Boxed diet – is it worth it?

Can a home-delivered diet in the form of catering bring the desired results? More and more busy people are trying to achieve their dietary goals this way. Like any diet, this one also has its advantages and disadvantages, of course.

What are the advantages of a boxed diet? The biggest advantages

The box diet is designed to save time in preparing dietetic meals. The idea is to have them delivered to us by a diet company for a fee. This kind of nutrition is a sign of the times – in more and more things we rely on external services. Is it worth it? Here are the advantages:

Saving time

The first advantage is obvious. Especially for people who work long hours, it can be very tempting. There is no need to waste time on shopping, preparing meals. They are delivered in a convenient form so that they are delivered right to the customer’s door at the right time.

Convenience

It is very common to order a boxed diet through the internet. This also gives you an insight into the menu, the ingredients used to prepare the meals and the rules of cooperation.

Diversity of the menu

Cooking at home, we very rarely have the opportunity to eat such a variety of meals as it is the case with a box diet. There are various reasons for this: we usually do more shopping and don’t want anything to go to waste, and it’s quite the same when it comes to cooking. Especially in case of lack of time, we like to cook for a few days ahead

Balancing a diet

Diet catering offers are usually constructed based on the recommendations of nutritionists. Usually it is 5 dishes a day, which provide food at a certain energy level, counted by the number of calories

Possibility to modify it to suit our needs

The market for boxed diets is increasingly competitive. Therefore, you can choose for yourself a dietary option individually tailored to your requirements. Diets offered include:

• pescatarian,
• vegetarian,
• vegan,
• gluten-free,
• lactose-free,

A solution for people who cannot cook

A box diet will be welcomed with much sympathy by people who don’t like or can’t do the culinary arts themselves. There seems to be no need to agonize over something when you can rely on outside services, getting a very good quality product

Regular meals

At home, it is often difficult for us to follow a regime of 5 meals a day eaten at set times. The idea of a box diet is closely related to taking care of this element

No possibility of snacking

The boxed diet is delivered in strictly calculated quantities. Of course, the food can be very tasty, which will result in the desire to take an extra portion, but … we will not have anywhere to take it from. This is the advantage of catering diets over others.

Disadvantages of boxed diets. What are the reasons against it?

Of course, the catering diet also has disadvantages, which can not be hidden. They do not only concern the price, although this one is high.

High price

The cost of switching to a diet, in which food is delivered by an external company, will certainly be higher than cooking on your own even quite sophisticated dishes. The price depends on, among other things:

• the duration of the service,
• product composition of the dishes,
• complexity of their preparation,
• specific requirements (e.g. vegan or gluten-free diets will be significantly more expensive).

The price of the service for one day is usually about 70 zł. When ordering for the whole month it can be about 1700-1800 zł

Lack of cooking skills

Unfortunately, going on a box diet will not help us learn how to cook. Much less will we become experts in preparing healthy and valuable meals.

Impossibility of complete personalization

We will always have to rely more or less on a limited range of meals. Of course, this is changing and competition in the market is making suppliers more flexible, but this is not the rule

Low level of environmental care

Boxed diets also mean a proliferation of containers made of styrofoam and plastic that cannot be reused. Unfortunately, but such a solution is far from ecological

photo: Yu Hosoi/Unsplash