First, organize your menus in a database format. e.g.:

Menu Food Quantity
Menu1 lamb 500
Menu1 onions 1
Menu1 carrots 3
Menu1 tomatoes 4
Menu2 tomatoes 6
Menu2 celery 2
Menu2 onions 3

Then use a Pivot Table summarize your data. (Click Data -- Pivot Table).

"Kathrine" wrote:

I need some hints on how to design the following in Excel:

I have several recipts for dinner menues. They consist of ingredients and
amount needed of each ingredient. This is fixed information. e.g.:

Menu 1 Lamb stew :
lamb 500 g
Onions 1
Carrots 3
Tomatoes 4

Menu 2 Tomato soup:
Tomatoes 6
Sellery 1
Onions 1

Each menu can be multiplied to suit any number of persons. There are many
more menues like this (100s) , and each ingredient will occur in several
menues.

Now, I want to make a system where I can pick out the menues that I want,
for example menu 1 + 3 + 12 and have a complete shopping list. In the
shopping list the ingredients should be sorted, occur only once and include
the total number needed for all the menues I asked for..

See ?
Hints on how to approach this are very welcome.
Thanks !!