By Emma Dylan
Eating healthy isn’t always easy. We’ve all found ourselves at the tail end of a long workday sitting in bumper to bumper traffic and seeing the siren call of countless fast food signs.
But whether you’re dining in, grabbing carryout from your favorite restaurant, or simply rolling through a drive-in window, it’s going to have a negative impact on two important aspects of your life: your wallet and your waistline.
Prepared Meals to the Rescue
The great thing about prepared meal deliveries is how deftly they thread the needle between “fast” food and “satisfying” food. That’s not to say that all prepared meal delivery services offer the same level of quality, but there’s no shortage of services that put nutrition front and center. You can pop these meals in the oven and have them ready in less time it would take for your order to be prepared at the restaurant, and you aren’t paying the premium for dining in or carrying out.
And unlike with groceries, you don’t really have to worry about ingredients going bad just because you don’t use them. While there may be a premium involved in having meals prepared and delivered on a regular basis, consider the food waste that comes from weekly meal preparation or the financial waste that comes from picking up food on the way home.
The differential may appear superficial at a glance, but over the course of days, weeks, and months, it really stacks up.
Meals Prepared For Your Needs
If you have dietary restrictions, you likely know how hard it can be to order at a restaurant. If you’re a vegetarian or a vegan, you’ve probably felt the pain to an even worse degree. Despite the variety of options that many restaurants offer, vegetarians and vegans are often restricted to the salad corner of the menu.
That’s not the case with prepared meal delivery services which often build their entire business model around the needs of specialized clients. Instead of having to drive across town to find the cool underground vegan spot, you can simply rely on a vegan meal delivery service. And since these services specialize in the needs of people with unique dietary restrictions, you can expect a more expansive choice of options than what you’d find in most restaurants.
Ultimately, it’s this level of variety that drives many people to premade meals. You’ll know what you’re getting, and you have the leverage to choose from a library of specially curated recipes that are made by actual chefs.
Of course, the most important part is finding a meal delivery service that’s accommodating to your needs. We love these services, but we do think you should take the time to actually scope out the meals.
Picking the Right Meal Delivery Service
Make sure they suit your budget, but also make sure that they appeal to your specific tastes. The last thing you want is to get tied down to a meal plan that delivers food to your door you aren’t all that interested in. Fortunately, most meal delivery services offer a look at their past and current menus so you can get a feel for how their chefs operate.
Relying on pre-made meals isn’t going to cure your stressful work life, but it can take one extra factor off the table. Good pre-made meals offer you a healthy alternative to the often spontaneous dining that so many professionals used to depend on, and they give you more control over what you want to order.
It may take making some adjustments in your life – but if you find groceries expiring in your fridge or restaurants eating up a big part of your budget, it can be a seriously sensible addition to your life.
