Why Are Meal Kits So Popular?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2022
- Meal kits such as Hello Fresh, Chef’s Plate, Blue Apron, and more are ever-increasing in popularity, especially within the millennial market. Watch as we unpack (lol) if they’re good for you, good for your wallet, and/or good for the planet.
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For further reading, check out the sources for this video here:
docs.google.com/document/d/e/...
Script: Holly Conklin
Editor: Reid Valaitis
Animator: Zachary Kastrukoff
Project Manager: Lurana McClure Rodríguez
Host: Levi Hildebrand
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This is mostly a first world problem tbh, i live in a “third world country” and most the products here are what you would label as “bio” but without the extra costs, farmer markets are the norms here and honestly, i’m glad it’s the way it is here
Yeah, me too. I live in Brazil and when I see how many USonians are adults that have like literally zero knowledge in preparing food and have no idea of from where their food is coming. Here in Brazil we'll amost lowkey bully an adult that doesn't know how to cook and order most of their food from deliveries and takeouts. About 3~4 years ago Blue Apron started becoming famous here in Brazil and every time someone would ask if there's any similar service here that person would be mocked out of existence. Just buy stuff from the grocery store or your nearest farm market and learn how to cook, for God's sake.
@@auroravianadesa5119 What is usonian?
@@9999AWC Citizens of the USA.
@@auroravianadesa5119 I do think it's worth noting that some people live in places where farmers markets might not always be available. I live in an area with a very strong agriculture industry, and the farmers market by me is only around for maybe 6 months of the year
@@supernova622 Yes, thank you for noting that. Food deserts are indeed a huge problem in the USA that inevitably leads millions to obesity and inaccessibility to good and quality nutrition. I had forgotten about it.
I know of many people who started with meal kits and now are doing their own shopping and cooking. That's a good outcome in my book 😉
That is awesome! Hopefully more follow the same path 👍🏻
I got into meal kits about 6 months ago to try to learn how to cook. My fiance (who was a chef in a past life) would do a good amount of cooking for us but I wanted to learn the basics (he's vegetarian and I prefer low carb meals but I enjoy the food he still makes for us).
He seemed amused at my handling food but I had to remind him that he literally went to school 20 years ago because he wanted to cook for a living (and had a lot of practice during that time and a lot more since then) and that I had to start somewhere.
I also found the kit helpful because they took the guesswork around making a meal. I'm Autistic and have ADHD and I find that going to a grocery store just to shop for ingredients can be intimidating with too many options (that's why I love Aldi and Trader Joe's) and that even just cooking good can be a huge sensory ordeal for me (I ALWAYS hate triggering the smoke alarm when I make food). I also don't really feel hungry or have an appetite most days and am happy with a limited diet but that doesn't help me in getting all the nutrition I need to be happy and healthy...
I'm now looking forward to learning how to make recipes from sites where they break down the list of ingredients by cost, what to sub and starting with the basics and making things fancier if you want them (Budget Bytes is one of them).
This is exactly what I did. I cook better, have a steady stash of recipes, and can plan and purchase with more accuracy.
Works out pretty well
I've gotten into meal kits and I find I'm learning techniques and making dishes I never would have figured out on my own. It's also helpful when you are getting home and you have no idea what you want to make. You can pick a recipe and if you like it enough. You'll make it again.
Yeah but I know some who got addicted. You can never know for sure where cracking open that first box is gonna lead....
great video as always, just want to point out that monosodium glutamate (MSG) is basically pure umami and can be found in tomatoes, cheese, kombu, etc. it got a really bad rap years ago for causing "chinese restaurant syndrome" (not to mention how much that contributed to racism against chinese people), but it's literally just a refined form of the umami that in centuries past was obtained from seaweed, etc., in east asia. it's unfortunate it doesn't have an easier name like salt does (even though technically salt is "sodium chloride" and is similarly processed/refined), but tl;dr please don't lump it in with other preservatives/"unpronounceable ingredients" - it deserves so much better than that!
I mean, the whole "pronounceable" purity test is basically lazy-brain pseudoscience nonsense anyway, and one we should all stop using. If you break down the chemical components of even the most basic foods like fresh produce, cheese or nuts, most of what's in them is unpronounceable and scary-sounding as hell. Just because certain food-based chemicals, proteins, salts, fats, flavonoids, enzymes, and other components are in the ingredients and listed by their scientific names doesn't mean they're in any way worse for you than they would be in their "natural" form.
@@sonipitts i didn't really want to get into that in my reply bc i didn't want it to turn into a full-blown essay haha, but i completely agree. thanks for addressing that!!
So I agree with you, but you have to remember most people are... Dumber than you think. I don't like it when people use the word "natural" for example because it's pretty meaningless. It still has the utility of helping people differentiate between highly processed foods and fresh, unprocessed foods. So while I think you're correct, I say if pronouncability is the metric people want to use to decide what to eat, it is probably more useful for them than being extremely specific about chemicals. Getting into the weeds of all that stuff gets really complicated really fast even for someone more inclined to understanding research.
I was under the impression that monosodium glutamate tricks your brain into thinking you are not full. As in it turns off the sensors that lets you know when you should be done eating. I thought that’s why it got a bad rap. Is there no truth to this? Just curious.
MSG contains a form of glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter. It is not just a seasoning. it can mess with some peoples' brains. While it does improve the flavor of bland food, the fact that it can be labeled as more than 80 different ingredients, and is added to a ton of processed foods makes it problematic. I found out that I am sensitive to large amounts of it when I was eating a bunch of processed foods while caring for a sick relative. In a tomato you can't eat enough to suffer, but when it is refined and added to so many foods, that's another story.
I personally cannot justify the price. I can easily make meals at 1/3-1/2 the price of what these meal kits charge
That's fair, they can definitely be on the pricier side and not worth it to a lot of people! Thanks for sharing, Jefferson ✌
It really depends on two things where you live and how many people you're serving.
As a single person household meal kits can honestly be cheaper for me because grocery stores tend to cater for bulk purchases over single items. For example I can't go out and just buy two carrots to make a chicken noodle soup for myself I have to buy a whole pound bag of them. And while carrots are cheap and this doesn't result in much extra spending, not everything else is the same. Additionally I don't have the place to freeze items as well since I am in an apartment and don't have the space to store any extra bulk items I would get for cheaper.
Secondly cost of food depends on where you live. In some states or countries eggs may be $6 a dozen and some it might be $3 a dozen it just depends. Access to local farmers markets may also influence that too.
For me I did the comparison by adding a week's worth of groceries based on a meal kits ingredients list for the week into an online shopping cart for grocery store. (Super easy way to compare without having to run around a store) and for me it was approximately the same price depending on what the recipes were for the week. However when I calculated in gas to get the store and the fact that I would have to shop at multiple stores to be able to get the best deals it ended up being more affordable to just get meal kits.
Understandably though for people who are feeding larger families and can buy in bulk, meal kits could definitely go down in value quite sharply.
Right, any time a meal kit advertises itself as, "less than $10 a serving" I recoil. It's true, that's less than buying takeout, but it's incredibly expensive for cooking at home.
But it's super fun, do it one in a life time and you won't regret
@@Sinovian I cook for myself (I live alone) and I find it incredibly expensive to use meal kits. I think the difference is I dont eat a different meal at every meal. I cook a large portion of food that I will eat for 4-5 meals (lunch and dinner for 2 days at least), so in the end it is more affordable. I think the expectation to eat different foods at every meal is 1st world privilege as I grew up eating leftovers all the time.
Love this take on meal kits.
Small nitpick though: didn't love the fact that you went the "i cant even pronounce these ingredients!!!!!" vs "pronounce-able" foods route when discussing processed commercial food vs eating whole, unprocessed food. It's that kind of thinking thats not too far from the pseudo-scientific "Goop" way of thinking about food.
