I asked AI to help with dinner and it took so much of my mental load off

Before becoming a father three years ago, Jonathan had honed his meal planning skills when it came to cooking for himself and his wife, Farrah.

“I was actually quite meticulous about it and had a lot of time to do it effectively, but once we had kids, we became time-poor and it became chaotic,” says the Melbourne father of two, aged three and seven months old. Kidspot.

“Meal planning was completely thrown off and there was no time to prepare a meal either.”

Earlier this year, Jonathan and Farrah, who both work full-time, decided to tidy up their weekly to-do list by ordering a home-delivered fruit and vegetable box from a company that sources produce that supermarkets otherwise they would reject it because of their imperfections.

So far, they’ve picked a $50 Farmer’s Pick [$33 USD] box of pairs, which gives them 10 kg [22 lbs] fruits and vegetables, but soon plan to choose a $69 [$45 USD] family box which has 15 kg [33 lbs] of production. All production is chosen by the supplier, not the customer.

It was this change that led the 39-year-old dad to come up with a whole new way to feed his family – using AI artificial intelligence, namely ChatGPT.

“We started putting things in the box that I didn’t really know how to cook, like kale and bok choy, and I had used GPT-4.0 for other things, so I thought I’d try using it to suggest meals for whatever ingredients we had that week,” he says.

Asking AI to help with dinner was a game changer

While it may seem like a daunting technical task to do every week, Jonathan – who has used AI for everything from helping his job as a high school science teacher to creating new craft activities for his toddler his – says the technology is very easy to use.

“You just type in the ingredients and the amount you want to use, such as what’s in the veggie box, and I also mention that I want to use pantry staples and protein, and that’s all the information she needs to come up with pretty good dinner suggestions for the week,” he says.

“You can be as specific or as vague as you like, but I’ve found through trial and error that the more information you put in, the better the result.”

ChatGPT even offers egg- and nut-free food suggestions to take care of Jonathan’s oldest child’s allergies.

“You just add that request and we also add things that we don’t like to eat, so it really caters to your needs and tastes,” he explains.

“When a meal came out with prawns, I just decided, ‘I don’t like Monday’s meal, please change it to something without prawns,’ he did really well. It always gives me ideas I wouldn’t have thought of before.”

The best part, he says, is the whole process of creating a complete dinner meal plan for the week takes just minutes and saves the family money since there’s no waste.

“I used to put the vegetables in by hand, but now there’s a new feature where you can take a picture of them and it will create meals from that, which will save even more time,” he said.

“And those dinners will often be what Farrah and I take to work the next day as leftovers, so it’s really worth it.”

All chat history is saved (or can be deleted), so Jonathan can go back to previous recipes if his family decides to eat something other than what ChatGPT has suggested for that day.

There is no turning back

Safe to say, Jonathan won’t be going back to traditional meal planning anytime soon.

“It’s been amazing for us, so we’ll continue to use it for sure,” he says.

“It’s taken the mental load out of coming home from work and wondering what to cook that night and they never feel like they’re recipes that are just ingredients thrown together, they feel like I’m cooking from a cookbook. Everything about it works better – we’re not buying things we don’t need and the produce lasts longer than if we bought it at the supermarket. It’s also been a great time saver.”