Meal delivery service during IVF

hej2021

Hi guys! We are starting our 2nd round of IVF sometime in the next month and are hoping to avoid having to worry about cooking since it's already such a busy time. Has anyone found any IVF-friendly meal delivery services? E.g. healthy, plant and low mercury seafood focused, ideally not in plastic containers but know that's hard to find.

Sakara looks good but SO expensive and they use plastic containers (albeit BPA free). 

mbradfo2

If you're interested in pre-prepared meals that you just need to warm up -- I've subscribed to Freshly on and off for the past few years (off when I have more meals than I can eat in a week XD Sometimes I just forget to eat regular meals...). I think I might be able to get you a coupon code or discount, if you're interested in trying that out. They have a decent variety of healthy, plant based meals and seafood; their meals aren't OMG AMAZING (well, the philly-ish cheesesteak with cauliflower mash did knock my socks off the first time I had it), but they are good enough that you feel like you're getting a nice quality meal without having to order take out. 

If you're interested in meal delivery kits (where you need to cook, but they have all the ingredients for you), we love HelloFresh (and I think I have some free boxes to give out). They have so many healthy options and then indulgences; you can also add in extras like something quick for lunch or breakfast/brunch. Ricotta toast was one of the brunch options that I really liked. We try to go low- meat as much as possible and HelloFresh has so many unique options that are really tasty! The squash tacos/fajita meal really surprised me -- I didn't realize squash could be so good with taco spices! It's also a wide variety of cuisines -- Italian, Mexican, Asian, homestyle, etc.

We've tried other meal kits with less success --- Blue Apron was pricey and the meals were way too fussy to make.  Home Chef had very little selection and just not very high quality ingredients/meals.

HelloFresh's packing is also all recyclable (they use paper bags).

mbradfo2

Oh, another one to try is Hungry Root if you like vegetarian/vegan meals -- they send you a mix of pre-package stuff and stuff you'll need to warm up or toss in the pan, but it's all pretty quick and easy. And their snacks are very tasty. I LOOVE their brownie dough. The overnight oats were good too.

And if you try to Hello Fresh and you like mac'n'cheese (and don't need to be gluten/meat-free), they have a DELICIOUS pancetta mac n'cheese with roasted cauliflower subbing in for some of the pasta (you could probably do all cauliflower though to avoid carbs and replace the pancetta with pan-fried tofu or something similar if you don't want to eat meats. I'm the queen of pantry recipes -- give me a pantry and I come up with something

hej2021

@mbradfo2 - love this!! such great suggestions we've done Hello Fresh and I agree - I really liked it! We actually do that one every few months for a few weeks! 

I do think we're looking for something a little easier for IVF though since we both have pretty demanding jobs plus IVF appointments and acupuncture (which I decided to try) are time consuming. Love the idea of Freshly and Hungry Root! Will share those with my husband and we'll look at them this weekend. And I'll let you know if we decide to try one, in which case would love your referral code. Thank you so much!

JLS28

We have tried quite a few services, our quick notes are....
- Blue Apron had the highest quality ingredients, like organic veggies and grass feed meats, and the meals were (or at leastc an be) on the healthier more vegetable directed side. 
- We currently get Home Chef every few weeks, nothing particularily healthy about it we just to change things up from our regular meals, we like their tacos and chinese type meals. 
- They don't deliver everywhere yet but look into Real Good Fish, they're a fresh seafood delivery program and the quality is fantastic, not meals but you can always just thrown some veggies and/or rice or something with it!
- Hungry Root would be great to go along with Real Good Fish, spiralized veggies and things. 
- Daily Harvest has some great things for when you're not particularily hungry but need something, all frozen in prepackaged cups super easy to prepare, harvest bowls soups that you just warm up with hot water, smoothie mixes that you blend with milk, things like that.  

mbradfo2

 @JLS28
I haven't tried Blue Apron in years so maybe they improved their menu! I just remember having to make zucchini fritters for one recipe and it was an absolute disaster! I think Blue Apron definitely has the more complex and varied recipes -- HelloFresh is generally "protein + pan sauce + veg + starch" but between my husband and my toddler, the fewer ingredients that may be rejected the better! 

I've tried Daily Harvest; their oat bowls are yummy. I've been wanting to try their ice cream! But right now my Freshly meals are taking up too much space so I have to eat those first!

Revive is another oats bowl/smoothie/quinoa bowl delivery service. I actually REALLY loved their smoothies and so did my daughter. We used oat milk as the liquid (rather than water or regular milk) which was a perfect accompaniment. You could also use any other milk substitute; I like oat milk since it gives the smoothie a nice deep flavor while still being creamy. 

cashewchicken

@hej2021 I’ve tried Blue Apron and Sun Basket before and hands down Sun Basket was much better. The flavor was better, the ingredients were organic and the prep time was minimal compared to Blue Apron. One of the things I didn’t like about Blue Apron was that they won’t let you choose all your meals, at least that’s how it was 4 years ago. They had an algorithm that keeps the food costs down, so if you selected a meat dish, it automatically greyed out some of the other meat dishes. It definitely was frustrating to not be able to choose all your meals and be stuck with a dish you know you won’t like. I just looked at Sun Basket website and they also have prepped food too, on top of meal kits. I’ve never tried their prepped foods but if it’s anything like their meal kits, they should be good. At least they will be healthy. 

I tried Freshly before but I ended up canceling as soon as I finished the discounted initial trial period was over. I think the idea is good, but the food tastes like TV dinner. If you are expecting Munchery-type meals (oh I miss you so!) but on a budget, well, this will disappoint you. It might also be the type of food I got. I’m on a low-carb diet due to prediabetes so I mainly tried their meat dishes. Their chicken breast dishes tasted rubbery.