My daughter gave me my first grandchild earlier this year (so thrilled!!) and being the smart young lady she is, she signed up for a meal delivery service when she returned to work (as a 1st grade teacher). At about the same time, I took on a new client who asked my opinion about meal delivery services. I had to admit that I knew nothing about them-which is not a comfortable place for me!! So, I decided to commit to trying several of the services available so I could intelligently guide my clients as to the possible benefits they might provide to their personal health journeys.
I decided I would try and review one at a time and then compare several at the end-so this will be a series of articles. I hope you will bear with me! I will try to make it short and sweet, giving a short overview and then a list of what I like and don’t like. We will start with Blue Apron.
As a place to begin my first experience with meal-delivery companies, Blue Apron was a great one to start with. It was very easy to navigate their website, to sign up, and place my order. Instructions were clear, choices of recipes were evident and easy to make/change, and the process was quick. Timing was quick, too, I started the very next week and was able to choose the delivery date. However, I didn’t have to be home for delivery, the box was packaged to last several hours on the porch if necessary.
There are several additional things I loved right away, which I think will be true for every company I try, because I think it is actually the intention behind the idea.
- I love the time saved, not having to shop
- I love that planning is limited-you just choose the recipes from the list they supply
- I love the guess-work being taken away, as they supply almost every ingredient
- I love the money saved, not having to buy a bottle of spices I may never use again, they send just the right amount for my recipe, so I can try before I buy
- I love the portion control, again, they send just the right amount of each ingredient
Those are the main things-Now, for BLUE APRON in particular-
This was one of our favorites! (this is what it actually looked like when I prepared it-pretty!)
Things I liked:
- Recipes-just about every recipe we (my family had to be guinea pigs!) tried, we really liked and will make again
- Ingredients-premeasured, exact amounts and nothing was missing
- Recipe cards-they were colorful, durable, included pictures of the ingredients you would need, and the instructions were very precise
- Time-the time for prep and cooking was accurate and the instructions were on-target if you followed them closely, allowing you to prep some ingredients while others were cooking, etc.
- Novelty-the recipes available allowed us to try new foods and combinations of foods-many are ‘plated’, like a restaurant, with the protein resting on top of the carbs/veggies-Fancy!
Things I did not like:
- Recipes-I felt that only nine dishes to choose from didn’t seem generous, especially with two or more being vegetarian-ish, which we are not
- Choices-I did not like that some choices affected other choices that were available. If I checked off one dish that I did not prefer, one or more others (of the 9 total) became unavailable, too. This would have been ok, if others became available to replace them (IMHO).
- Ingredients-I felt that a few ingredients were not as fresh as I expected, or didn’t last as long as I needed them to, which leads to…
- Timing-There was no indication as to how long the ingredients would last, meaning how soon I needed to prepare them. (For the meat in particular)
- Packaging-I was aware that the package would be able to sit out on my porch for a while, however, the ingredients inside were a jumble, meat wasn’t separated from the produce, for example.
Overall, I really enjoyed my first experience with a meal – delivery service. Blue Apron does a nice job and I am looking forward to experiencing some of the other services and comparing them in the end. Stay tuned-this week we have been trying out Home Chef!!
Until then, be well-Your Best Fitness Friend
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