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The best meal planning apps for a family with food allergies
The best meal planning app for a family where people eat differently keeps a profile for each person and checks every dinner against all of them. Gluten, which we make, is built that way. NumYum keeps a card per person too. If one diet suits the whole house and you want a grocery list, Real Plans or eMeals fits better.
On iPhone, Android and the web.
Updated November 13, 2026. We make Gluten and have no connection with the other apps. Their facts come from their own pages, listed under Sources.
Seven meal planning apps, side by side
| App | Who it plans for | Allergies and diets | Grocery list | Price on November 13, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gluten (ours) | A profile for each person, up to 12: their conditions, allergies, diets and age | 50 conditions, diets, allergies and life stages, from celiac and AIP to pregnancy and toddlers. Every ingredient is checked against each person | Not yet: each recipe lists its ingredients | See Gluten’s pricing |
| NumYum | The whole table, with a card for each person’s safe and disliked foods | Allergies are a hard rule and never cooked with. Diets such as vegan or halal filter the recipes | Yes, one list for the week, minus what a photo of your pantry shows | $4.99 a month after a free first month, no card |
| Real Plans | Your household, from one diet you choose, with portions for your family size | 12 diets, including AIP, Paleo, GAPS and low-FODMAP. Exclude any food group for the whole plan | Yes, with a pantry. Order through Instacart or Amazon Fresh | $15 a month or $84 a year on the web, with a 10-day money-back guarantee. No free trial that we found |
| eMeals | Your household, from one of 15 food styles you choose | Styles such as Gluten Free, Keto, Paleo and Diabetic. No allergy settings that we could find | Yes. Send it to Walmart, Kroger, Instacart and other grocers | From $4.99 a month on a 12-month plan, or $37.50 for 3 months, after a 14-day free trial |
| Samsung Food | Your household. Members go in its food preferences, though its help pages don’t say how each one changes the suggestions | Add allergies or dietary requirements, and its suggestions avoid those ingredients | Yes, shared with family, with delivery from partner grocers | Free, with a paid tier at $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year in the App Store |
| Plan to Eat | One account for the family, on as many devices as you like | You save and choose the recipes, so you check them yourself. Its pricing page doesn’t mention allergies | Yes, by store and category | $5.95 a month or $49 a year, after a 14-day free trial with no card. No free plan |
| Eat This Much | One person, by calories and diet. We didn’t find household profiles | Diets such as Keto, Vegan, Paleo and Mediterranean, and you can block any ingredient | With Premium, plus grocery delivery | Free daily plans. Premium is $5 a month on a yearly plan |
Not listed: Mealime closed on October 21, 2026, and its recipes moved to Meals Hub in Albertsons’ grocery apps (see our Mealime alternative page). PlateJoy’s site didn’t load when we checked.
What matters when people eat differently
- A profile for each person. One set of filters for the whole account turns three people’s needs into one long list of things nobody can eat.
- Every ingredient checked, steps and sauces too. Most soy sauce has wheat and pesto has cheese and nuts, so a recipe can look fine and still break a rule. When we asked 11 AI models for 1,530 family dinners, 143 of the first drafts broke someone’s restriction.
- One dinner with small changes, rather than two meals. Rice on the side for the toddler, the fish cooked through for a pregnant partner.
- A grocery list, if shopping is the hard part of your week. Here Gluten is behind.
Where Gluten falls short
Gluten doesn’t make a grocery list yet, can’t import recipes from other sites, and doesn’t count calories or macros. If one diet suits everyone at your table, a single-diet planner with a full shopping list will serve you better.
Which app fits which family
| If your table needs | Start with |
|---|---|
| Several people with different restrictions sharing one dinner | Gluten (we make it), or NumYum |
| One diet for everyone, such as AIP, GAPS or Whole30, and a grocery list with a pantry | Real Plans |
| One food style for the house, with the shopping sent to your store | eMeals |
| A big free recipe library and shared grocery lists | Samsung Food |
| Your own recipes, saved from the web and planned on a calendar | Plan to Eat |
| Calorie and macro targets for one person | Eat This Much |
Try it with your own table
Add everyone you cook for, with their allergies, diets and ages, and see a week of dinners that fit all of them.
Questions families ask
What’s the best meal planning app for a family with different food allergies and diets?
We make Gluten, so you know which way we lean. When people at your table need different things, look for an app with a profile for each person that checks every dinner against all of them. Gluten does that for up to 12 people and 50 conditions, diets, allergies and life stages. NumYum also keeps a card per person. If one diet suits everyone, Real Plans and eMeals have fuller grocery tools.
Can one meal plan cover several people’s allergies at once?
Yes, if the app keeps each person separately. Most planners take one set of filters for the whole account, so a peanut allergy, a dairy-free diet and a toddler all become one list of exclusions. Gluten reads every ingredient, step and swap against each person, and when one plate needs a change, the swap sits under the ingredient it replaces.
Which app is best for AIP when not everyone at the table is on it?
Real Plans goes deep on AIP for the person following it. You choose core or modified AIP, and Mickey Trescott of Autoimmune Wellness is one of its recipe partners. Gluten is built for the table where one person is on AIP and the others aren’t: it plans one dinner that fits all of them. Our Real Plans alternative page compares the two in detail.
Which of these apps make a grocery list?
NumYum, Real Plans, eMeals, Samsung Food and Plan to Eat do, and Eat This Much does with Premium. Real Plans, eMeals, Samsung Food and Eat This Much can send it to a grocery store. Gluten doesn’t make a grocery list yet, though each recipe lists its ingredients.
Can an app keep someone with a severe food allergy safe?
No app can promise that. An app can leave allergens out of the recipes it suggests, but labels change and cross-contact happens in factories and kitchens. Read every label, and follow your allergist’s advice.
How did you choose and check these apps?
We asked AI assistants this question on November 13, 2026 and started from the apps they named, leaving out the ones that have closed. We read each app’s facts on its own site, help pages or App Store page that day, and they’re listed under Sources. We have no connection with any of them.
Sources
- NumYum: home page (family profiles, allergies, grocery list, price)
- Real Plans: Pricing
- Real Plans: Choose your diet
- Real Plans: AIP meal plan (core or modified AIP, recipe partners, grocery delivery)
- Real Plans: AIP meal plan FAQs
- eMeals: home page and FAQ (prices, free trial, grocery partners)
- eMeals: Meal plans
- Samsung support: Find recipes and plan meals (allergies, dietary requirements, household members)
- App Store: Samsung Food (Food+ prices, shared grocery lists)
- Plan to Eat: Pricing
- App Store: Plan to Eat (shopping list)
- Eat This Much: Pricing
- Mealime: Mealime is moving to Meals Hub