Meal Plan Builder

The meal plan builder is the core of MealCraft. Create day-by-day nutrition plans with real-time calorie and macro tracking, visual progress indicators, and smart nutrient gap alerts.

Creating a plan

Nutrient tracking

The nutrient bar at the top provides real-time visual feedback:

• Calorie ring — circular progress indicator showing percentage of daily calorie target. Green when 80–110% (on track), amber when slightly off, red when significantly under or over.
• Calorie bar — horizontal progress bar with exact numbers (e.g., "834 / 2202 kcal") and remaining amount
• Macro mini-bars — compact progress bars for Protein, Carbs, and Fat showing actual vs target (e.g., "P 58/165g")

Meal timeline

A compact timeline above the meal slots shows your meal spacing visually:

• Dots represent each meal on a 5AM–11PM track
• Filled dots = meals with food items, empty dots = empty slots
• Shows eating window duration and fasting window (e.g., "15.5h eating · 8.5h fasting")

This is especially useful for intermittent fasting plans and ensuring proper meal spacing.

Day view

The default view shows one day at a time with meal slots:

Adding foods

Click Add food or recipe in any meal slot to open the search panel.

AI-powered suggestions

When there's a significant nutrient gap (>30% below target for any macro), an AI Suggestions section appears in the search panel. Click the "Suggest foods" button to get AI-powered recommendations based on the client's profile, dietary preference, and current nutrient gaps.

Suggestions are cached per meal type — switching between meals and back reuses previous results without another AI call. Click Refresh to get new suggestions.

Manual search

Search by English name — Type "brown rice" → results show Brown rice, cooked (USDA) at 123 kcal/100g.

Search by Hindi name — Type "dahi" → results show Curd / Dahi (IFCT) at 60 kcal/100g.

Prefix matching — Type "chick" → immediately shows Chicken, Chickpea, etc. without needing the full word.

Each search result shows:

• Food name with source badge (IFCT / INDB / USDA)
• Macro preview (calories, protein, carbs, fat) in consistent colors
• Hindi name (when available)
• Category name
• Calorie density badge — VL (very low, under 60 kcal/100g), L (low), M (medium), H (high, over 400 kcal/100g)

The first 15 results load instantly. If more results exist, a "Show more" button appears at the bottom with the total count (e.g., "Show more — 32 remaining"). Click to load the next page.

After adding, adjust the quantity and portion size (grams, katori, roti, cup, tablespoon, etc.).

Organizing items

Reorder within a meal

Hover over any food item to reveal a drag handle (⠿) on the left. Drag items up or down to reorder them within the meal — useful for putting the main item first, sides second, and beverages last.

Move between meals

Each item has a ⋯ menu with Move to → [meal name]. Use this to quickly move a food from one meal to another without removing and re-adding it.

Clear and remove meals

The ⋯ menu on each meal header offers:

• Clear all items — empties the meal without removing the slot itself
• Remove meal — deletes the meal slot entirely (confirms if it has items)

Add a meal slot

Click + Add meal slot below the last meal to add a missing meal type (e.g., Pre-Workout, Post-Workout, Bedtime). The dropdown shows only meal types not already in the current day.

Nutrient gap alerts

When daily targets are set and a nutrient is significantly off, the builder shows smart alerts at the bottom of the day:

Day tabs with calorie totals

The day sidebar shows each day's name and total calories, making it easy to spot which days need attention without clicking through each one.

For active plans, the day that corresponds to today's date shows a green "Today" badge — so you always know which day the client is currently on in their portal.

Week view

Switch to week view to see all days side by side. Each day shows:

• Total calories with a color-coded progress bar
• Macro breakdown (P/C/F) in consistent colors
• Food items per meal slot

Click any day to jump back to the day view for editing.

Copying meals and days

This is the biggest time-saver in the builder:

• Copy a meal — click the ⋯ menu on any meal → "Copy to other days"
• Duplicate a day — hover over a day tab → ⋯ → "Duplicate Day"

Alternative items

For any food in a meal slot, you can add alternatives — foods the client can swap in if the primary item isn't available.

Example: Primary item is "Moong dal cheela", alternatives could be "Besan cheela" or "Oats uttapam".

Notes and instructions

Add notes at any level of the plan — per food item, per meal, per day, or for the entire plan. Each note has two fields:

Per-food notes

Click the 📝 icon on any food item to add notes. Common uses:

• "Boil for 10 minutes" (preparation instruction)
• "Can substitute with paneer" (alternative suggestion)
• "Use low-fat version" (client-facing tip)
• "Client mentioned bloating with this food" (internal clinical note)

Per-meal notes

Click the 📝 icon in the meal header (next to the kcal total). Use for timing instructions like "Eat within 30 minutes of waking up" or "Post-workout — consume within 45 min."

Per-day notes

Click the 📝 icon at the top of the day view. Use for special day instructions like "Fasting day — only liquids until noon" or "High-carb day (training day)."

Plan-level notes

Open Plan Settings (⚙️) to add plan-level notes:

• Client Notes — general instructions shown on the PDF and portal (e.g., "Drink 3L water daily")
• Internal Notes — private notes for your reference (e.g., "Client prefers South Indian cuisine, review in 2 weeks")

Plan actions

The toolbar provides quick access to key actions:

Grocery list

Click the 🛒 button to auto-generate a shopping list from all foods in the plan, grouped by category (grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, etc.). Quantities are rounded to practical shopping amounts.

Share via copy, WhatsApp, or print.

PDF export

Click ⋯ → Export PDF to generate a branded PDF. Customize what appears:

• Cover page with practice logo and client name
• Client summary with health stats
• Day-by-day meal plan with portions and per-meal nutrients
• Daily nutrient totals
• Nutrient summary across all days
• Recipes (if included)
• Grocery list
• Recommendations (water intake, physical activity, foods to avoid)
• Custom message

Templates

Save any plan as a reusable template:

Plan statuses

Reopening and restoring plans

• Completed → Reopen: Moves the plan back to Draft so you can edit it. Start and end dates are cleared — they'll be re-set when you activate again.
• Archived → Restore: Same as reopen — moves to Draft for editing.

This means no plan is ever a dead end. You can always go back and revise.

Sending plans to clients

After activating a plan, click Send to Client in the toolbar to email it:

• Add a personal message (optional)
• Toggle PDF attachment on/off
• If the client has a phone number, a WhatsApp share link is generated automatically

Cloning and next cycle

Instead of building every plan from scratch, clone an existing one:

• Clone Plan — creates an exact copy as a new Draft. Available from the ⋯ menu in the builder, the plan list, or the client's Plans tab.
• Create Next Cycle — clones a completed plan and shifts the dates forward. If the original plan ended on Friday, the new one starts Saturday. Available on completed plans in the client's Plans tab.

Cloned plans track their lineage — each clone increments the version number (v2, v3, etc.) and links back to the source plan via parentPlanId.

Plan expiry

When an active plan passes its end date, MealCraft shows visual indicators:

• Builder header — "Xd remaining" (amber when ≤3 days, red when overdue)
• Plan list — expiry badge next to the status
• Plan settings — status section with countdown
• Expired banner — a red banner appears in the builder with two actions: Complete or Next Cycle