I came here to say this! Thank you
why do you not like that? i’m not trying to start an argument, i just don’t understand
YES! The idea that how healthy something is correlates to if you can pronounce it or if its natural is completely unscientific. Arsenic is natural. Insulin injections are not, yet they save lives. Not everything natural is good, and vice versa
thought the same. and while i get the point (eat less processed food, u should eat simple banana, etc), it’s really not a good way to assess something’s nutritional quality. most of us don’t have chemistry degrees and can’t really tell you what those things are and especially not if it’s bad for you. hell even simple foods have not so simple names in their chemical compounds to be nitpicky. like monosodium glutamate that was highlighted is MSG. they sell it in the spice aisle, it’s in many spice mixes you can buy, and many restaurants use it too. there was a lot of fear mongering w the product as well, but it’s shown to be safe for human consumption. u hear the joke dihydrogen monoxide in these situations to show how people can mistake water for a strange chemical compound. this idea of “if you can’t say it don’t put it in your body!” is used in a looooot of anti-science spaces, like op said too.
@@merrymermaid categorizing what is good by how familiar the term or concept is dangerous. In this case, determining what is healthy by what words are more “normal” perpetuates a mindset where people ignore facts/science. You can see this mindset in people who have a surface level idea of wanting to use natural beauty products and end up being wary of completely safe ingredients, like aluminum or “hard to pronounce words”, because they don’t understand them and as such, seem unnatural and harmful.
This mindset is also one that has led to the rise of anti-science movements that push against vaccines and health education because of ignorance and panic over the “unnatural”. Overall, it’s important not to associate harm with foreign concepts, even if it seems easier to do so. In regard to natural vs unnatural, while it is true that often corporations lie about their safety and that even government organizations can fail or be corrupt in the same manner, these are ultimately structural problems . The issues is not with ingredients/components themselves, but rather that we should aim for federal regulations that are honest and trustworthy, a population that is scientifically literate, and continuous research to better prioritize the health of our communities.
In The Netherlands you can buy meal kits in supermarkets for 4 people for 5 euros in total. To me it seems way more convenient than ordering one. They also only come in a thin layer of plastic foil and they aren’t cooled.. so… the best of both worlds tbh.
Really like them and the fresh ingredients like meat,fish or vegetarian, vegan alternative you need to buy yourself so you can adjust something and the rice for example you need to add yoursekf such ingredients you always have ad home and you can always add extra greens.
Holy shit, it sounds like it would be cheaper for me to fly from the UK to the Netherlands and buy these kits than pay for my local shopping at Aldi, which is already my cheapest option :(
@@Rynewulf some Brits are doing that already, it was on the news here. They drove tho so i dont know if it would work with these gasprices lol
We have those in some grocery stores in Canada as well but it isn't any cheaper than getting it delivered. Also they're often days old when you get them and there is more waste since they aren't all sold.
Where exactly in the NL are you buying a meal kit for 4 portions for 5€? Definitely not Albert Heijn.
Got to be honest, I really enjoy going out and getting groceries. It breaks up the week and gives me something to do outside of working/sleeping and other life stuff.
Definitely! If life was a video game, going grocery shopping would be a nice little side quest. Thanks for taking the time to share with us 😃
me too i love going grocery shopping its fun for me!!
I hate it, stores are far too big,far too many people and way too many options, I like the good old days with the small store.
@@graywolf2694 try aldi . I also hate the main stores that are too big
Same. I don't buy a lot of stuff in bulk. I make frequent trips to the grocery store. This gives me one more reason to go out and get some fresh air since I live alone and work from home.
I was absolutely disgusted with the wastage from Hello Fresh when I tried it. Everything is in an individual plastic bag, nothing is recyclable except the box. I also found it a very uninspiring way to cook, they rinse and repeat the same meals every week in different formats. It definitely caters to those who don't know how to or aren't interested in cooking, better than getting takeaways every night i suppose but certainly not for me!
i found everyplate to be a wayyy better option for waste everything comes in a huge box unpackaged except for things like rice ofc
I think that's a very good point, if you're used to getting takeout every night, it's a good step towards healthy eating, and good practice towards cooking at home, but shouldn't be considered a permanent solution.
They don’t use plastic anymore except the ice packs
@@joshuabyrne1388 I live in New Zealand, Hello Fresh definitely doesn't live up to our countries "clean green" reputation
I totally agree is great for people who can’t cook and usually get take out. But for those of us that learned how the cook and know food, it’s uninspiring.
We have a zero easy meal kit/grocery service in Texas. It is called Trashless. They pick up all the old containers when they deliver the next bag of meals/groceries. We love it. It tells you what farm all you provide and stuff is from. It really supports local businesses.
Woah that's so cool! We'd never heard of Trashless before now, but that's fantastic to see more leaders in the industry focusing on the circular economy. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!!
Woooah that's great
No you have that in one City and its Austin.
@@sanangelo7926 didn’t know if it was just austin area. We are only about 30 miles away so they deliver to us.
This was only in Austin. Also just looked them up. "Trashless Inc., (formerly known as Lettuce Networks, Inc.) has shut down its zero-waste grocery delivery operations in March/April 2023 due to financial unviability, and the company is being dissolved. "
I love Hello Fresh and I've been using them for almost 2 years. However I think I'm ready to try a 'next step'. I've saved all the recipe cards and have a pretty big stack. I'm going to try picking out 3 or 4 with similar ingredients and use that to decide what to buy at the grocery. This might be the best of both worlds and help defeat my nemesis that started this journey, wasted food and overly simple, bland recipes.
Save the recipe cards 🤯
@@toriyt2714 Some person brought in a GIANT stack of them into their work for others to pick through. It was super nice altho I don’t know why my picky husband even brought any home as he has the most bland palette lol
Using similar ingredients for multiple meals throughout a week sounds genius. I should probably do that at some point.
I highly recommend trying meal kits and then just saving the recipe for later! It's a nice, easy way to try new things and learn to cook dishes.
I personally like to cook 4-5 servings in one go, then freeze my leftovers. I enjoy cooking but I find it really tiring, plus doing the dirty dishes overwhelms me lol.
So by cooking in bulk and then freezing, I can still eat tasty food :)
That is exactly what I did and honestly that's the way to go. I still have this thick stack of recipes and every Sunday I just go buy all the ingredients for one week worth of those meals. Saving money, saving time, saving the stress of not knowing what to buy and for what dish.
I've always wondered about how environmentally friendly meal kits are. Thanks for doing a video on it and I hope more of them can be as sustainable as freshprep!
They've got a great model at a reasonably affordable rate, hopefully they encourage more leaders in the industry to follow suit!!
@@FutureProofTV forreal! we just gotta get them more popular so the other companies take note
Recently I took a seasonal job delivering packages for UPS. I was delivering Hello Fresh and Dinnerly boxes to my neighbors and wondered if I was missing the boat. I googled: Which is more environmental, grocery shopping or meal kits. Shocker: MEAL KITS. Also, where in the world would one ever find "mushroom aminos",
"cardamom spiced Greek yogurt" or "spiced cilantro-lime crema" or other flavorful little packets that they tuck into these kits? I had sesame oil that was 30 years old in my fridge until recently. The best part: NO leftovers. No leftovers whatsoever, as in no leftover sour cream with blue green slime taking hold, or five leftover scallions when you only needed one, or oil packed sun dried tomatoes turning into a science experiment in the refrigerator door.
@@SusanSlattery suuuuuuuuree
Here in California (and I'm assuming other states too), we have EveryTable. They are identical to Hello Fresh in all regards except their boxes are smaller, recipe cards are half the size, and they barely use any packaging at all. Whatever ingredients you ordered, they're all shoved inside the box, no packets, dividers, or containers (well, meat/fish are an exception obviously). As a result, their service is significantly cheaper than Hello Fresh (like, 50% cheaper), while at the same time being more eco-friendly.
I did Hello Fresh for about 3 years and after cooking at home with the recipes they sent, I became a good cook. It taught me how to pace out the preparation and cooking and how to utilize different spices and things to make the food flavorful. I can iron chef a healthy, flavorful meal really easy now. I no longer do the kits because they cost too much and o hate the packaging waste.
Me,too. I learned So much about food 😆
Ah, I see Google's on to me with the recommendation, I ordered my first Hello Fresh box literally yesterday. I'm actually a very proficient cook (I trained as a chef) but had to quit because of chronic illness and my relationship with food has just deterioated from there. I SO badly want to get back into cooking, to fix my relationship with food, but I just don't have the mental or physical energy to organise picking recipes, buying my own ingredients, getting it home, prepping it and cooking it. I'm really hoping that meal kits at least give me a gateway to love and appreciate my food again.
