If you want to prepare more food at home, getting started can feel daunting! Maybe you’re short on time you have to spend in the kitchen. Or, you may be going to the grocery store after a long work day but then feel defeated when you still need to cook once you get home. Not to mention the conflicts of kids’ after school activities, later work meetings – there really is a lot that can compete for your time! No matter what your current barrier is to this goal, there are a lot of tools and services available to make this task a bit more accessible.
So many companies now offer pre-cooked meals delivered straight to your door. The benefit of this is the ease! And, most of these companies are mindful of using high quality ingredients. That means you likely aren’t getting the sugars and seed oils that you typically consume when dining out. Because of the work that goes into the preparation of these meals, these options will likely cost the most. But the good news is that many of these companies also have great intro offers, which means you can try several options and see what you like the best.
While it’s wonderful to have meals that are already prepared, for someone who has limitations with food allergies and intolerances, you may have to do some more research on the front end to figure out which company can meet your needs. You also don’t have a lot of control over the macronutrient distribution in these meals – so you may need to add in some protein or veggies to balance out what you’re getting.
These options are great for people who enjoy the cooking experience, or even for those who want to learn a bit more about how to cook for themselves. You pick the meals you’re going to cook, and the pre-portioned ingredients are sent to your door! The pros of this are that you have a bit more control over your ingredients. If you’d rather use ghee than olive oil? You can totally switch out some things yourself, and save the oil for something else.
For the environmentally conscious, sometimes these pre-packaged options can feel wasteful in the amount of containers that are used to package foods. Although, more and more companies are using responsibly sourced and recyclable packaging options. For people pressed on time, some of the recipes may be a bit more labor-intensive than you’d like to regularly commit to. Additionally, some of the meals may also not make as much as you’d like them to – so you could end up putting in a lot of effort into something without as many leftovers that you’d ideally like to have. That said, these are great for the in between spaces of wanting to get yourself, and even your family, more involved in the kitchen without having to find the ingredients yourself.
Finally, for people who want full control and creativity over what they want to eat and cook, but need to leave the grocery trips to someone else, there are companies that save you the task of grocery shopping while still delivering high quality ingredients.
- Butcher box delivers high quality organic meat, poultry and seafood to your door.
- Misfits Market delivers organic produce for a super discounted rate.
- Fresh Harvest, for Atlanta locals, delivers Georgia-grown produce.
- Fish Fixe delivers wild caught seafood.
- Wild Alaskan delivers Alaskan wild caught seafood.
No matter which company you decide to try out, there are so many options to choose from to make preparing food easier for you and your family. Are there any other services you’ve tried and love? Leave a comment to let us know! In the meantime, enjoy trying some of these tried and true favorites.
