Why Meal Delivery Is Awesome
We love getting meals delivered. At this point, I can’t believe I ever thought I could cook for myself and still lose weight. Some people can do it, but for me, I just love cooking and food so much that I can’t resist taking lots of tastes and eating every last morsel I prepare, plus when I’m cooking, I obsess all day long about what’s coming next. Here’s what Mr. Peanut and I *love* about meal delivery!
Pros: What’s Totally Working for Us
We’ve found these pros to be universally applicable to every meal delivery service (they’re just points about meal delivery in general).
1. First of all, we love the concept of delivered food. It really minimizes the obsessiveness involved in planning, shopping for, preparing, and portioning out your own food (which is extremely difficult to do when you’re trying to lose weight).
2. Price. The services we’ve tried are all around the same price range, depending on plan selection and delivery options, and it’s a LOT less than we were spending on (fattening) takeout and restaurant food. We are saving on these plans! Plus, we know that we will be grateful for our improved health and less spending years down the road on healthcare. Price is a sticking point for many people with meal delivery, but for us, we think it’s totally worth the money!
3. Flexibility. Because we are doing a 5-day delivered food plan and enjoying “S Days” on the weekends, we’re able to be less rigid about dieting. The other HUGE advantage of this method is that when we have hungry days, doubtful days, or days when the DY food just isn’t very tasty, we are never more than 5 days away from an “S Day.” (This also helps me avoid having the restrictive weight-loss diet trigger a dangerous binge.)
4. Freshness and taste. You guys, the rumors are true. Though occasionally we get something that is either straight-up nasty or (more frequently, but still not that often) something that’s just not our taste, the huge majority of meal delivery food we’ve tried is totally yummy and enjoyable. It really does seem freshly prepared and most of it is really good. Is everything as absolutely delicious as the gourmet dishes I learned how to make in culinary school? Of course not. But some things really do come close. Check out the rest of the blog for photos and reviews of each and every dish we’ve tried. If you’re looking for a review of a particular dish, use the search bar on the top right corner of the blog and see if we’ve tried it!
5. Convenience. This is kind of the same as #1, but it bears repeating. It is great to just have food magically appear when we need it so we don’t have to worry about a thing.
6. Effectiveness. Though we’ve had some blips here and there, for the most part, meal delivery seems to be working. Even with our S Days, we’re both losing weight at a safe and healthy rate.
Cons: What Isn’t So Awesome
While overall we love the concept of meal delivery, we’ve found a couple of flaws in every service we’ve tried. All the “pros” above apply to all meal delivery services in our opinion, but most “cons” are specific to the particular plan in question. For more details, check out our reports on individual diets. However, all the plans seem to have a couple of cons in common:
1. Packaging. The packaging situation is not pleasant no matter what plan you’re on. There are lots of containers, there are bags, there are boxes… it just generates a lot of trash, which we don’t really feel that great about. We try to do the best we can with recycling things that are recyclable and reusing when possible, but the reality is that getting meals prepared by some company and then sent to you does create a lot of packaging.
2. Customer service issues. Every plan we’ve tried has had customer service blips ranging from the entire website going kaput to inconsistent information from phone reps to rudeness (this is rare, but it has definitely happened) to our food being sent to the wrong place or not showing up at all. I don’t know why this stuff has happened, but it’s definitely a problem! Is there something about having a meal delivery business that’s not compatible with providing great customer service?! Oh, the mystery.