We got one of these kits during our 2 week quarantine. We were super sick and stuck inside so it was a good thing to have at least some of the food planned out and brought to us. It also made the job for the people who went grocery shop for us easier as they had less to carry up to our 4floor apartment.
Definitely a helpful service amidst the pandemic, hence it's increase in popularity! Thanks for the insight and for joining us here 👏🤘
I think it's good to note that the three arrows in a triangle with a number in the middle is not a recycling symbol, it's a resin identification code that was appropriated from the recycling symbol to give people a false sense of doing something good. Most of the resin types are recyclable in a lab setting, but there are no facilities to accept them as post consumer waste. And paper and cardboard are so expensive to recycle that most is diverted to landfills even if placed in recycling bins.
Paper and cardboard are Quite easy to recycle - and in Europe, the have one of the best Recycling Rates of all the Materials. Whilst Rates in General are lower in the US, paper has the highest Recycling rate compared to plastics or other Materials. That does not mean that single-use packaging is a great idea, even made from cardboard, but you should get your facts straight. Also - a lot of waste does not have to go to the landfill, and with proper regulations and systems in place, you can minimize landfilling dramatically.
Okay, NJB x Climate Town viewer
Partially correct, but also wrong.
The Plastics Identification Code has been around since 1988 and displays what type of plastic the item is, and *not* if it is recyclable.
Where I live, in Melbourne, Australia, plastic:
Type 1 (PET or Polyethylene Terephthalate),
Type 2 (HDPE or High Density Polyethylene)
Type 4 (LDPE or Low Density Polyethylene)
Type 5 (PP or Polypropylene)
are all just left in the curbside bin and recycled by the local council.
Type 3 (Polyvinyl Chloride)
Type 6 (Polystyrene)
Type 7 ("Other")
Are not recycled by the local council, but may be accepted by other recycling entities.
So your statement "Most of the resin types are recyclable in a lab setting, but there are no facilities to accept them as post consumer waste" is of questionable accuracy.
More proof that EcoNazism is political BS by tyrannical hypocrites.
paper is so expensive to recycle? stg i recycled paper by accident at multiple points in my life. doesnt seem that difficult
Oh man... meal kits have saved me from my adhd induced executive dysfunction fuelled food nightmare... I feel exactly the way you explained at the end, they're an amazing tool for learning new things and helping to learn how to meal plan more effectively. I haven't weaned myself off them yet but I'm getting to the point where I'm putting things I've learned from meal kits in to place so that it takes some of the executive function out of meal planning each week! By the end of 2022 I want to love cooking again and I think meal kits are getting me there
It drives me crazy when people label something as "lazy" without thinking about people with disabilities and how accessible it becomes when we couldn't do it the "normal" way.
@@amandapaschoalsereia As someone with ADHD living in a country without meal kits, the comments that go, "bUt gRocErY sHoPpInG is So fUn thO? WhY woUlD aNyoNe bUy thIs?"
@@EspeonMistress00 exactly same here!
I never tried a meal kit before. They don't seem like a money saver to me. I can buy my own ingredients and then follow one of their recipes for cheaper. But I get the appeal of not having to plan my weeks cooking for every grocery trip. Fortunately for me I live close to a supermarket.
I can never relate to meal kits. Root crops such as garlic, onions, and potatoes rarely go bad, and veggies are still good to use when refrigerated up to two weeks. Meat can be proportioned before freezing. And meal planning? It can be done parallel with writing the shopping list.
One reason I can think of for people to choose meal kits is executive dysfunction. There are so many people (including myself) with conditions like ADHD who can really struggle with “basic” things such as meal planning and grocery shopping.
Not everyone has the ability to store even small amounts of food. There are a lot of folx who live in substandard housing without access to safe or sanitary food storage space, whether that's due to having a shitty kitchen with minimal cabinet space (sometimes just barely enough for a small amount of dining ware) or because you have to combat roaches and rats from neighboring housing or coming in through holes in the building's exterior, for example. Others don't have room for a big fridge with freezer space to sore food - anyone who's ever had to figure out how to afford rent in places like NYC or San Francisco knows you eat out all the time or you go hungry because unless you're basically printing money, there is no room for anything bigger than (maybe) a dorm fridge, a small chopping board, and a hotplate. Which is, coincidentally, about all you need to store and cook a single meal kit box.
@@sonipitts If you can't afford to live somewhere without those issues you can't afford these kits. They're not cheap. (I'm not shaming low-income folks, it's just a reality. When I looked into meal kits it would have increased my food costs.)
@@evie5402 Relatable. I have ADHD too. That's why I do the listing parallel to meal planning. Also, meal kit subscriptions cost around as much as my ADHD meds lol.
@@fearsomefawkes6724 We're pretty low income ourselves. We just took the amount we spend on the kits ($40/week-ish) out of our grocery money, and used the rest to focus on basic staples for the other days. TBH, we still have a ton of food we put back during isolation when no one knew how bad the pipeline shortages were going to be and we couldn't get out to shop regularly, so we're mostly eating through that right now. The meal plate stuff is basically replacing our non-staple grocery spending. So we're not spending any more than we were.
And tbh, we may even end up spending less over time, due to a significant reduction in "I'm too tired to figure out what to cook and make something from scratch tonight, let's so pick up ...." shopping/eating out. Which was a larger-than-it-should-have-been expense for us, since hubby does manual labor and I have some medical issues that can result in significant fatigue and pain, and those trips often turned into a expensive cart full of impulse-bought stuff (as shopping when you're braindead and hungry will do). The kits are just about the no-brainer, already-figured-out-for-you level of "cook at home" we can manage on those days. So they serve as a support system during low executive and physical functioning days, as well, and keep us from wasting a bunch of money last-minute shopping when we're on our last legs.
Plus, my sister (who has a decent income) used to subscribe to those meal kits for my mom, who absolutely does live in exactly that situation. 60 miles to the nearest "real" grocery store, 30 miles to a shitty overpriced/understocked one, no food storage beyond a small cooler due to living in basically a stereotypical rotting-in-place "hillbilly shack" type of situation, and no farmers markets/food culture to speak of in the area (and no, she won't move, we've tried). They didn't end up working out for other reasons (mainly Mom has too many food sensitivity/allergy issues to make it work). But don't assume they can't be useful in those situations just because the people in them are broke af. Sometimes friends and family who can help are not.
I tried it once and I definitely went from "I don't cook anything except for instant noodles" to cooking for myself whenever I can be bothered and I became more willing to try cooking more different things and was less intimidated by spices and sauces etc due to the amount of stuff that turned out amazing from these kits. If I had the money though I would probably subscribe to one again, but the biggest thing that I hate about them is the said waste from the packaging. Definitely like the look of that freshprep one hope it reaches my corner of the woods.
I actually love planning and shopping and prepping for meals, but sometimes I do get burnt out (especially during this time where we're eating at home 99.9% of the time and everything is such a hassle), so I have been going through some periods of using meal kits. I like the variety and that they do all the planning and shopping for me, I've learned some new recipes that have gone into our regular rotation, and I feel like it does help with food waste as we're just cooking for 2.
I tried Hello Fresh during the middle of Covid. Absolutely LOVED it. I learned a lot, tried new dishes that I never thought I'd like, etc. But I felt roped into a subscription that I couldn't afford. There wasn't an option for single folks, therefore it was too much food.
I have not tried meal kits yet, because they are too expensive. Unless meal kits become cheaper than going to Aldi for my groceries, then I'm gonna keep going to Aldi. I'm not old. I'm just poor.
Yeah it's hard for me to relate to all of the comments complaining about food waste
I also grew up poor and am a broke adult.
I don't waste food, I find a way to use extra ingredients. I don't understand what's so difficult about that...
@@starcherry6814 same, honestly. I freeze what I don't use
@@starcherry6814 yup! I grew up poor and the oldest of 7 children. Still a broke adult. I can't stand food waste, to me these kits are too expensive. I know how to shop to have it where we have food for the full month for under 200 bucks plus in trying to currently grow things that I buy the most like peppers, onion, tomates, etc.
