Eating healthy balanced meals regularly should be your priority if you want to stay healthy. Meal kit delivery services definitely help with that. However, as the popularity of these services is growing, largely fueled by the pandemic, it becomes harder to choose one. This guide will help you by pointing out what to look for exactly and how to tell if the kit is worth your money.
Why You Should Consider Using Meal Kit Delivery Services
There is something infinitely satisfying in cooking a great dish from scratch and seeing your loved ones enjoy it. But doing this usually takes a lot of time, which many contemporary people do not have. Therefore, they often resort to eating unhealthy greasy takeout and fast food or, even worse, frozen dinners.
And even if you do have an extra hour to cook, you need to remember that in order to do this you will also need to spend some time shopping for groceries. Depending on where you live and what you plan to cook, this could be a challenge in itself.
Today, grocery shopping is an issue, in general, due to the pandemic, social distancing, and partial lockdowns still in place. Therefore, people living in rural areas struggle with getting staples and can only dream about some more exotic ingredients.
Meal kit delivery services solve many of these issues. First of all, they remove the need for grocery shopping. All ingredients you need will be delivered right to your doorstep. This means that by choosing ore interesting recipes you might get access to ingredients that aren’t easily available in your area.
Also, the ingredients are prepped and sometimes even pre-cooked. Therefore, the cooking process usually takes 30 minutes max. But you still get to enjoy the sense of accomplishment for having cooked the meal all by yourself.
Finally, meal kits are designed with healthy dietary requirements in mind. Therefore, the meal you get from them is sure to provide you with a wide range of essential nutrients.
Top Meal Kit Companies Compared
In order to choose the best meal kit service, you should compare the offerings from industry leaders. This way, you’ll know exactly what to look for in a good meal kit provider.
Today, the leaders of the meal kit industry are HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Goodfood, Home Chef, Sun Basket, and more.
To see what to look for in these services, let’s consider HelloFresh and Goodfood. HelloFresh is the biggest company in the market. It services families in all regions of both the US and Canada. It has a selection of 22 meals every week to ensure everyone can find something delicious they like. The company is also accredited with the BBB and has an A- rating there. The average price per serving with HelloFresh is around $11.5.
Goodfood, on the other hand, is a company that launched the same year as HelloFresh (2016) but it still services only a few big and medium cities. It offers a selection of 3-12 recipes a week and has a limited area of delivery. Therefore, rural residents can’t use this service at all. The average price per serving of a Goodfood kit is $10.3.
As you can see, when choosing a meal kit you should focus on quality and versatility instead of price. It’s just like HelloFresh vs Goodfood, cheaper isn’t always better. With these services, in particular, cheaper means limitations that might negate the benefits that a meal kit should provide.
For example, Home Chef kits are available at $7.99 per serving. But their selection doesn’t include any offerings for specialized diets, like keto or vegan.
All things considered, price should be the last thing you look at when choosing a meal kit delivery service.
Top Factors to Consider When Choosing a Meal Kit
- Quality of the ingredients.
Be sure to research what kind of certifications the company has and learn how it processes ingredients. You need to be sure that they are sourced from and processed in safe environments. - Versatility of the choices.
You’ll get bored with a meal kit service fast if it delivers the same foods. Therefore, make sure the selection of recipes is versatile and updated regularly. Also, if you have some food allergies or want to order a special diet, check if the company can cater to your needs. - Reach
Find out if the company will make a delivery to wherever you live. In some cases, companies might charge extra for this kind of thing.
There are all kinds of food delivery services appearing today. That’s great news because having ingredients for fresh nutritionally-balanced meals delivered to your home is good for your family’s wellbeing.
But you also need to watch out for companies that do not uphold high sanitary and quality standards. This industry is new and not well-regulated yet. Therefore, it’s only your thorough research that can help you determine what companies can be trusted.
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Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.