Special Report on Pure Foods Fresh Start
The history: After eDiets Deliciously Yours got all jacked up in February 2008, I went on Pure Foods Fresh Start and Mr. Peanut tried 3-Hour Diet. Once 3-Hour Diet became defunct, Mr. Peanut joined me on PFFS.
Diet details: PFFS provides 3 meals, one snack, and one “treat” per day for a total caloric value of around 1050-1350 calories per day. They do not tell you to add anything, but I did add a couple of snacks to get me up to 1500ish. The food is provided by PurFoods and is “fresh-locked” so it will supposedly last 14 days in the refrigerator (I did occasionally have things go bad on us within the week, especially vegetable side dishes and especially toward the end of the first time I used the plan). They say their plan is based on the glycemic index and it does indeed include mostly low-glycemic foods. All the choices are available all the time, and you just customize your menu using their online menu planning tool (with drop-down menus for each meal choice: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and treat).
Plan options: PFFS only offers one calorie level and you must get all the provided meals, but they do have a choice of 5 days or 7 days per week. I ate the plan food plus a couple of snacks; for Mr. Peanut to do PFFS, he has to add a bunch of extra snacks. Breakfasts include cereals, egg dishes, and smoothies (and there is one muffin option); lunches are often a wrap; dinner involved a hot dish, pasta, casserole, lasagna, etc.
Favorites: I *love* the breakfast smoothies. A couple of our favorites from Deliciously Yours are on PFFS’s menu, including the lasagna. We also really like the chicken a la marinara and the turkey meatballs with spaghetti squash.
Packaging: The meals are packed in individual plastic microwave-safe containers inside a Styrofoam cooler box with frozen gel-packs; all of that is placed in a larger over-cooler box and shipped via FedEx once per week.
Food review: Most of the food I’ve had on PFFS is really yummy (though it almost always needs salt). We quite enjoyed it. PFFS has recently added a whole bunch of new selections (in June 2008), so the variety in their offerings is now pretty good. We have many, many photos and food reviews on the blog. Click here to see all posts categorized under Pure Foods Fresh Start. Portion size is small (as expected), and they do use a lot of quinoa (not any other whole grains that I’ve seen except wheat). Some of the dishes that have different names involve the same elements; for example there’s a black bean salad that shows up with the cod dinner and in the turkey wrap and there’s a quinoa salad with carrots that is in 2 or 3 dishes. They do have veggie sides, but those are the first things to go bad when the food spoils (and sometimes it does).
Breakfast examples:
Vegetarian Skillet with Bagel
Chocolate-Almond Butter Smoothie
Raisin Bran Muffin
Shredded Spoonfuls
Lunch examples:
Roast Beef Wrap
Goulash with Mixed Vegetables
Kung Pao Chicken
Vegetarian Curry
Dinner examples:
Italian Meat Lasagna with Malibu Vegetables
Baked Cod with Black Bean Salad
Turkey Chili with Black Beans
Turkey Meatballs with Spaghetti Squash
Vegetable Ratatouille with Baked Chicken Breast
Snack examples:
BBQ Soy Nuts
Mixed Nuts with Honey Roasted Peanuts
Baby Carrots with Ranch Dip
Treat examples:
Brownie
Ginger Cookie
Extra Dark Chocolate
Support: There is no online forum or anything like that provided by PFFS.
Customer service: Not terrible. They are prompt about answering the phone (and pleasant to talk with), but they never, ever, ever, ever, ever respond to any email, ever. They do, however, send an email confirmation that your shipment is going out.
Effectiveness: Very effective. I was losing about 1-2# per week on PFFS.
Why we changed: Bored with menu selection and wanted to try a different plan. We are planning on going back, though.
Bottom line: PFFS is a really good plan with great food, but they have a limited selection of dishes right now. Also, sometimes the food does spoil, which is really gross and sad. PFFS offers a 3-day sampler, so that’s a nice option if you’ve never tried any PurFoods companies before and want to see if you like the food.
Hope this is helpful. If you’re deciding on meal plans, please check out our report section for our take on each plan we’ve tried!