Plus I make big batches of food so we eat dinner, my hubby and I have lunch for the next day, and the rest goes to my dad and brother's
@@Webster9214 me too. Except, I live in an apartment. I can't grow food, so I shop at Aldi and freeze things. I eat a lot of stir fry and ramen.
I’m disabled and meal kits aren’t even anywhere near being affordable for me, which sucks, cause trying to walk or cab to the grocery store and then feed myself is easily one of my biggest stressors in life. It’s very frustrating to watch services that could really help people in my position be so expensive that it isn’t even a possibility for us to consider using them
Some grocery stores allow you to shop online and then have the food delivered.
I would recommend Walmart plus it’s $15 a month but you get groceries delivered to your house doesn’t matter how small the order is or how big the order is you can get them delivered the same day depending on what time of the day you order or the very next day it’ll save you the trip of having to drive to the grocery store and I believe they also have a program where you can allow the Walmart employee to come in your house and put the food in the fridge for you and it is affordable for most people
I use( every plate) it's a super affordable version of hello fresh and it's 75%cheeper
At the time I thought the 50-60$ for a week of dinners was crazy, then I realized how much I spent at the grocery store getting stuff for lunch dinner and snacks and realized it woulda just been easier doing more HF. They’re good to use for a month or so for getting new recipes
I think a big part of the fast food and takeaway problem in western countries is that a lot of people just simply never learned how to cook. I would never use a meal kit myself but if it helps people eat healthier food they're cooking at home themselves, and more importantly, teaches them the skills and confidence to be able to cook their own food regularly then i'm all for it.
I see it as a stepping stone to people learning to cook and buying regular fresh ingredients themselves from stores.
US, not western countries
Yeah, thats not an issue in every country. Where I was born the older you get the more food related responsibilities you get. You join for groceries, you learn meal planning you learn to cook. Going to supermarket doesnt take half a day if you meal plan, but also our supermarkets are smaller, so getting all you need takes a moment.
I actually miss cooking with my mom and learning from her even though I didn't like it at the time. I wonder how many of different national cuisines are on their way out due to where and how fast the world is going. Eventually generations of knowledge forgotten.
My family does that and we live in the US
I tried Hello Fresh for a few months. It's just me and the smallest order I could get was 3 meals for 2 people. Each meal lasted me about 3 days. So, by the time I got to the second or third meal, the produce had gone bad. I ended up with more food waste AND more cost with Hello Fresh, including buying replacement ingredients, than I do shopping at Costco *dig, dig*. The best thing I got from it was some nice recipes, which can be re-created from ingredients you can get on your normal grocery trip. The boxes, do make good storage, I guess. BUT there is a LOT of plastic packaging. On the other hand, grocery stores are packaging more and more produce in plastic, too.
More unfun facts on Hello fresh. While bad for their waste, they’re also pretty terrible for their anti-union sentiments and aggressive union busting.
Woah we'll have to look into that! Thanks for bringing that to our attention, Michael 🙌
Want to pay 50% more for their Box? That’s what it will be if they had unions
My local Albertson's and Vons are union. The prices are ridiculous and always rising, especially during covid. The non union Food 4 Less store a mile up the road has barely budged in their prices after years of going there. Unions should be reserved for skilled workers, not workers who's job can be replaced by a robot or machine. I shouldn't pay $6.50 for a loaf of bread so that a high-school drop out with no skills can get benefits for being a cashier their whole life and never advance their career. My husband is a union Glazier and went through a 4 year apprenticeship program and passed multiple competency tests to graduate with that nice high payscale he has now. He and his union brothers are also more qualified to build the buildings we occupy ever day over non union, and non Osha compliant workers. I know I'll get hate for my opinion, but I said All this to illustrate the difference between professions. I'll gladly pay more for something that is skilled, but anyone can sell me my groceries and I don't think it's right to extort people on food just because the employees are unionized.
@@beatrixbrennan1545 unions give people better lives. They allow people to go to the doctors when they are sick with medical benefits. You are saying we would have to pay more. This is true, however the money would go to supporting a family and a household. Additionally, people deserve to live a life even though they have not done as much training of your husband. Speaking of this, what about your job? Are you willing to into the workforce and support these disrespected, overworked employees during this time? Wait until you live pay-check to pay-check while people shit on your job which is essential to drive society foreword.
Also if you are so angry at food prices, and even though you clearly you have enough money to pay for them, start your own garden, grow your own food. No one is forcing you to shop at the grocery store.
Shut up and sit down. You are entitled and feel the world owes you something. Well it doesn’t. If you aren’t willing to support other humans in their life, then expect that they will leave you in the dust.
Everyone deserves a good life, no matter their circumstances.
I also implore you to look at demographic percentages of who gets into skilled training programs and post secondary education. While your at it, maybe look into getting an education for yourself too.
@@clodaghdressler5633 you're making a lot of assumptions about my life when you don't know jack shit! You sound like a socialist sjw who doesn't know how basic economics work. I have had my fair share of living paycheck to paycheck and was smart enough to further my education so that I could have a little more financial freedom. When I was poor , I didn't think "maybe I'll just be a checker at a supermarket and unionize so that despite not being skilled at anything, I'll just make the rest of society pay the difference for my lack of income." Why should people who worked their asses off getting an education to support themselves and their families make the same as a high-school drop out? There's nothing fair about that.
It's a millennial thing! My immediate 30 something neighbors use meal kits at least 5 days a week. The often complain it's so expensive but cringe when I point out the same foods are half the price at the store down the street. Also, without exception each week their recycling bin is full to the brim with foam lined boxes. Talk to them about composting and they stare at you like deer in the headlights. Needless to say their trash is twice what we have literally next door. Quite a problem in our county government admits that now admits they don't actually recycle. Our recycling is just piled high in a separate part of the dump. Just in case the commissioners find someone willing to buy the trash from us. Maybe its time to educate the school children how to actually cook?
Interesting take. I’ll admit, seems a bit judgey of what your neighbors do with their time and money… not to mention, the grocery store also creates massive amounts of waste due to packaging. Just because it’s not in your recycling bin, doesn’t mean it’s not there, right?
@@Bmn34 I'm a little curious about the cooking habits of American, like do parents teach kids how to cook? It seems like a lot of people don't cook, is it something cultural or maybe because of the fast food?
As an African, one of the first thing that we learn is how to cook and clean, also I live in Europe now, and the majority of the population of my country have the habit cook at home.
@@afrikan_criola1923 Hey, thanks for asking! So the thing is, America is not a monolith, right? There are many, many different cultures here, just due to our historical immigration patterns and sheer size. For reference, Texas alone is about 70% the size of Nigeria, and there are 11 US states that are bigger than the entirety of the United Kingdom. So it’s definitely hard to say “yes, this is the typical American parenting style.”
I, personally, was raised by a Southern, stay at home mother, so culturally I was raised to cook and clean from basically birth. It was expected that I would be a stay at home mom myself, however, economically that’s just not possible for most Millennials nowadays due to rent costs and healthcare costs and other things like that. Now I have a really demanding job, so I do Hello Fresh just because it takes some pressure off of me during the week to make yet another decision. Also, grocery stores aren’t super accessible where I live like it is in many other parts of the world, which is true for many Americans. So when we go grocery shopping, it’s typically for a full week or two at a time.
However, many of my classmates from school had working moms (which was a new thing, within the past 1-2 generations at the time). They would typically take the bus to and from school and have a key to get in the house where they would wait for an adult to come home (this was called “latch key kids”). By the time the mom came home around 6 or later, there was no time or patience to teach kids how to cook or clean… it was something that was done as quick as possible to get the kids to bed on time. So how could they learn? You only know what you are taught. Parents are learning how to balance these things now, but we really were the trial and error generation for dual income households.
Anyway, sorry for the long answer haha. Hope this helped answer your question!
