This may sound strange, but I actually love being on a diet. It restricts my choices and limits my options — and that helps to eliminate dinner overwhelm. I buy a single cookbook for whichever diet plan I’m trying, then methodically work my way through that cookbook. It makes planning and cooking dinner easy and pleasant instead of stressful.
When I’m not on a diet, it’s a different picture. I have to coordinate eating schedules with my husband, as well as eating preferences. That means the number of decisions rapidly escalates. Uh, oh! Overwhelm alert! All to frequently, we’d take the easy way out, and go out to eat. That just shifts the overwhelm to your finances and credit card bills.
Food Delivery Services
One of the first methods we tried to reduce dinner overwhelm was getting a food delivery service. These are companies, like Blue Apron, Purple Carrot, and Hello Fresh that send you a box of fresh food and recipes each week. The food comes packaged in pre-measured amounts to make that week’s meals.
I have friends that use both Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, and love them. Coincidentally, both of those friends love to cook. I do not love cooking. I look at it as a necessary evil required so that my husband and I don’t faint from hunger. Or live on a diet of chips and salsa.
Given the various food restrictions we were on at the time, we chose the Purple Carrot service. Since we have obligations that prevent us from eating at home every night, we chose the six-meal plan — three dinners for two. We would need to make 3 meals each week, which took no longer than 30 minutes to cook (although some took longer to prepare). And yet, week after week, we failed to do so.
When I was tired, I wanted comfort food. A cooking adventure did not provide comfort food. Another issue is that my husband and I have wildly different taste palettes. The foods I cooked were either too bland and tasteless for him, or too spicy and inedible for me.
Food delivery services work well to eliminate dinner overwhelm if:
- You enjoy cooking.
- You want a fun cooking adventure.
- All members of your family have similar tastes.
Meal delivery services
Meal delivery services take this one step further. The actual meals are made for you in advance, and the refrigerated, frozen, or vacuum packed meals can then be reheated during the week. Because you’re paying for the effort involved in making and packaging the meals, these tend to be more expensive than the meal-kit delivery services. In order to keep costs lower, some services allow you to pick up meals at their facilities.
The expense means they do not have as broad an appeal as the food delivery services. As a result, they tend to cater to people with specific dietary restrictions, who are willing to pay more to ensure that they get foods they can actually eat. Metabolic Meals lets you choose your meals for the week, or have a nutritionist choose meals that meet your dietary goals. Caveman Chefs offers paleo-friendly meals in sizes from medium to extra-large, depending on how many calories you want. And Freshly lets you choose from 30 different options meeting a variety of dietary restrictions, from paleo to vegetarian.
We opted for Freshly, since they had an impressive combination of menu options and low price. We quickly fell in love. Since all the meals are packaged individually, we don’t have to try and find something that meets all of our dietary restrictions. I can order comfort foods that are gluten free with little or no spice. My husband can order dairy-free foods that are inspired by world cuisines. Making dinner involves opening the refrigerator, looking inside, and asking, “What do you feel like eating tonight?” No more dinner overwhelm!
Meal delivery services work well to eliminate dinner overwhelm if:
- You have dietary restrictions.
- You hate to cook.
- Members of your family have wildly different taste preferences or dietary needs.