Meal planning stresses me out, so I let Claude handle it instead

One of many largest issues I’ve with AI is that it may possibly achieve this many issues that it is laborious to know the place to begin. I made a decision to see if Claude might resolve certainly one of my largest frustrations. The outcomes had been spectacular, and I barely needed to carry a finger.

Meal planning is a thankless process

It is a endless supply of stress

Credit score: Dragon Photographs / Shutterstock

One of many issues I hate essentially the most is having to plan meals and purchase meals. It is a process that by no means ends; you purchase meals for the week, prepare dinner it, eat it, after which you must begin another time. Arising with meal concepts is an effort, after which you must purchase all of the meals to make these meals.

Planning meals and going out to purchase the substances takes up lots of time. Even when we store on-line and have the groceries delivered, you continue to need to take the time so as to add the whole lot to your basket, and when it does come, a few of the essential gadgets are sometimes lacking, so you may’t make what you’d deliberate.

My sensible residence and AI tools have helped take some mundane chores out of my palms, so I puzzled if Claude would be capable to make this one simpler, too. I made a decision to see if I might give you a workable plan with Claude’s assist.

I needed to create a system to make life simpler

The plan was additionally to waste much less meals

My thought was pretty easy. I’d arrange a database of the meals that we prefer to prepare dinner, together with all of the related substances. I needed to have the ability to choose three meals for the week from that database, and have Claude choose the remaining two meals so as to minimize waste.

For instance, if there have been substances left over from making the three meals I selected, Claude would choose two recipes that might deplete as lots of these leftover substances as attainable. The intent was that I might end the week with as little meals waste as attainable.

I made a decision to make use of Grocy in Dwelling Assistant, which is a self-hosted grocery management system. I might be capable to add my recipes to Grocy in addition to use it to trace the substances that I might purchased. Claude would then be capable to take a look at Grocy to search out the optimum recipes to reduce meals waste.

I ought to then be capable to generate a buying listing in Grocy with all of the substances I might want for the week’s meals. I might both order the substances on-line or exit and purchase them, then replace Grocy to mark these substances as being in inventory.

Claude did the grunt work for me

I sat and watched Claude fill within the information for me

I arrange Grocy in Home Assistant which was easy sufficient to do. The subsequent section was including a few of my favourite recipes to Grocy. I wasn’t wanting ahead to this, as I used to be going to have so as to add a ton of recipes and their related substances to Grocy, which was going to take a very long time.

Then I spotted that that is one thing Claude might do for me. Utilizing Claude Cowork’s computer use features, I might let Claude entry Grocy in Chrome, and it might add all of the recipes for me. All I wanted to do was present the data, and Claude would add it for me.

Some recipes had been from recipe books, others had been on-line, and a few had been recipes I might picked up alongside the way in which, however I used to be capable of finding comparable variations of them on-line. I bought Claude to regulate them to be for a household of 4 and instructed it so as to add all of them to Grocy.

Then I sat again and watched as Claude took over Chrome and began including the recipes. I watched for some time as a result of I used to be fascinated, however then went off and did one thing else whereas Claude did all of the laborious work for me.

It took a while so as to add the whole lot to Grocy, and I needed to make a few tweaks, however I ended up with the entire recipes added and the product classes created in Grocy, which is one thing that might have taken me lots of work.

I now have a working system with little or no effort

There’s nonetheless extra I can add

Credit score: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

As soon as the recipes had been in place, I examined the system, which runs utilizing Claude to optimize the remaining recipes. I bought it to begin from the belief that my cabinet was naked, chosen three recipes, and Claude selected two extra recipes that used up as lots of the leftover perishable substances as attainable.

These had been all then added to my buying listing in Grocy, in order that I might purchase or order the whole lot I wanted for the week’s meals. Whereas this was a process that might usually take me a major period of time to finish, utilizing Claude, I had a working prototype up and working much more shortly.

The system nonetheless is not full; the subsequent section is to attempt to get Claude so as to add all the required substances to my buying basket on my online grocery shopping site of selection. Then all I am going to have to do is test the listing is not loopy and pay, and my substances can be on the way in which.

AI can take lots of work off your palms

That is precisely what I would like AI to do: take over dull, repetitive tasks that I might quite not need to do myself. I am much less eager on it changing my job, however for now, it is saving me lots of time and serving to to take away certainly one of my largest frustrations.