Are premade meals worth it?

It'll save a lot of time and can help reduce the stress caused by meal planning. The downside is cost, packaging and storage space. While some meal delivery services offer plans that can cover almost every meal of the day, many don't. Meal kit delivery services are primarily intended to be periodic breaks from the kitchen.

If you never cook alone at home, they're designed to take you to the kitchen and allow you to take a break from eating out. They allow you to maximize your downtime. Meals are more nutritious than takeout meals. Kits can help less experienced cooks.

These meal kits ship the pre-measured and perfectly divided quantities of ingredients you'll need to cook each meal. Meal kit delivery services may not be cost-effective for your family's food budget week after week. Most food delivery companies provide information on how to recycle packaging, but this produces much more waste than if you are only going to buy with reusable bags. Meal delivery services help level relationships a bit by alleviating at least some of the demands of running a household.

Food kit delivery services can use a large amount of packaging, since each component of a meal can be wrapped separately and the box itself in which the complete meal arrives is also included. Some critics say that meal delivery services, which indicate exactly what to cook and provide all the ingredients, don't allow natural curiosity to develop through trial and error. Because of all the competition that exists, food kit delivery services cannot afford to send low-quality or spoiled food to their customers. So how do these meal kits compare to just buying the ingredients at the supermarket? We picked three recipes from a major food kit delivery company and then went to a local supermarket in Nashville to compare the cost of basic ingredients (taxes not included).

With them, you'll find a bigger difference between the cost of the meal kit and what it would cost to prepare the food at home. After calculating the difference in cost between buying food and ordering meal kits for two recipes offered by my favorite affordable meal kit service, EveryPlate, only a measly dollar separates the two forms of dining. When someone else is in charge of preparing the food (and shopping), you can continue to enjoy home-cooked meals that promote your health and well-being. Only you can decide if a meal preparation service or meal delivery kit is right for your health, your family, your lifestyle, or your budget.

In terms of taste, it's essential to take meal kit delivery services for what they are and lower your expectations. Food deliveries include recipe cards that guide novice chefs through the cooking process from start to finish. Many people think that the convenience of food kit delivery services doesn't compensate for the price they pose to the environment. For some of you, the convenience of delivering meal kits might be worth spending a few extra dollars each week.