@@Bmn34 thank you so much for your answer, now I understand better.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that Americans have a very stressful life, like life is very fast paced, I don't know how to explain but I have American friends who moved to Portugal and one of the things that they say is that it's a more calm life, like we work hard but we also rest more, we have 30 days of vacation, a lot of shops close on Sunday or for lunch, people always like to stay with the family and eat a lot. Maybe is because they're some things we don't have to worry to much for example I got cancer in 2015, everything was free because I already paid my taxes, I stayed 1 year at home but I had the unemployment money so I didn't stress to much, what do you think about this?
Some of the Americans living here say that they had to work really hard because of this kind of stuff, like health...
@@afrikan_criola1923 Oh for sure. Most people I know are very stressed all the time and burnt out for a lot of the reasons you just said. For example, my boss’s boss got cancer a while back and was working pretty much most of the way through treatment. He had to… our company doesn’t offer sick leave because they legally aren’t required to, and if you lose your job, you lose your healthcare. And there are tons of other examples just like that. One thing that is universal about “American culture” is that work is usually the center of our lives, to the detriment of many other aspects of life. It’s unfortunate
I really loved a meal kit for exactly what you described. I used it for a year and basically learned how to cook. once I learned what I liked and different ways to cook, I moved to a meal planning app and did my own grocery shopping and prep. now I'm able to do most of my own meal planning and cooking, although I do still reference some of those old meal kit recipes. it is great for training wheels to try to learn how to cook, but you gotta take the training wheels off eventually
Calgarian here! Glad to find out about freshprep! I am within the 29% of millenials who once ordered a meal kit from GoodFood, still re-using the packaging/ice packs/containers til this day, hard to imagine how many plastic cups and bags I would have if I continued the subscription.
I totally agree with your stance. We’ve tried a few different meal kits and have taken a bunch of our favourite meals and put them in our rotation.
Honestly it's just nice to get amazing recipes handed to you rather than searching through thousands of options. Thanks for joining us, Aileen!!
@@FutureProofTV Of course! Thanks for making great content. I’ve been a subscriber of Levi’s (now Levi & Leah) for a couple of years now and am glad to see you expanding. Keep up the great work!
Same here.
@@mrathletik214 right?! It’s so easy to get cooking fatigue especially if your making the same things over and over again. Some of the recipes have ingredients you would never have used without being introduced to you via the meal kit.
@@FutureProofTV Exactly. AND you get to taste-test them without spending out money on specialty ingredients that you won't use if it turns out you either don't like it or it's more trouble to make from scratch ingredients than you're actually going to bother with.
my local supermarket (big y) sells single meal kits (it says it's a portion of 4 but each meal sold separately), all the ingredients are wrapped in plastic together on a tray so there's a lot less plastic than everything being wrapped separately, and it's so convenient. We use them about once a week when we're in a rush. I'm glad these are becoming more common because otherwise I'd be doing tv dinners those nights.
Happy to hear a low waste alternative exists, but it probably can’t be 0 waste… I mean look at the packaging that isn’t the two big containers… those tortilla bags and that pouch aren’t exactly “0 waste”
Right, plus the emissions from having food delivered to your door. And I expect they need to make more deliveries because if you're taking back empties you can't carry as much food to be delivered. It might be a lower impact meal kit, but ideally we should all be working together to create a world where people don't have to resort to delivered meal kits.
I love the app mealime as a middle ground between meal box and pen and paper meal prepping. You choose meals, it creates a shopping list which you can take to the store or link up to order groceries online for pickup or delivery depending where you are. The best part is that you can make enough for leftovers, so you get more food and fewer nights cooking.
Here’s my take on the packaging waste: Yes, it’s more waste than if I would buy all the ingredients in bulk. BUT if it weren’t for the meal kits, I wouldn’t be buying these ingredients in the first place. What would I buy? Convenience food and takeout, which is wrapped in even more plastic! I think that it’s important to consider this more realistic comparison considering the target market for meal kits.
PS I think it’s fairer to make a distinction between meal kits that contain whole fresh produce and kits that contain pre-cut, repackaged produce. I avoid the latter specifically because it’s so unsustainable.
Use the internet to look up recipes then go the grocery store.
When I had cancer we got meal kits...once. omg they took about 5 times as long as I usually take to make dinner. I can throw stuff in the crockpot in like 3 minutes and microwave some veggies in 5. The meal kits we tried took a minimum of 30 minutes of hands on time.
A good meal takes 2-3 hours to cook
We just started with Every Plate (an affordable offering that used to be part of Green Chef before GC was bought by Hello Fresh). There are two things I really like about it so far:
One is that it is way cheaper than the typical meal kit - around $5-8 per meal unless you opt for one of the 2-3 premium meal options they offer each week, which pushes it back up into the $10-12 range. But so far they've had a decent selection of lower cost meals, so we're sticking with those and using the premium meals as "recipe ideas" for later. And while they're not veggie focused nor have a specific veggie plan, there are usually 2-3 meals per week that are veggie.
The second is that while the sauces, meats, some processed veg and stuff like cream cheese or milk are sent in single-serving packages, the fresh veg is generally sent loose. I've seen some meal kits where every single veg portion is wrapped in plastic, so I'm counting this as a win. To be honest, as an anti-food-waste warrior, not having a fridge full of opened tubs of ingredients I'm unlikely to use before they go bad feels like a fair balance.
As far as sustainability goes, we can at least recycle tetrapacks where I live, so that takes care of some of the single-serving stuff. And the film that the ice packs and a lot of other wrappings are made of is the same stuff the as grocery bags, which pretty much all the stores around here have a collection bin for. So we just dump the innards as directed, rinse out the bags and any other similar plastic film and bundle it with any bags we've unintentionally managed to collect, and every few months we just drop off a bundle at the store. And the good news on that those materials are 100% recyclable with specialized machinery (which is where the bags in those collection boxes at the store go) to make new bags, as well as stuff like composite decking material, and is even largely recycled domestically so it's generally not being shipped overseas. And getting it delivered on a truck that's doing a lot of other deliveries means a vast reduction in "last mile" emissions over using a passenger car to go round to a handful of stores stocking up (which is our other means of getting food).
It's obviously not the perfect solution, but there really isn't one. At least this way, we're reducing our food's emissions footprint and food waste (and tbh, ending up with the same or less packaging waste) for about the same money we'd spend in the stores to make the same food. And we're getting to play around with new food ideas without spending a ton of money on specialty ingredients we'll only use a little bit of, so less money wasted as well.
I love EveryPlate! Well said.
absolutely bang on about the food disconnect 👌 spent years in China and they're far more connected to the process. One Chinese person said when they went to America they saw huge pillars rising out of the ocean near the beach covered in mussels. She turned to her friend, shocked, and asked "why isn't anyone taking and eating those?" It's literally free food just hanging out there.
In the Netherlands you can get mealkits in the supermarket. For about 5 euros you get all the fresh produce, herbs, spices and sauces for a 4 person meal. you do have to add your own protein and rice/potatoes.
We started meal kits very recently in my household because of huge inflation this year, it's actually cheaper than us buying the exact same stuff at our local Aldi which was already our cheapest option. Gas and electric have risen here in the UK up to 300% in just 1 month, and a lot of food prices have doubled in the same time and lots of families I know who used to be comfortably well off are now panicking. It doesn't feel good when suddenly food kits around here have gone from luxury item to cheaper than a bulk supermarket :(
Man... you're shopping wrong then. >__>
Oh wow Levi! Didn’t know that you are now in this Future Proof channel. Glad to see you’re still educating the world about environmentally friendlier ways to live. 👍🏻
I’ve been at it with my channel doing simple recipes, making things from scratch to show how I save both money and the environment. Love the work you’re doing here Levi.
This answered some questions I had about pre-prepped meals. Thank you! I do think the real problem lies behind our society not appreciating where our food comes from (and who grows and harvests it) as well as a lack of priority to cook our own fresh healthy meals (especially amongst millennials- i.e. me). We're so pressured to work longer hours, be proactive in our careers, save money to pay off loans and *attempt* to purchase a house that we've lost the connection to our everyday living... to slow down and ask ourselves are we ready for a happy healthy day today?
I'm with you. I don't think the food is really the problem, it's the symptom. Meal planning and cooking would be easier if we had more time and money. I don't want a meal kit to make supper easier. I want my life to be easier so I can enjoy cooking supper.
