Family Profile - Frequently Asked Questions
About the Family Profile
How does my Family Profile influence my meal plan?
Answer: When planning your meals, the Meal Planner program looks to your Family Profile for guidance in selecting the appropriate meals for your family. Therefore, setting up your family profile is the key to getting a meal plan that you will like. There are two main sections to customizing your family profile, My Meal Preferences and My Exclusions.
About My Meal Preferences
What are "My Meal Preferences"?
Answer: "My Meal Preferences" consist of main ingredients and flavors. The percentages you record for each main ingredient and flavor will determine how often meals with that main ingredient and flavor are selected for you. It's how you tell the Meal Planner what you like to eat!
For example, if you record "50" percent for Asian and "50" percent for American, One Click Dinners will select half your meals with an Asian flavor and half with an American flavor.
How does the Meal Planner know a meal's main ingredient and flavor?
Answer: The Meal Planner looks to the main dish recipe of a meal for that information. Every recipe is categorized with a main ingredient and flavor, and every meal has a main dish recipe. The main dish recipe's main ingredient and flavor represent the whole meal when it comes to the Meal Planner making a selection for you.
How do I customize "My Meal Preferences"?
Answer: A default percentage for each main ingredient and flavor was filled-in for you automatically when your account was first set-up. You can just type over the default percentages to make changes. Just be sure that the sum of the main ingredient and flavor percentages total to 100%, respectively.
Can I give a zero to a main ingredient I don't like?
Answer: Yes, and this is the way it works.
All meals have one, and only one main dish recipe (entree). This main dish recipe has been placed into one of the Main Ingredients categories. Only entrees with a main ingredient percentage greater than zero will be selected for you. For example, if you don't eat pork, you can put '0' percent for pork, in My Meal Preferences. No meal with an entree that is categorized with a main ingredient of pork will be selected for you.
How can I make sure I won't get any side dish recipes with pork?
Answer: Go to My Exclusions. Here you can list the ingredients to be excluded from selection. This list will control the selection of ALL recipes, both entrees and side dishes.
However, if you set a Main Ingredient to '0' percent, such as Pork, you needn't list the individual major cuts of pork on your exclusion list, because no side dishes have a main ingredient of pork loin, pork tenderloin, pork roast, etc. Below is a guideline of what to put on your exclusion list when you set a main ingredient to '0' percent:
- When Pork = '0', add 'bacon' to your exclusion list.
- When Shellfish = '0', add 'cooked baby shrimp' to your exclusion list.
- When Sausage = '0', add 'cured chorizo sausage' to your exclusion list.
About My Ingredient Exclusions
What are "My Exclusions"?
Answer: This is a list of what you don't like to eat. There are actually several lists, the first being a list of recipe ingredients that you do not like, followed by cooking methods and spice levels. Your selections will be saved automatically. You can revise you lists at any time. To make an ingredient available for selection again, click Remove.
- Here's a bit more detail about each list:
- scroll down the list of ingredients, click to select one, and press the "Add" button,
- or you can click in the ingredient list and type a letter to jump to all ingredients starting with that letter,
- or you can exclude a whole group of ingredients at once - see how.
"Ingredient Exclusions"
By placing an ingredient on this ingredient exclusion list, the Meal Planner will not select any recipes that include that ingredient. There are several techniques you can employ to list excluded ingredients:"Cooking Method Exclusions"
These methods refer to specialized cooking tools, such as grill, slow cooker or crock pot, etc. We assume that every cook has use of an oven, stove-top, refrigerator and microwave oven."Spice Level Exclusions"
Recipes that have some heat due to their seasoning are given a spice level of Mild, Medium or Hot. Most of the time, you can control the spice level by adding more or less of the spicy ingredient. However, if your family is sensitive to spicy foods, you may want to exclude recipes with the hot and medium levels.Why do you recommend limiting my ingredient exclusions to 100 or fewer?
Answer: The meal planner program will not select any meals with recipes that contain an ingredient from your exclusion list. The entire meal is skipped, even if only a side recipe contains a single ingredient that you have excluded. Excluding too many ingredients may result in no meals, or too few meals to create a meal plan for you. We feel that 100 or fewer ingredients will still provide the meal planner program with enough meals to satisfy your requests.
And remember, excluding ingredients is in addition to setting your meal preferences, which also customizes your meal selection. (See Setting Main Ingredients to Zero)
Can I exclude an entire group of ingredients all at once?
Answer: Yes, and here's how. Let's say you want to exclude all "Fresh Dairy" ingredients.
- Select the category "Fresh Dairy" from the top, category box.
- Select all the dairy ingredients being displayed in the second box by:
- clicking on the first item,
- then hold down the Shift-key,
- scroll down and click on the last item.
- Now that all ingredient items are selected, release the Shift-key and click the "Add" button.
