Mealbased

Mealbased is a term used to describe systems, plans, or products that organize content around meals rather than individual ingredients or nutrients. The form is typically hyphenated as meal-based, though some branding uses the unhyphenated variant mealbased. In nutrition and diet planning, meal-based approaches define daily intake by predefined meals (for example breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks) with portion sizes and sometimes total calories assigned to each meal. This contrasts with ingredient-based or macronutrient-driven methods that optimize intake at the level of individual foods or nutrients. Supporters argue that meal-based planning aligns with social eating patterns and may improve adherence by reducing the cognitive load of tracking nutrients at every eating occasion.

In food service and product design, meal-based concepts appear in prepared meal programs, meal kits, and menu design that emphasize complete meals rather than a la carte components. In software and algorithmic contexts, meal-based optimization can refer to systems that optimize comfort, nutrition, and cost at the meal level, rather than only at the ingredient level, enabling batch production and delivery planning.

Criticism of meal-based approaches centers on potential rigidity, possible misalignment with individual nutritional needs, and the risk of oversimplifying dietary quality by focusing on meal units. As terminology, meal-based is not universally standardized, and usage may vary by field, with some sources preferring meal-based, others favoring mealbased.