My friend who has two small children uses a meal kit service a couple times a week. They love it because it means she and her husband get the occasional meal that isn't toddler leftovers. And her toddler can help prep more than usual because there's no sharp knives for the most part.
I've looked into fresh prep for the reusable containers, but I've never seen any of the vegetarian/vegan options come in the containers, it's usually just 2 meals each week that come in containers. I'd probably never be a long-term customer, but I like the idea of getting kits for the occasional crazy week, or to learn new recipes.
I just ordered my first meal kit so I will see how it all goes, I grow up in a big family 8+ people and it might sound stranger but im not sure how to only cook for 2 people now that im livings on my own and I want use to eat health and planning a meal with a 2 year old is soo overwhelmed sometimes. Im really excited to see how this all goes.
So happy I discovered this channel! Your videos are so interesting and informative!!
This was highly informative for someone who goes to the grocery store and knows how to cook. I literally had an argument with a family member about growing a budding potato.
We already have a bush from a rosemary cutting and a gifted mint patch, along with tomato plants sprouted from a purchase ready to go outdoors. I've been resisting the urge to try meal kits because of the cost. I am not feeding the tribe for $48 - $60 for dinner. I will continue to live vicariously through the kids, nieces and nephews for the chic Internet stuff. I would literally need a side hustle to make dinner.
I tried it briefly, and the biggest downsides are the huge amount of packaging, that you either need to responsibly deal with or feel bad you just trashed it, and that it costs as much as a cheap restaurant, but you still have to cook it yourself.
This channel is just my go to for entertainment while eating. Great content!
We put it on during mealtime too 👀 Glad to hear you're enjoying our stuff!!
Love this channel, the information is so valuable I feel like I'm always learning and the production quality is just... *chef's kiss* keep it up!
Thanks for being here!
I LOVE this channel and I'm happy to be here so early. I'm very excited for everything that's to come.
Never tried a meal kit, though I was tempted to try one because of the good price but they didn't fool me. I do my own shopping and cooking the old fashioned way, like my parents.
This is cool, and I enjoy your content, just curious though: when can we expect the birkenstock video that was mentioned a couple months back in the blundstone video?
We've got an episode about them coming for summer time so stay tuned!
Have enjoyed reading the comments, as a vegetable gardening meal planner, once a week wander around the vegetable garden, work out what will be ready in the next week, and plan accordingly.
Plus have been helping someone with no room for a vegetable garden, grow year round a few vegetables in pots and 2 ex planter boxes that had hedges in them. We have both been learning heaps. She just grows 6 silver beet, 6 lettuce and 2 at a time brassicas every six weeks and this year three sowings of carrots. Plus three tomato plants and one zucchini they are in large pots and parsley in smaller pots. Over the winter the big planters are given a rest and everything is grown in smaller pots.We just use compost, mainly mine, but occasionally buy a bag for finely chopped compost.
I'm working class myself; definitely no time to play farmer!
I love the information you're giving people. but I also find it SO funny because as you are exposing the scam. there is ADS to get me into supplements and meal kits.
Unfortunately, I think for the vast majority of people to wake up and get a reality check, we need a disaster. but, you are here for the people who have ears to hear with. for the people who want to change, you are a blessing for them.
My personal experience with them was bad honestly, so I decided to get it a few years ago when I got a free meal code, that’s important. So the few meals I did get were very rotted, small quantities of foods (ie not enough for anyones single meal). When I canceled they charged me again till I had to fight for not only cancellation but also refund. FYI this is hello fresh but not only that I’m constantly barraged with commercials or ads and no matter how many times I report them for spam they come back. This is my first and only experience
I have never tried and not even looking forward for meal prep services. Love to go to farmers market every Saturday, pick what I like and just eat fresh and vegan (raw vegan). It’s fast, super simple & tasty, healthy, cheap and I know what is on my plate. Nothing can’t beat this!
Peak privilege
Kiki's Delivery Service!🤣 I have Millennial kids...I know exactly what you did!
I gave my parents a month-long subscription but cooked it for them. However, the amount of plastic was ridiculous. I'm so glad the gift has run its course. So jealous I live just the across the border in Washington because I would love to give Freshprep a try.
Thanks for the videos!
-Lynnette
I have tried these - they combine the worst part of eating at home (dirty dishes, cleaning the kitchen, the work) with the worst of eating out (high cost), with no actual upside. I am disspointed in the "I cant pronounce this, therefore it is bad" or the "natural = good/healthy" perpetuation. Dihydrogen Monoxide - is still water no matter what you call it. Lead, arsenic, venim, radon, flesh eating bacteria - all 100% natural. Many people apply totally unnatural sun block, to prevent skin cancer from the all natural sun.
I had 60% off with free shipping, and the cost was still equivalent to eating out for meals (per portion). 🙃😂🤦🤦🤦
Where do you live?
@@Churros1616 UK.
@@Churros1616 You?
@@Churros1616 you?
@@Churros1616 you?
Levi! I am disappointed that you used the line “I can’t pronounce half the ingredients on this list”. This is a super common greenwashing marketing line that plays on the trend of fear and distrust of science and other academic communities by those who aren’t educated in those fields to label some foods as “bad” or “not real”. Scientific or technical names for ingredients are a labelling standard to ensure precision and accuracy so consumers CAN know exactly what they are eating and buying. The number of ingredients or the technical name for them has no bearing on whether the food is actually nutritious, ethical, or safe (this goes for skincare and such too, which deals with the same “clean beauty” BS talk as “clean eating”). The quality if the recipe or formula itself must actually be assessed, and that is why the nutritional values are also required on food labels here. Also, you really should not speculate that a food or other product is “unsafe” or barely meets safety standards if you don’t have actual knowledge of that, and certainly not imply this based on having a long ingredients list!
In addition, the concept of food being “processed” is a nebulous concept with no real definition when it comes up in reporting and conversation. Most food is processed in some way to make it safe to transport, sell, or use as an ingredient in other food. What makes a food “too processed”? The real problem with “processed foods” is the actual levels of nutrition they do or don’t offer, and the ability of the purchaser/eater to determine what nutrition they NEED and if that food offers it (or gives them an excess of something their body don’t need more of, eg sugars).
Otherwise I appreciate the points you brought to this topic; meal kits have the potential to be very beneficial to the food chains, and reducing waste, in addition to making it easier to meal plan and practicing cooking. I think the difficulty in cooking complete meals at home for most people here stems from societal and economic factors like the food desert phenomenon and the wage gap, as well as the difficulty in having one partner in a couple relationship care for the home and make meals when 2 incomes are really needed to survive or live comfortably (or raise children). Meal kits definitely have helped me in the past with those times when I was struggling to take care of myself and was working non-stop.
Thanks for this Anna! We didn't even consider this aspect but you're not wrong! Part of Levi's reaction here is because the writers will often include difficult to pronounce words to trip him up as a joke lol. But thanks for bringing this up, we'll be mindful of this in the future!
We tried a few of these during lockdown because cooking became so onerous and overwhelming at one point. I think I experienced cooking fatigue if that’s even a thing - so it was nice having someone do the thinking and ‘shopping’ for you at least while I got the spark to cook again. But you are right - delicious and convenient it is, the cost adds up quickly and it’s just not sustainable long-term to live off meal kits.
You asked what could be a step towards reducing household food waste and two things I’ve always struggled with is figuring out what to do with leftovers and storing food (we have a tiny fridge and overall small space). One idea I came across was prepping and freezing veg right after you get home from your weekly trip to the grocers so that you have ready made bases for soups, sauces, fresh herbs and stuff like that. There’s plenty of other creative ideas and things people do that save time and I find online forums and communities very helpful in that regard.
Sometimes I wish I lived in simpler times!
The video started when I started eating my dinner and perfectly ended when I licked my fingers in the end .. I feel like I'm Leah's dad watching your video while having food 😂
Great video. I was considering the option of hello fresh.. thanks for the wisdom.
PS I'm currently meal prepping in the weekend. Still saves time but not sure about the quality of the food at the end of the week..
