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So Many Meals(ervices), So Little Time…Round 2
Eric Belliveau • June 18, 2018

So, in my last blog entry I talked about meal services. To reiterate real quick it was about the delivery services that ship you all the ingredients and recipe cards to make dinner for your family, cuts down on waste, adds convenience to your life, hopefully gets you to eat a little healthier, and so on, and I kind of gave my opinion or a review of sorts on some of them. Well, I’m back, to basically do the same thing but with a different type of meal service.

Like I said last blog, my wife and I used the services that send you all the “stuff” to make your dinners. Well we’ll say about 3-4 months ago I got really into the habit of meal prepping on Sunday nights for my lunches for the week (I think I even posted something about it on FB). It was great, I loved having everything set up and planned out, just go to the refrigerator, heat up whatever I had made, and enjoy lunch. Then my “better half” caught on, and then it started becoming meal prep for two (I may seem like I’m complaining but I was actually pretty pumped because I had always gotten on her case about her shitty eating habits at work, so this was going to be a positive). Then it seemed like we were spending a lot of time on Sunday prepping and cooking food so this is when she took it upon herself to research other “pre-made” meal options for lunch.

...it seemed like we were spending a lot of time on Sunday prepping and cooking food so this is when she took it upon herself to research other “pre-made” meal options for lunch.

So after some time consuming research she had set us up to try a couple of these services, I’ll give a breakdown/review of them below. This week marks the 5th service we have tried, so we’ve been doing this for a little over a month now. Side note, we have still been doing TB12 for dinners, more on that later. All things considered, we both really liked having the lunches and everything pre-made. When I say pre-made too don’t think that this was like some TV dinner or other slop that came out of a can or something. For the most part, with a few exceptions, the food was really pretty good. We found a lot of the same issues with these meals as we did with the other “dinner” services we tried, ultimately they are not all created equal.

Positives

- Major time savings, no more Sunday meal prep for what would end up being at least a couple hours

- So convenient, heat and eat. I don’t like to use the microwave (you can if you want, I won’t judge) so I use an oven safe dish and put the food in the toaster oven for 10 minutes and it’s good to go.

- Quality products, most of what we tried used a lot of organic non-gmo products, locally sourced when possible, fresh and not frozen, etc

- A lot of options, from paleo, to keto, to whatever you want you can find something that fits, a lot of actual menu options or dishes as well

- Delivered to your doorstep

- Tasty

Negatives

- Some can be pricey, but there is usually some sort of discount for your first order.

- Shipping packaging for some is less than desirable

- Packaging of the food itself is less than desirable

So here are the ones we tried.

Paleo Power - meals were really good, came nicely packaged, good portions, just good fresh quality food

Kettlebell Kitchen - was ok, look like someone just dumped containers of food and ice packs in a box and shipped it. Most of the food was good, some was just ok, some of it didn’t look real appealing or appetizing (ground meat and rice thrown in a bowl, meh) but was pretty tasty

Pete’s Paleo - food was ok, some better than others. What really threw me off was how it was packaged, it came in a bag, and in the bag were smaller vacuum sealed bags with each menu item in it, protein one bag, vegetable one bag, starch another bag. Did not like it at all, very unappealing, I’ll save you all the graphic description that I compared this to but it was unpleasant. If you read this and want to know, ask me in person and I’ll elaborate.

Real Prep Meals - was kind of my favorite, and it’s local, right out of Northampton. Food was really great though, a little bit of a limited menu but really good food, cooked and presented well, hand delivered, highly recommended.

Trifecta Meals - food was good, packaging was kind of a cross between the Pete’s abomination and the other ones.

All in all, most of them were good, some negatives but hey nobody’s perfect right.

* Side note, I’m not a proponent for any specific “diet” be it paleo, keto or otherwise, we tried some of those that were specific to those diets because they were good quality foods at a price point that worked for us. I don’t follow any specific diet, maybe my lunch sometimes is Paleo, 3 of my dinners each week are vegan from TB12, everything in between is what I want. I’m sure at some point I’ll dive more into these diets and talk about them and my opinion of them.

* Side note 2, I wish I had thought of it and took some pictures of these meals so you could have seen what I was talking about…DAMN!

So there ya have it, another meal review. The week after next we are going to go total prepared meals, lunches and dinners for a little while, see how that goes with even less cooking. Maybe there’ll be another blog post.

As always any questions feel free to ask, last blog about dinner’s I think I got somebody some free meals or something, just saying.

Eat Well,

Mike

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • October 7, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • September 23, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • October 7, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • September 23, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.
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