Food Prep Made Easy

Now that I have tried all my ordered meals I am ready to dish.....

As an avid food prepper, I have nailed down a routine that will guarantee 9 meals in about an hour.  Food prepping can be very inexpensive dependent upon the options you select but it's more the time allotted for cooking, packing and cleaning up that is more of the pain in the butt. 

I have been seeing more and more food service companies popping up via Facebook and the thought of having meals prepped for me is very enticing!  The weekends are short enough as it is never mind the food prep, laundry, grocery shopping and workouts.  The first meal prep company I tried was New Vision Nutrition http://www.newvisionbody.com/.  The company sponsors athletes ect and you have probably seen them via FB and Instagram.  I placed an order for 11 meals (the full portion) and it was a little over $100.   I will run through my pros and cons:

Pros:

• website: I liked being able to pick and chose protein/starch/veggies options for each meal. The website was easy to use and navigate.
• Nutrition facts: for all of you calorie/macro counters this made it really easy to account for the my meals in MFP and know exactly what I was eating.  They have all of their macro breakdowns for each of the meals they offer on their website.
• Home delivery: this is a pro/con for me.  I had placed my order on a Saturday and received the meals the following Friday.  Their website indicates what days they cook and ship out meals so it's best to place your order around their cooking days.  I had taken that Friday off so luckily I was home when the delivery man came at 9:30 AM BUT typically I am gone all day so I wouldn't be thrilled to have my order sitting on my stoop all day.  The meals are protected by water bottle ice packets ect but I am really anal about food being non-refrigerated so it makes me hesitant to order again. 
• The meals I most enjoyed were the speciality meals:
• Turkey Chili - YUM this was really delicious but the half serving did not fill me up and ended going back to eat the other half :/
• Texan

Cons:

• Minimum orders.  I HATE minimum orders.  I totally understand the concept behind them for the company but for the consumer this is a pain.  I didn't necessarily want to order 11 meals but I was set on trying it so I just coughed up the extra cash.  I would say this would impact me from ordering again. The cost for the meals are inexpensive by themselves but having to place the minimum order can add up!
• Chicken: I am really weird about chicken.  If it cuts weird or looks weird I want nothing to do with it.  I found it odd because the diced chicken in the regular meals was fine but I found the chicken in a (plain chicken) order was weird.  I am not really sure how to describe it...it's not like it wasn't edible but it just was kind of slimy. 

Overall, if I were in peak week or a situation where I was dead tired and had to have the basics...sweet potato, rice, veggies I would potentially order again.

The next food service I ordered was from Cole's Clean Cuisine. 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/colescleancuisine12 

I found her through my coach and some of the other women on Body Ambition.  She cooks out of her home in Peabody, MA and pretty much can custom make anything you want.  She has a standard menu that you can order off of or custom meal planning.

The custom meal planning was too expensive for me but I did order two of her large dishes from the menu below which serves 4 to 6 each and together totalled $100.  I drove to Peabody on Saturday which would be impossible during the week but it was around a 35 minute drive.  My navigating skills are not the sharpest in the shed so I think it could have been faster.

I have to say.....her meals may be more expensive but you can taste the difference!  My meatloaf and cauliflower mashed potatoes were really delicious!  It felt like I was eating something bad and you can tell she's a legit cook because the mash was actually a mash and not soup like the one's I make!

I asked her to put the mayo on the side which came in a cute mason jar.  The chicken salad was awesome! Crunchy, sweet and a bit tangy with the homemade mayo. 

I didn't want to love it as much as I did since it was more expensive and a ride but it was good people and I recommend checking her out!!! The only down side is not having my macro facts to log into MFP but I can make it work.