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I don't want to waste food. I want smart people planning my meals. Here's why I won't use meal kits: 1) Price  You're paying someone quite a lot to shop for you. Store price vs meal kit price (per portion) Blue Apron's Spring Chicken Fettuccini: $4.88 vs. $9.99 Green Chef's Greek Chicken Bowl: $10.94 vs. $13.49 (includes cost of shipping). HelloFresh's Blackend Tilapia: $5.37 vs. $11.50 Plated's Vietnamese-Style 'Shaking Beef': $5.10 vs. $12.00 Purple Carrot's Chinese Broccoli and Tofu: $3.46 vs. $11.33 source: http://www.consumerreports.org/food/meal-delivery-services-put-dinner-on-your-doorstep/ 2) Packaging  I'm convinced meal kits exist because people love opening things. A single garlic clove gets its own bag. Every company claims everything is recyclable, but plastic isn't a 100% recyclable resource nor is cardboard, and that goop in the multiple freezer packs goes straight to the trash. They crow about food waste, but these are wasteful companies. The solution is clear: meal plans without the expense & waste of shipping.  I'd gladly pay somebody to craft a low-waste meal plan each week so I don't have to watch my leftover ingredients rot. Meal plan companies:  Nearly all of these come with grocery lists and cater to your dietary preferences. Most curated plans use seasonal ingredients. They run around $8/month. Some focus on reducing food waste, some focus on health, others cost, flexibility, calories, and some seem like they slapped together random recipes. I've browsed every trial period I could, but I have not used all of these sites. Nobody has. It's hard to find honest reviews that aren't on blogs full of affiliate links. If you've used one, please share your experience. http://emeals.com/ - Option to plan meals around sales at your local grocery store. Human-curated plans. Focuses on cost, doesn't seem to care about common ingredients between recipes. http://www.cooksmarts.com/ - Human-curated plans with videos for beginners. Meals have ingredients in common to reduce waste, the sample week I tried was delicious. The plans are rigid and don't let you mix & match recipes. http://www.mealime.com/ - Human-curated plans with a bit of flexibility. Meals have ingredients in common. A goon recommended this in the mealkit thread. https://plantoeat.com/ - Not actually a meal plan service, but a recipe webscraper and grocery list organizer. You feed it recipe URLs from anywhere, it makes your mealplan & list. Sends dinner menu to each family member's calendar app of choice. Developers are active and always adding features. https://www.gatheredtable.com/ - Computer generated meal planner which assigned me 8 servings of rice on wednesday for some reason. However, it's very flexible (one click to fix the rice fiasco) and lets you add your own recipes and has a web scraper. http://www.thefresh20.com/ - Human curated plans focused on speed of shopping, fresh produce & efficiency. Low to no waste. Includes plans for one person. http://www.relishrelish.com/ - Human curated plans with some wiggle room. No free option so I can't try it out. https://www.eatthismuch.com/ - Meal plans based on calorie goals. Computer generated. Doesn't seem to account for leftover ingredients. http://www.dealstomeals.com/ - Meal plans based on deals from your local grocery stores. I'm not sure if it's Human curated or computer curated. https://www.nomoretogo.com/ - Human curated plans designed around common ingredients to reduce waste. Unfortunately no preview plan. http://www.thescramble.com/ - Human curated plans. Not much information about what differentiates this from the others, but the sample plan PDF doesn't use common ingredients. For the record, I haven't paid for any of these yet, I'm still using and enjoying trial periods. Free meal planners  http://resourcefulcook.com/ - UK based site that plans around your cooking skill, spice rack & income. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to account for leftover ingredients. https://www.blueapron.com/pages/sample-recipes - Blue Apron posts their meal plans each week. They're not based on common ingredients. https://www.pepperplate.com/ - A tool to help you make your own meal plans with grocery lists. http://www.mealplanning101.com/ - meal plans based on common ingredients, she even makes custom recipes that use all the leftovers, but she stopped updating in 2013. I'd have paid  http://www.mealime.com/ - the free version is nearly as good as the paid. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/healthy-eating/meal-plans - Whole Foods posts meal plans that have good prep advice, they're not often updated though. http://www.womansday.com/month-of-menus/ - Woman's Day meal plans are probably what you grew up with, unfortunately they don't seem to be based around common ingredients. http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/10-ingredients-30-meals - DIY but effective meal planning based on common ingredients. Fansy fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 07:06
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| # ? May 5, 2024 18:23 |
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