I have never understood the purpose of these meal kits unless you actually live in a food desert. It’s fun and easy to just discover new recipes on the internet and then cook it.
Thanks for your perspective on this!
I tried meal kits once. They were easy enough to follow and convenient and all the rest of it - but also found them way overpriced for what they were. So I just took the recipe cards that came with them and bought the ingredients myself. From that I worked my way to canning and preserving my own food, which is something that my grandparents did after the war when money was tight and you had to take whatever was in season and make it last. And my parents also got in touch with that when they were young. And the equipment never went away - it is still available, cheap, and the techniques are easy enough to master. Glass jars are awesome, and they are infinitely reusable. A couple of those, a few lids and rubber sealing rings, a large pot and you’re off to the races. The only difference is today’s terminology. While “canning and preserving” admittedly does not sound sexy, a modern term like “meal prep” certainly does. I have a few readymade meals sitting in my pantry for those days when I really don’t feel like cooking. But the techniques go back to our grandparents and way before that. If they are still around, go ask them about it and chances are they will be happy to share their knowledge. If not, there is still hope…on UA-cam you will find tons of good advice. While you are at it, try pickling as well. You can thank me later, when you were able to whip up something delicious in record time just from the stuff you have in your pantry and that you have made and preserved all by yourself (and with no unpronounceable chemicals). Bonus for the eco-conscious: You can buy all your produce local and preserve for later. Is preserving a lot of work? Yes, maybe. But you can take it one step at a time. If you do a good job, though, your own canned stuff is at least as long lasting and shelf stable as the store-bought variety. Peeling, say, 20 lbs of potatoes kinda gets old real quick. It get that. But guess what you won’t have to do when you need, let’s say, some boiled potatoes next time…you just need to pull one jar off the shelf, crack the seal open and you have them right there, ready to use. This should be taught in schools, IMO. So much of what is being touted as the latest and hottest trend is really as old as dirt in a lot of cases - it just got some spit-shine on the label to sound more fancy and modern.
I love meal kits! We only use them for about 15% of our meals (dinners on most weeknights, & it does cost about a third of grocery budget). I feel much more confident cooking now, and I like to invite my little sisters to come over and practice cooking with easy instructions too. Great learning and exploring experience!
We have been planning, shopping, and cooking our own meals for 55 years (no Millenials we). Frankly, it gets boring. We have subscribed to Hello Fresh for three years now, and it is a pleasure to have a break from tedium three nights a week. We usually get at least one leftover lunch for one of us out of every dinner, so there is zero food waste. It is pricey, but cheaper than the takeout and dine in alternatives we were using more and more often. There are occasional problems and HF is great about crediting some or all of the meal. We are constrained some times by the "best by" dates on the individual meals -- have to use that bag or protein even if you are not feeling it that night. Look forward to freshprep coming to Toronto.
I LOVE meal kits. Don't come for them Levi!
Living alone there is almost no encouragement to make meals for myself other than like buttered bread lol. Plus having too much-left overs from making a soup, chili or other large meal just turns me off from those meals for months. Yeah, there's a ton of plastic and paper packing from the typical ones but at the same time, there is almost no food waste for single people. So it's really just a trade-off environmentally. PLUS everything at the grocery store comes in plastic anyways. I do my best to reuse the plastic bags for cat litter and containers for other storage or recycle them. Pre-covid they even use to pick up the shipping materials and reuse them. Personally, I've been saving the shipping boxes for when I buy my first condo and move in the next couple months.
Overall, I think they're the bomb. I will 100% buy from freshprep if they ever make it to Montreal.
Plus let's not forget wasted food from grocery shopping. How many times I bought beets and forgot about them, or let the arugula melt in the fridge. I love Green Chef. Who knew you could stir some chopped garlic into butter and smear it on tenderloin. F-ing delish, baby.
This is just straight laziness... I work in the film industry 60-70hrs a week and still manage to cook for myself. You can make a really decent meal in under half an hour if you plan your weekly shop correctly
@@quinn_cooke that's really awesome for you!!!! Time is money and there's so many more things I'd rather do with my time than plan and make meals. We can all be happy if we all spend our time doing the things that make us happy 😘☺️. I hate meal planning and cooking, it's not lazy, it's selective participation. ☺️☺️☺️
How is too many leftovers an issue? Just freeze it and cut down on food prep time later on
@@Sam-yy8jf you obviously don't live in a major city with an apartment size freezer and fridge
I don't like hello fresh that much, some things like bread aren't as fresh. Also the quantity is not that much, but that's differentfor everyone. Overall the food was nice. But canceling subscription was quite difficult.
Also where i live in europe, i have grocery stores right around the corner.
I do think this meal package is suitable for the US because distances are greater and people need to put a lot of time in shopping.
oh speaking of packaging, I actually love the Hello Fresh packaging we have here. most things come unwrapped, the meals are seperated in paper bags. the cooled ingrediants come in paper/fabric isolation bags that I reuse in general 5-10 times before they inevitably fail and at that point just go back into the paper recycling bin. And the icepacks are also genuinely useful. they are literally just bagged water. super convenient, safe when they leak, infinitely reusable (until they break)
I got into them when I moved downtown and didn't have easy access to good grocery stores. It's been a real blessing, even if the prices push what I consider acceptable.
I use meal kits once in a while as a way to discover new recipes and explore new cuisines. I'll order 1 or 2 every few months, and then use what I learn from them to enhance my own regular cooking
That's a great idea
I do really enjoy the meal kits i get in the uk by a company called gousto, they are a certified B corp and have gone a great way to reducing the amount of plastic in their meal kits, (its now mostly paper or cardboard where they can) there is still plastic in it which by their own admitance is unavoidable without a better alternative, i would like them to do something similar to freshprep as i think that would greatly help with the unaviodable plastic.
With all that being said most of the year i have an allotment and grow my own food and then used the recipe cards from previous gousto boxes to plan my meals with what i have grown and just buy the other ingrediants i need, so i only get the actual boxes in the "hungry gap" where its too cold to grow anything outside
The next problem is the supermarkets in the UK needing to learn some lessons from gousto and not have everything in plastic
I am also aware my situation is a very privalged one and not one everyone could repeat
Yeah, my brother and his wife really like Gusto. I’m a particular picky eater, so meal kits just aren’t for me.
We've started Guosto this month because it's cheaper than the supermarkets in our area now, with all the price hikes so far this year
I'm a Gen X-er and I love meal kits! It allows me to cook at home without having to do a lot of prep work. Even though I'm not a Millennial, I am very busy but like the idea of cooking a healthier meal at home instead of eating out. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't care for the food in most of them and says it all tastes the same.
Before I quit my full time job I always ate out because I simply never had the time or energy to cook. Last year I quit and I finally started exploring cooking since I was stuck st home, I started with baking since that was already something I liked to do and was familiar with. But now I can make all sorts of recipes and I have learned through trial and error how to approach cooking. I think maybe a lot of people around my age (Im 24) have this fear of failure and perfection is drilled into them. But its such a fun process once you learn that experimenting can actually be a good thing that can be used as a learning lesson. :)
I’ve been trying a really basic affordable option and it’s already helped making sure my son and I are eating healthier meals.
I hate cooking so the easier it is, the less energy it also takes due to my health issues.
We move into a caravan together next month since housing crisis is bad here and no one wants to rent to a singly disabled mum and teen with cats.
The meal kits will save so much space and help me only worry about food that’s not dinner related. But I feel super guilty, it’s either eat healthier or cheaper with isn’t healthy. 😔
A buddy gave me a free hello fresh coupon, got about a weeks worth of food. The food was decent and convenient but when I considered going for the subscription I just couldn't handle the price. If I had gone with hello fresh it would have over quadrupled my food expenses
I did basically the same thing. I enjoyed a free trial and decided to look at what it would cost to subscribe. Not worth it. The cost for the 3 supper plan was almost half my total grocery bill but wasn't replacing half of my meals, or replacing the need to grocery shop for breakfast and lunch. It didn't seem to save time or money, and it left me hungry
I love how the pronounceable food example pic had a pile of what looks like quinoa in the bowl, one of the less pronounceable foods!
