It’s great that more people are turning towards having fresh and healthy meals delivered to their homes instead of resorting to takeaway after work. Let’s face it; we’re all busy people. We’ve got jobs to do and people to spend time with.. But with increased demand comes more options popping up; paleo, gluten-free, calorie restricted, vegan- if you can name it, you can have it delivered to your door.
So, how do we know what we’re getting delivered and eating is good for us? It might look healthy (it has kale on it!) but is it actually making us unhealthy?
Sugar and spice and everything nice
Sugar. It’s white, delicious, but can be deadly in the long term. That’s no fun, is it! With the average Australian consuming around 27 teaspoons of sugar every day, sugar consumption and its harmful effects on the body has become something of an epidemic. In other words, we need to step away from the carrot cake and pick up a carrot stick instead.
With sugar keeping us sick and addicted, it’s no wonder more people are looking towards meal delivery services to feed us with sugar-free, tasty goodness. But when products that are marketed as healthy, like low-fat yogurts, breakfast cereals and bread, are packed with sugar it’s hard to trust what is good for your body.
Unfortunately, not all food delivery services can be trusted either. Like those products shouting low-fat, fat-free and sugar-free, the food you get as a part of your meal delivery service can also be laden with the white stuff.
Things to look out for:
Sugar has more names than a Russian spy. You can’t trust sugar. Sugar can be disguised as fructose, glucose and has been given about 50 other names. Always read your labels carefully.
Sir, there’s sugar in my sauce! Sure, there might not be sugar in your meat and vegetables but take a closer look at that delicious sauce you’re pouring all over your meal, and it’s a different story. Be very wary of menus that don’t detail the ingredients of your sauce! Most of the time, a humble BBQ sauce can have as much sugar in it as chocolate syrup
Don’t slip up with your oils
Oil. It’s something we use in cooking every day. A splash in the pan to cook a chicken breast. A drizzle over a plate of roast vegetables. A swirl to help a salad go down the hatch. Unlike coconut oil, which is created with a bit of elbow grease and patience, vegetable oils are made through a series of unnatural, chemical processes.
With high levels of polyunsaturated, a cocktail of residual chemicals from processing (not to mention toxicity remaining from poor farming methods), quite simply, these oils are not real. They are imposters. And if that’s not off-putting enough, Vegetable oils have been linked to a whole range of health issues including cancer, heart disease, and obesity.
So if the vegetable oils are out, what’s in?
Coconut oil and olive oil are both great options. These are both highly regarded as “good fats” that supplement a healthy diet, not detract from one! At Nourishd, these are the only oils you’ll find slickin’ up our pantry.
The ethical issue
Safe to say, we’re all (hopefully) reaching for the cage-free or free-range eggs at the supermarket. And most of us will make sure our meat hasn’t done a round-the-world trip to get to our plates. We’re also keen on cows eating a nutritionally-rich grass diet. Therefore it only makes sense to ask the same of your meal delivery service. What do we want! Chickens free to roam, meat that has lived happily, and produce sourced from local Australian farmers. That’s it, promise.
You really do get what you pay for. A healthy, chef-made meal should never cost the same as an egg sandwich from 7/11. What you really need to look out for is quality produce, meals that aren’t laden with cheap carbohydrates, and decent sized servings.
Cheap is not always better, instead, focus on value! Unfortunately “cheap” can also mean cruel and unsustainable too. So let’s prioritise value, and keep our food humane and healthy.
Friends, eating food is supposed to be a joy! Not a cruel and unusual punishment.
If your meal delivery service is serving up meals that you struggle to eat, don’t look forward to, or are leaving you hungry and unsatisfied then they’re not doing their job. Your food should always be fresh, delicious, and full of flavour. Food can play a huge role in healthy and happy mental state- Let’s keep it fun.
