I take a lot of pride in considering myself something of an amateur chef (read: someone who watches a lot of cooking content on YouTube). So whenever I saw ads on social media for meal kit services like HelloFresh, I quickly scrolled past. I thought they were ridiculous. Overpriced, too much packaging, and a sad testament for how capitalism has made us too busy to even have time to grocery shop and cook.
But a month or two ago, I read this article during a period when my anxiety was making it impossible to eat, let alone cook. It discusses how the pandemic and its mental health repercussions influenced the author to sign up for a meal kit service. A switch flipped in my mind and I did the same thing. After that, I’ve started using HelloFresh, so I decided to write a review of my experience in order to nuance the narrative surrounding these services a bit.
the service
If you aren’t familiar with HelloFresh or companies like it, they are subscription services that allow you to pay a weekly fee and, in return, pick a few recipes and receive corresponding individually-portioned ingredients. You tell them what you want, and when you want it, and the box arrives at your door. You need nothing other than salt, pepper, and oil to get cooking.
There are a host of recipe options each week, and you can choose a minimum of three. There’s something for everyone! There are even vegetarian and vegan options, though those are a bit more limited than the animal product-based ones.
To give you a sense of what the weekly menu looks like, here is a gallery containing this week’s options! These images originate from screenshots of the menu, which is within my personal HelloFresh account and therefore cannot be linked directly. (This is VIP content, folks!)
the prices
Many folks’ main concern about these services is that they’re expensive. From my experience, that all depends on the person. What do you normally pay for groceries every week? How many recipes do you tend to cook? Are you willing to pay a slight premium for the element of convenience?
In any case, I pay roughly $75 per week for 3 recipe kits, totalling 6 meals. It’s more than I used to pay for groceries (about $50 per week) but if it means I’m actually eating, I don’t mind the extra $25.
However, if you’re cooking for more than 1-2 people, HelloFresh might get a bit expensive. As a student, I think it’s a pretty convenient option for many, but if I was cooking for my entire family, I’m not sure I’d choose HelloFresh.
I also wanted to provide a candid update about my current usage of HelloFresh since I wrote the first version of this article a month or two ago. Honestly, since then, I’ve started skipping my weekly boxes — BUT, I still use HelloFresh’s recipes. I realized that, for me, the biggest positive I gained from the service was not having to come up with what I wanted to cook that week. I got so tired of the recipes I already knew, and this helped me learn new ones. As such, I order all the ingredients from another, most sustainable delivery service (Lufa Farms) and loosely follow HelloFresh’s recipes.
the quality
Source: this Insider article about using HelloFresh during the COVID-19 lockdown.
From my time using HelloFresh, I found the ingredients and recipes to taste really good. The produce was usually quite fresh, but I occasionally ran into some wilted herbs. Some of the recipes were somewhat unflavorful, but if you’ve got a well-stocked spice collection, you’ll be fine. And I enjoy how healthy and balanced the meals always are (another reason I still use the recipes). You know exactly what’s going into them, and you don’t have to worry that you’re getting all your food groups.
the sustainability
HelloFresh advertises on its website that it’s a sustainable service. However, this piece is my main critique. Every week I’m dealing with tons of unnecessary cardboard and far more ice packs than I know what to do with. Each box also comes with corresponding recipe cards, and for each one they send along an English and a French version. On top of that, each recipe includes common individually-portioned ingredients, like mayo, ketchup, and spices. Although these things are definitely useful for some, HelloFresh should make them optional for those who wish not to have them included.
HelloFresh should also prioritize local ingredients. One week, I received fish all the way from Iceland! As someone originally from the Maritimes, I felt a little insulted; Canada has no shortage of local options and taking advantage of them is a sustainability must.
The last two points are other reasons why I stopped ordering weekly boxes and started getting my ingredients from elsewhere.
However, HelloFresh does appeal to some aspects of social sustainability, bringing up an important intersectional environmentalism issue. Some folks may remember the great plastic straw debate, wherein a bunch of environmentalists led the campaign to eliminate them altogether as an unnecessary, single-use utensil. But many disability rights activists, like Crippedscholar, critiqued this cause with much validity. They argued that sometimes, single-use plastics and packaging that might just seem “lazy” to able-bodied people can actually be empowering for disabled folks. This point is important when critiquing HelloFresh’s sustainability, because even though it’s easy to call them out for pre-cutting and individually-wrapping the veggies in their meal kits, doing so eliminates a barrier in cooking for many. And again, the service itself does that for many people in general, regardless of their situation – myself included.
Source: Crippledscholar’s article “When Accessibility gets Labeled Wasteful”
conclusion
All of this is to say that while meal kit services might not be the right fit for everyone, they’re helpful for more folks than you might think, and a lot of people who use them aren’t just “lazy”. Although the service has a long way to go in the sustainability department, and may be a little expensive for long-term or family-wide usage, it’s an incredibly helpful resource during these difficult times.
During my time using HelloFresh, I had a great experience using HelloFresh, but as I discussed above, I’m no longer a regular customer. But, I’m still registered because I greatly enjoy their recipes, and I might find myself ordering a box if I get busy or tired in the future. In this way it’s kind of a “fall-back” and I’m really glad it exists as a service.
Once again, I wanted to discuss HelloFresh with you today to make you reconsider how “sustainable” it really is. There is no use shaming the service itself, or its customers, because you truly never know what someone might be going through and why they might wish to try something like a meal kit service. Particularly during a pandemic, there is no reason to judge others for their seemingly “unsustainable” choices. We are all just doing what we can to get by.
I’ll leave you with a treat: an incredibly entertaining YouTube video (as I mentioned earlier that I enjoy greatly) from Sohla El-Waylly, one of my absolute favourite chefs. Sohla is just one of the YouTube/internet chefs that both piqued and solidified my passion for food and cooking over time — something which is highly responsible for the creation of this blog itself. 🙂 Therefore, please let me know if you watch and enjoy this video, and be sure to tell me in the comments if you’ve got other favourites like this one!
– Aspen
aspen's eats 