My husband never learned to cook for himself. He wasn't taught at home. Mom always cooked for them (or used convience food as a quick fix).
He didn't have an eye for fresh produce, and his palate was stuck on typical convience flavours.
Then I got sick. Bedridden for two weeks. I remembered friends using Hello Fresh, so I asked my husband if he would be willing to cook if the meals came with perfect size, the right amount of ingriediences, an easy recipe, and all organic. He was! It also made it easier for him to stay on top of the grocery shopping, and the rest of the household.
We stayed on HF for almost a year. Our focus was vegetarian recipes first, because we both never really learned a lot of them. But we didn't pick our meals. We just had the veggie box and let them send us the quickest to assemble meals. The right choice for us at that time, definitely.
He said he didn't really learn to cook, but I disagree. It's true that he does not really deviate from the recipe to this day. Still, he grew as a cook. He values cooking more, and when I tend to go easy and convinient now, he often gets into the kitchen and just assembles a meal based on some of the recipes. The sauce from A, the side from B, the salad from C.
This mixing only started during the pandemic, when we decided to sign up again for ten months, to be honest. Before he was stuck on the recipes. I had a new job and had less energy to do meal planning, and we also tried to not risk my health by avoiding overcrowded areas like grocery shops. Since we both worked from home, the this time deliberately chosen menus were our daily highlight. He did a lot of the cooking because he finds it relaxing by now. It eases his mind off his work.
When we did christmas, we just picked 12 vegetarian dishes (a variant on the traditional polish christmas) and cooked them for the family. Two adults. It was messy, it was stressful, but also delicious! His family could not believe how he easily made half of them himself without any guidance from me. I had to laugh: He is way better than me on his signature dishes!
On a sidenote: My daughter (10) is not a picky eater thanks to HF. There are things she doesn't like (dried tomatoes, most sauces for some weird reason), but overall she at least nibbles on some of the things before settling for more of the meal she likes. We don't have to fight her to eat veggies or salad! She is used to them being a part of the dish! In all variations!
She also straight up tells my in-laws she doesn't like most of the food in the cheap restaurants they often pick (convinient food, but big portions, urgh). She prefers our cooking at home over most restaurants in fact! She also eats the normal dishes at restaurants. Chicken wings, fries, and ketchup aren't her deal. Instead she goes for the things she doesn't know from home. We have a deal that she can always exchange her plate for mine in case she hates it, but that almost never happends.
The only thing we didn't cut down is ordering meals. Pizza, Indian Curry, and Burger are things we usually don't make ourselves.
Thanks for the great informative video! I've been wondering for some time what people see in these meal kits and why they are so popular. I'm and old school home maker, and since the elimination of home economics in schools and the evolution of the both parents working culture there hasn't been anyone at home or in school to teach basic cooking skills. Cooking, baking, and grocery shopping these are all part of a skill set that no one is sharing today. I launched a you tube channel "Ruby's Classic Cooking" in an attempt to demonstrate/teach some of these skills by sharing food that I have been cooking in my kitchen at home for more than 45 years. I post a new video every Friday and using simple easy recipes for the beginner cook. Please check it out and let me know if you think I'm on the right track.
Ehh pronouncabilty is not the issue. Just because you don't know how to say something, or because it has a long name doesn't mean it's bad for you. Half of y'all cant even pronunce Chipotle.
Since covid, we work from home, work is paying for Hello Fresh and we love it. So much less stress for me. I love cooking, am considered a great chef by my freinds, but this has really been perfect addition for our needs.
I have ADHD and I run a business. Cooking and eating at home was such a struggle. I would through out so much produce and other food because I never got around to cooking it. I hardly ever ate leftovers so even more food waste. Hello Fresh has been the best investment I’ve made in a long time.
Why Are Meal Kits So Popular? because people are lazy, that's it end video.
I use Sunbasket and the packaging is almost all recyclable. The other thing I found with Meal Kits is that they save me money. Using the kits I don't go to the grocery store and I don't end up buying things I don't need or things that are bad for me. I also live alone so a lot of what I would buy ends up in the garbage because I just need a bit to go into whatever I'm cooking. I still love to cook so on the weekends I do the cooking and use organics I buy from a local grocery store.
I understand a lot of your comments and even agree with some. For me though the kits are useful and are really great for camping trips.
I love that idea with the great packaging! I used hello fresh but. .too much wasted packaging all the time. I felt like I was drowning in it
I've seen some companies pop up in Malaysia who are starting to sell these meal kits. Hasn't taken off just yet - there are more companies who are sending out actual cooked meals based on meal plans (like, 2 meals a day for the week, or 5 days). I'm just glad that I know how to cook / food prep on my own and I actually enjoy cooking and supermarket shopping.
I reckon customer retention for these companies would be a challenge considering the concept is unintentionally teaching their new customers on how to cook food (from sorting out amounts of ingredients to the actual cooking) and provides them with recipes, so in the long run, people will just go out and buy these fresh ingredients and just use the recipes they have in their arsenal. I mean, these customers would just then shift their online buying to online grocery stores instead of the meal kit services... Unless they're REALLY lazy.
I used to cook a lot but 4 years ago I got really sick and stopped. I'm happy to say things are a lot better than they used to be though, and I am trying to start cooking again. Being disabled makes it harder though, from lower energy to trouble with executive function, cooking takes it out of me (sometimes I'll decide to cook breakfast- eggs with greens or sweet potatoes- and just doing that is enough that I need to rest for several hours afterwards). I'm looking into a meal kit service because they're like training wheels for cooking. Hopefully it will help me get into the groove of doing it more often!
Loving the content of this whole channel!!! Good job levi
Thanks so much!!!
Nice to hear all the positive spin on meal kits. Looking forward to future positive spin on insect protein and vitamin shakes.
Definitely looking into those industries, thanks for the suggestion!! 👍
I owe all my cooking abilites to Blue Apron and Hellofresh. I remember franticly running around the kitchen cooking my first Blue Apron meal, not realizing that med-high on my coil oven was way too hot. It was like deglaze the pan and scrape the browned bits, but the whole pan was just black, there was no fond, just a full layer of char. The sauce had strong undertones of charcoal. 5 years later and I can confidently cook all kinds of stuff. Not sure how many I've cooked but the stack of recipe cards I have is like 2 feet tall. I scrapped the Blue Apron subscription after about a year, I really found myself struggling to pick 3 recipes that sounded good, whereas with Hellofresh I had trouble picking 3 because so many sounded good.
I tried it once and honestly it helped me start cooking on my own!
Personally I’m not a fan of all the plastic in the meal kits but my meal kit (hello fresh) did make me learn how to use ingredients that I’ve never used before. Recently I just learned how to properly use lemongrass in a food and it was delicious. I currently am getting I think one or two more kits because we got 50% off but after that I’m going to continue cooking on my own. I just feel lucky knowing that at 13 I know how to properly plan to make nutritious meals and snacks every day.
Great video! One idea is that maybe this could be a reflection of the two earner household. Our parents had the time to cook because one person was cooking, but with two workers and less time meal kits are more popular.
I did hello fresh for a year. Helped during a pretty fraught time. Don't think I'd do it again but I do use the recipes I got. It broke the literal cycle I had of the seven same meals 🤣
My fave parts was the dramatic re-enactments! Another great video!
Hahaha glad you're enjoying our content! Thanks for being here 🤗
Just found your channel and I am binging all of your videos. Love your take on these meal kits. So many of the meals are completely easy to make and so crazy more expensive that it shocks me. I don’t need a meal kit to make chicken tacos or burgers.
Great points about being raised on fast food and how we can use this to learn to cook for yourself.. it's the honest truth.
My stay-at-home mom just fed us McDonalds, coke, and takeout literally everyday..
I find quite funny when people buy things always with a recipe in mind. I just go to my frige, take whatever is inside and think... what the heck I'm I doing with this stuff? And it actually turns out tasty. Sometimes we (my household) buy food with previous planning, but most likely than not is a routine of buying anything that's cheap and fresh enough and then trying to use use it up fully without waste. Like... let's say I have meat/rice from last lunch. I will store it and use in the meal directly afther (or max 2) in this example it would be that night's dinner or next morning breakfast.