with this one. I don’t usually like to have my lunch a little bit later than most people, so naturally, I almost forgot about it and ate it at 3 pm even though ChatGPT suggested that I do lunch at 12:30 pm.
My sidekick suggested I do Quinoa salad with roasted veggies for lunch before I realized that my sidedish needed some shopping.
ChatGPT suggested that I go for colorful veggies like bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and red/purple onion.
Since this part was optional, I partially took ChatGPT’s advice and bought bell peppers and red onion, but I did switch the cherry tomatoes with carrots since I find the taste better than roasted tomatoes.
Making lunch:
- Before I started my actual cooking, I preheated my oven to 200 degrees Celsius, just as ChatGPT suggested.
- The second part was me prepping and cutting the vegetables into bite-sized pieces so I could roast them.
- My chef assistant suggested that I line a piece of parchment paper on a baking tray, add the vegetables, and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then toss to coat evenly and bake in the preheated oven until they’re slightly caramelized and crunchy.
- Since ChatGPT didn’t provide instructions on how to cook the quinoa, I had to Google it and read the label on the back of the box.
- In a wide pan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil and add a cup of quinoa. Let it boil for 12-20 minutes, rinse, and let it cool down completely.
- Make sure to check on your veggies in the oven occasionally. You don’t want to burn the olive oil since it can be toxic if exposed to very high heat for a very long time.
- After being roasted successfully, take your veggies out of the oven and let them cool completely.
- Grab a large salad bowl from your pantry, add the cooled quinoa and veggies, and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
- ChatGPT suggested fun and savory toppings like feta cheese, mixed nuts, seeds, or fresh herbs like basil or cilantro. I chose feta cheese and roasted walnuts.
Impressions: While I had made some kick-ass quinoa salads before, I was confident that I was going to succeed with my mission to make this an enjoyable lunch, and I was right.
The feta cheese gave the salad a savory and salty taste, and the roasted walnuts complimented it with a nutty and kind of sweet taste. ChatGPT really has some skills hidden under its hypothetical sleeve.
Dinner Time: The one I’ve been waiting for!
Since lunch came a little later, I decided dinner would have to wait a little while. Don’t judge me, okay? But I started making my dinner at 9 pm. I am restless, but that’s how I usually eat, and it suits me.
Dinner was the one that really excited me from the whole list since it included one of my favorite and healthiest proteins in the world, salmon.
The recipe was basic oven-roasted salmon fillets with roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli.
Making dinner:
- I started simply by pre-heating the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
- I washed some baby potatoes and didn’t peel them because their skin is so soft and doesn’t require peeling.
- The next thing to do was assemble the salmon and potatoes in a wide pan and bake them, but I actually boiled the potatoes for 15 minutes to bake faster but still be soft inside.
- After the potatoes boiled, I followed the recipe and baked the salmon and potatoes for 15-20 minutes with just a dash of olive oil.
- I added the broccoli to salted and boiled water and left them for 5-10 minutes. I drained the broccoli, salted them again, and tossed them in with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
- I assembled everything together on a little fancy plate and ate my tired feelings away.
Dinner impressions: Since salmon is one of my favorite foods, I will be biased and say that this meal was by far the best thing on this list. I added just a dash of lemon juice on top of the salmon.
Conclusion
Overall, my experience with letting ChatGPT plan my meals for a day was surprisingly successful and filling.
Although you have to find the time to cook for yourself, and I understand that only some have the time to cook three meals a day, the meals were easy to make and budget-friendly, except for the salmon and avocado.
I would use ChatGPT again for these types of endeavors, and I would recommend it to anyone with ADHD or any problems with planning their meals/not knowing what to eat that day.
