Meal planning is a powerful way to support patients with structured, realistic dietary guidance, and myfood24 Healthcare builds it directly into the system. The platform offers flexible, evidence-based, and practical meal plan functionality for both healthcare professionals and patients.

As part of this functionality, myfood24 provides healthcare professionals with access to evidence-based templates. We have added seven new British Nutrition Foundation Nourish in Colour meal plans to the healthcare meal plans library.

Two ways to use meal plans

Within myfood24 Healthcare, meal plans can be used in two main ways:

1. Start with evidence-based templates

Healthcare professionals have access to a library of ready-made meal plan templates, including:

• British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) Healthy Eating Plans
• Diabetes UK meal plans

These templates are available in the Nutritional Analysis tab under “Templates” and are ideal when you want a structured plan that already aligns with established dietary guidance.

2. Create fully customised meal plans

For more tailored support, healthcare professionals can build their own plans via the “Meal Plans” tab.

Custom meal plans allow you to:

• Design plans around specific nutritional requirements
• Reflect patient preferences, dietary requirements and allergies
• Align with clinical goals for individuals or defined patient groups

Both template-based and customised plans can be assigned to one patient or multiple patients at once, making them suitable for both one-to-one consultations and group-based interventions.

How Patients use meal plans

From the patient side, meal plans are easy to find and use:

1. Patients go to the “Plans” tab under “Meal Plans”.
2. They select the relevant meal plan.
3. They choose the date they want to apply the plan to in their diary.

Once applied, the meal plan pre-populates their diary for that day. Importantly, meal plans are editable at the diary level:

• If portion sizes differ
• If extra foods are eaten
• If substitutions are made

Patients can adjust the diary entry to reflect what they actually consumed. These edits apply only to that specific diary entry, the original meal plan template remains unchanged in the system.

Nutritional insight at every level

Each meal plan, whether template or customised, provides detailed nutritional information, including:

• Nutrient breakdowns for individual foods
• Totals for each meal event
• Daily summary values

This means healthcare professionals can:

• Check that nutritional targets are met at the planning stage
• Later compare logged intake (once the plan is applied and used in the diary) against individual patient targets

It turns meal plans into both a planning tool and an analytical one.

Key Benefits for patients and professionals

for Patients

• Faster diary completion: When following a structured plan, diaries can be pre-populated, reducing the time and effort needed to log intake.
• Better adherence: Easier logging often leads to more consistent diary completion, which supports better engagement and behaviour change.
• Practical resources: Meal plans can be downloaded and used as shopping aids or as a reference for day-to-day eating.

For healthcare professionals

• Improved data quality: More complete and consistent diaries provide clearer, more reliable dietary data for assessment and follow-up.
• Efficiency at scale: The ability to assign meal plans to multiple patients at once is particularly valuable when several patients require similar dietary guidance.
• Downloadable tools: Healthcare professionals can download meal plans to use in consultations, education sessions, or as take-home resources.

A working example:

British Nutrition Foundation Nourish in Colour Meal Plan – Day 1

This example is within myfood24 as a template meal plan developed using the newly released British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) meal plans.

Each meal plan includes:

• Back-of-pack style nutrient information
• Full nutrient profiles once added to the food diary

…it can be compared directly against established dietary guidance, such as the Eatwell Guide.

For instance, in one BNF-based plan:

• Total protein intake accounts for around 21% of overall dietary intake, illustrating how easily the system allows comparison between planned intake and recommended guidelines.

This level of detail supports both clinical decision-making and patient education, helping to bridge the gap between dietary recommendations and everyday eating.

References

1. British Nutrition Foundation Nourish in Colour (2026). Avaliable via: https://www.nutrition.org.uk/media/gvakyuzm/bnf-meal-planner.pdf
2. Public Health England EatWell Guide. Available via: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5bbb790de5274a22415d7fee/Eatwell_guide_colour_edition.pdf

Author: Lucy Clarkson, SENr Nutritionist & Jessica Eardley-Thompson, ANutr Nutritionist

Editor: Grace Williams, ANutr