Why you should and shouldn’t eat like future-folk
Meal delivery services drop off a cardboard box at your house filled with the recipes and (almost) all of the ingredients you need to make a certain number of meals. This style of grocery delivery is different from online grocery delivery because you only get the ingredients you need to make a specific recipe once.
This week, I tried using the meal delivery service HelloFresh, which delivers three meals per week in one box. Now, I’m trying to figure out if the convenience outweighs the cons enough to keep my subscription.
Convenience
- You don’t have to go grocery shopping.
- All of the ingredients are pre-measured and some are even pre-chopped (like onions—yay!).
- The produce is much fresher than the grocery store and sometimes organic.
- The meals are quicker to prepare and don’t use overly complicated cooking techniques.
- The packaging can be recycled or disposed of at home.
- Getting to try new foods and cuisines without going out of your way.
- If you bus or bicycle then it’s nice to have everything delivered to your door.
- You can skip weeks so you only schedule deliveries on weeks when you’ll be able to make the most of it.
- The portions are huge so you could probably use the two-person plan for three people.
Cons
- I like going grocery shopping. The meals don’t allow for that much choice in terms of:
a) dietary restrictions;
b) the number of meals for the week (the only option is three);
c) the number of people (the only options are two or four); or
d) taste (the food may be bland or spicy for you). - Your fridge has a lot of dinner foods taking up space with nothing but leftovers for breakfast and lunch.
- Even though the meals are quicker to prepare, they take much longer than what is listed on the recipe. When you factor in getting started, washing up, and putting everything away, you’re looking at closer to an hour and a half to make a meal rather than the 30 minutes many of the recipes say.
- Things also take a lot longer to cook than the recipe cards say. For example, in the chicken enchiladas recipe I made, it said that the chicken should cook in three minutes. In reality, it took 30 minutes and transferring the chicken to a new pan for it to cook through because chicken doesn’t cook in three minutes and it isn’t going to get “golden brown” when it’s mixed with a bunch of veggies (due to the amount of water that they release when cooked).
- The portions are pretty big so if you’re just cooking for yourself you might be stuck with a lot of leftovers.
Expense
One of the main concerns with these services is expense, which is a figure that depends on what alternatives are feasible for you. This meal delivery service works out to be around $13 per meal per person.Compared to fast-food restaurants
Depending on what you’re ordering, $13 per meal is more expensive or comparable to eating at a fast-food restaurant. The difference is that you’re spending more on a meal that takes more time and effort to eat.
This price also doesn’t factor in the cost of using your kitchen; for example, the chicken enchiladas recipe I made had me leave my broiler on for 40 minutes, on high, for it to be used for just three minutes.
If you have some time to cook and it’s within your budget, then eating a healthy home-cooked meal may be worth the additional expense.
Compared to take-out or dine-in restaurants
$13 is definitely more reasonable than eating at most restaurants, which end up being a minimum of $20 after taxes and tips. The meal delivery service would also be healthier than many restaurants, which tend to use more salt, sugar, and oil than home-cooking.
Compared to good old-fashioned home-cooking
Obviously, doing all the grocery shopping and prep yourself will be much more affordable than a meal delivery service. However, if you factor in the cost of going to the grocery store (especially if you need to take a cab) or consider buying organic or locally grown produce rather than the basics, the prices become more comparable.
After weighing the convenience and cons, I’m leaning towards keeping my subscription.Having said that, I’ll probably only use it when I have the time to cook but not enough time to shop, want to try something new, and the meals for the week all look appealing to me.
Photo by Mirali Almaula/The Ontarion.