As we continue this journey to a blue zones life, one of our hurdles is getting a healthy meal on the table every night. With school, baseball practice and games, night meetings, and other responsibilities, it can seem like a monumental task to get dinner on the table!
In addition to making family dinners a priority, we also want to make sure we are all eating a healthy meal. We had fallen into this food rut of having pasta or pizza or something along those lines several times a week.
So, in an effort to try new meal ideas and also make it simple, we tried out some meal delivery services.
I am sure you have seen advertisements for these services. It seems there is a new one every week. We focused on the services that provided a variety of plant-based meals and could feed the four of use without costing a fortune.
We started with Blue Apron this week.
Pros:
Meals were easy to put together - generally taking about 20 minutes.
Ingredients were quality and the right amounts were pre-measured, saving time.
End results were delicious, at least according to adult standards.
Food options were items that we would otherwise likely not make - thus getting us out of our comfort zones and trying new things.
Cons:
For plant-based options, there were only three. So, if you were going that route and didn't like one of the options, you are out of luck because there are no other vegetarian options available. That left us feeling a little stuck with whatever was on the menu that week. It also left us having to improvise a little bit and make our own twists so that the kids would be on board (they won't eat a poached egg, y'all. At least not yet.)
Cost. For the first couple of weeks we got a deal, but after that the price goes up. We stayed with the three meals each week and got the version that serves two. We would just add to the meal so there would be enough for four, but honestly there always seemed to be enough. (On a Pro note here though, I will point out that because we only got the amount of ingredients we needed for each recipe, we might have saved a bit of money versus purchasing the full-size items at the store if we didn't already have them.)
Not many kid-friendly options. Blue Apron offers a lot of noodle dishes and stir-fry items which are great if you are two adults. Or, if your kids enjoy that sort of thing. Being right out of the gate with trying a new Blue Zones life, the meals were in-line with what Blue Zones people eat most of the time, however, my kids are just not there and did sort of question what they were about to eat. (This can be a Pro or a Con depending on your viewpoint!)
Have you tried any meal delivery services?
Also, we realize that many consider cheese to not be plant-based. Since it was offered in the vegetarian meal delivery, we went with it. Do you avoid dairy?
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