Hello fresh - why?

😁

Yes and transport costs. Wasn't that long ago we were all running about refulling plastic containers instead of buying new.

😂Shockingly lazy Bunny. Don't you know rivers are far better for your clothes and it's lovely to identify which are the best rocks to bang them against.

I don’t see why it matters if people use them because they’re ‘lazy’. I use a washing machine instead of rocks because I’m too lazy to take my washing to the nearest river. Meh.

But as for me I love meal planning- I collect recipes to try, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea making a plan of what I need on a Thursday evening - ready for my Friday shop were I go to the market and spend ages chatting with local farmers and producers. I love the look of a full fridge bursting with exciting ingredients 😀I probably need to get out more!

@Poppins21, I do too. I've been away for a few days, Ocado delivery early this morning, fridge nice and full, a few meals planned for the next few days, feeling very happy about having to do all this cooking! I've been staying with my Mum who won't let me cook much (in spite of being nearly 92 ) and hovers over me when I do cook, so it's good to be back in my own kitchen and regaining control.

@Blondiie I didn't cook any differently when my daughter was a young child or teenager and didn't crumple under the mental load of coping with her eating requirements as well as ours 😆. I was working full time, have never earnt Mumsnet type salaries and was always short of money and in debt, and I've never had a capacious freezer - it's probably smaller than average and it's almost always difficult to squeeze in extra food thst I can't use in time.

Yes, the salt comes from adding the stock pots, the sauce sachets etc etc that come in the Hello Fresh box with the rest of the meal ingredients. Definitely doesn't need any extra added salt!!

We did choose the recipes. They really aren't that varied 😂 we did it for about 12 weeks and the same recipes repeat every 3 weeks.

We much preferred The Spicery for variety of dishes, but you still have to buy the main ingredients so it isn't as convenient. Hello Fresh is pricey for what it is, much better value to buy yourself.

The other thing with Hello Fresh I forgot to say is the packaging and the insulation in the box. There is just so much by the very nature of what it is. So it's not an eco choice either for anyone trying to cut down there.

Tbf it’s pretty easy to wing it when only cooking for 2, when you don’t have any significant time or cash pressures, you have a capacious freezer and you aren’t a teenager who by 7pm every evening has only had “nothin’” or “toast” and therefore needs 97.8% of their nutrition to come from this solitary meal, to be eaten 45 seconds before swimming practice. Dozens of people don’t live like that though.

But they seemed so random in their portion sizes when I signed up (it was years ago. Maybe they have improved.) Some days there would be meat or fish, veg and carbs, other days no veg, other days no carbs. Some recipes were too huge, others were really puny.

As I said I might try a few boxes as a way to help my daughter learn to cook as suggested by a previous poster.

But as for me I love meal planning- I collect recipes to try, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea making a plan of what I need on a Thursday evening - ready for my Friday shop were I go to the market and spend ages chatting with local farmers and producers. I love the look of a full fridge bursting with exciting ingredients 😀I probably need to get out more!

I can see how if you just want a quick no hassle meal, to reduce ordering in, they could be a god send though and it sounds like people don’t use them for every meal, so a good way to mix things up.

We tried both hello fresh and gusto. I was working 55+hours a week and we were eating too many takeaways. Neither of us wanted to spend the little time we had off meal planning, making a grocery list and then food shopping. So it seemed like a brilliant idea amd that it would be cheaper and healthier than takeaways.

But the reality for us was that both companies were useless. We would have wrong or missing items, sometimes the quality was poor and others we would have the meals go out of date before we could use them all. They would give you money off your next box when they messed up but we were doing it to save time and in the end we were having to buy bits from the corner shop most weeks.

DD started restricting what foods she would eat (now recently diagnosed ASD and ADHD) so we chose some recipes together and cooked them together.

This has resulted in a wider range of go to meals for us as a family.

I do keep forgetting to cancel though and have actually enjoyed the last couple of random boxes we’ve received.

I personally wouldn't use it, but I quite enjoy choosing ingredients and spontaneously making something I crave. I could see if you worked and were really busy it would be quite good. I guess healthier and cheaper than a takeaway. It depends on the level of effort I guess. If it was loads of steps and stages and what not then it would put me off.

I wondered if I was the only one to have a fridge full of garlic 😁

I don’t use them anymore (I stopped after Covid) but I still use the recipe cards (mostly Gousto) on a regular basis.

During Covid lockdowns they were a godsend. I’m not sure we’d have eaten at the beginning of lockdown if we hadn’t already been on Gousto.

A person I work with loves it. They are single, young, and have a very demanding job and a hectic social life. They also like to cook, hate to waste food, and don’t want to eat out all the time. In their case I think it’s a great option!

We’ve done it a few times - great for self catering holidays. Also it means you can try new things without going to the expense of buying a whole bottle/packet of something nobody likes.

I’m terrible at meal planning and find it really stressful wandering round the supermarket, I found myself buying the same boring stuff every week. Meal boxes are fantastic for me, I get varied healthy meals and it takes away the stress of planning. I’ve tried loads of new meals that I would never normally have put together myself and found I’ve really enjoyed trying foods. Plus I love that I don’t waste any food and I like the portion control.

I should start my own thread for this, but I would like to know why posters start threads asking ‘why’ other people make certain choices when the reasons are perfectly obvious to anyone with more than 4 brain cells.

Hello Fresh is supposed to save waste - you only have the exact amount of all ingredients that you need. I'm not sure how that's wasteful, compared to say, buying a bottle of a particular ingredient that you use once, put in the fridge/cupboard and forget about and have to bin a few months later.

I don't like cooking and Hello Fresh gives us variety, tasty meals, portion control. Never enough vegetables though I always add more. Most ingredients are included and measured out. Some recipes are far more complicated than others and I don't enjoy that, but usually it's home cooked, whole foods, with less effort. It's not all week - we get three meals from Hello Fresh.
Agree some vegetables go off very quickly and you have to go through the bags as some have veggies that definitely need to be refrigerated.

We got Hello Fresh for a few months, I liked that we tried different meals and that everything was pre-proportioned, it made it easy to cook but I think actually most of the meals are really salty and the meat is not high quality. We only got the "basic" meals though, I never paid more for the more expensive ones each week! I ended up thinking I could buy/ cook it myself and make it healthier!

Thinking along the lines of using Hello Fresh to help teach kids cooking….anyone tried The Spicery curry kits?

When I get home from work I often don't have much time before I have to go out again and more often my brain feels like a wrung sponge. A store cupboard of ingredients will make me reach for a tin of baked beans

oh god.. this. So much this.

I just don’t have any brain left for choosing food when I get home. The slight uplift in cost compared to buying separately is negated by having a paper bag with that nights meal all ready to go.

I actually spend less money using hello fresh, no putting stuff I don't need in the supermarket trolly.
So much less food waste too, it's so convenient and I bloody hate thinking of things to do for dinner so I love that you can pick meals in a couple of minutes and you are done . I always get the quick cook recipes so nothing takes more than 20 mins to cook. I've never had a bad meal even when I have forgot to choose my meals and they just send me what's on the menu that week.

We always give these a try when they are on a really good offer and we buy them, on offer, for our kids when they start at uni. I've just signed up for a kid today. Five days of meals, each for 4 people for £22. Puddings/treats also included. We'll pick meals that can be frozen after they've been cooked. We'll cancel after the first week.