Is there a healthy meal delivery service that you like?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Sure, I sent you more details.

And I’ll repeat the same for anybody here who’s curious:

I would suggest a variety pack of ready-to-eat cups: Hot & Savoury Cups | Ready To Eat Meals | Huel US

Or their ready-to-drink bottles: Ready-To-Drink | Meal Replacement Shakes | Huel US

If you don’t want a whole box, you can also find single bottles at some grocery stores and 7-11s: Store Locator | Huel US, but I don’t think there’s a place to buy ready-to-eat singles :frowning:

They’re not the only brand, BTW, just the best-tasting and most convenient (of the ones I’ve tried). Soylent is still around, for example, and there are a few other ones. I think there’s also a DIY community for this kinda stuff where people make their own recipes for cheaper, e.g. diy - soylent or https://www.completefoods.co/

Personally, I’ve tried Soylent, Purple Carrot, Factor75, HelloFresh, and GreenChef. Huel was the only one that actually made sense for my partner and I, nutritionally and financially, long term… it’s been like 50-70% of our calories for the last 4 years or so. Most of the other ones are some combination of too expensive, not very satiating, too much of a pain in the ass (especially the meal prep kits), or requiring too much cleanup (the Soylent shakers and non-ready-to-drink bottles). Huel just kinda checked all the boxes for us. While it isn’t real food, it’s quite a bit tastier than other protein shakes… it’s about on par with instant ramen (cup o noodles), just healthier (arguably).

Though you could probably also get a similar effect by just eating cup o noodles with some TVP (textured vegetable protein, a hyperprocessed soy isolate powder you can get in most grocery stores and co-ops) and a multivitamin. It’s vegan/plant-based, yes, but the polar opposite of the whole-food and slow food movements. It’s been food scienced to hell and back and uberprocessed.

22

This is not a direct answer to your question about meal delivery, but is particularly inspired by this quote:

I have never used a meal delivery service, but this quote struck me as relevant. This is exactly what I do, and I don’t need a meal delivery service to do it. Every supermarket makes prepared meals, though of differing quality. And some are better for different things, and some might even have hot buffets from which you can assemble your own dinners – then take them home and refrigerate or freeze.

This totally may not work for you. But that’s what works for me – mostly quality store-made dinners. My cardiologist asked about my diet, and I said I ate a lot of prepared meals, and mentioned some of what I bought from the stores in the area, and he thought that was a fine diet – as long as it wasn’t “fast foods” like burgers’n’fries! YMMV.

23

We’ve had Kevin’s in our Ralphs markets for years now. I was at the market this morning, and it looks like they’ve got more variety than before. We used to get them, but I didn’t especially care for the taste. What’s the point of eating something that disagrees with you? So, I haven’t bought any of them for months, or even a year. They didn’t taste like what they claimed to be, and that might have been part of the problem. Misplaced expectations.

24

Carbs are cheap and customers like them. And most of the people avoiding them want meat, not plants. So i don’t it’s a big market.

But … That sounds like something you could make a big batch of and freeze. Maybe come up with a couple of recipes with different taste profiles and a different lean meat, for variety. And buy a lot of freezer containers. Make a huge casserole of one, portion it out, freeze most of it. Next week do another. Rubber and repeat until you have a lot of each on the freezer. Then cycle through them and start a new batch after you’ve eaten about one batch worth.

How much freezer space do you have? Could you buy another freezer just for prepared food?

25

I have a chest freezer in my garage that is nearly empty, so this could work. I would need to buy some freezer containers to keep in my fridge, then defrost them the day before I need them. I would also need recipes for making larger quantities than I currently make. I could try scaling up the recipes I have, but that doesn’t always work so well.

26

If you can figure out the recipes (or look them up), that would certainly be cheaper, healthier, and maaaaaybe tastier. Though many of those frozen foods are sauced and oiled and salted extensively to make them tastier.

27

And that’s my dilemma. The only way I can guarantee my food hasn’t been altered to make it tastier and less healthy is to make it myself. That way, I know exactly what is in it and what isn’t. It’s the same with going out to eat. How do I know how much salt, sugar, and fat have been added? The restaurant wants me to come back again and again, so they are incentivized to make their food as delicious as possible, not necessarily as healthy.