3 ms·

Tried it once, and wanted to like it, but it felt like it was stuck in the middle of things: - Cheaper than eating out for a "nice" meal, but much more expensi

Tried it once, and wanted to like it, but it felt like it was stuck in the middle of things: - Cheaper than eating out for a "nice" meal, but much more expensive per meal than my usual grocery shopping, or even other decent, low-cost eating out options. - Nice to have stuff show up, but still need to go to the grocery store, anyway-- didn't feel like I was saving a trip. - Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much more cumbersome than most of the things I make in a hurry, like they wanted you to prove to yourself that you could cook something "fancy". It actually added stress (may not be true for many folks). - Food was reasonably healthy, but not as healthy (or at least as suited to me) as my own groceries. - Most importantly, the food didn't taste bad, but it didn't taste great, either. (You can always add your own sriracha, garlic, etc, but it kind of defeats the point if you have to make your own sauce.) Seems like a great fit for folks who want to start cooking and haven't got in the routine yet, but it seems hard to imagine lots of people staying on the plan long term.

selectout 9y ago
Agreed 100% on these points. My traditional behavior now is to stop all shipments, if there is a new type of meal/technique in one of the weeks then I order there. Typically get about 1 shipment every 4-5 weeks instead of weekly.
joshstrange 9y ago
That was my experience with Plated as well a couple years ago. I'm sure I'm bias because I don't really mind grocery shopping and I enjoy cooking. That said I didn't enjoy cooking the Plated meals as much as I do one from a recipe I find online. I completely agree on the "Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much more cumbersome than most of the things I make in a hurry". I'm not looking for 3 step recipes but a lot of it felt unnecessarily complex for the sake of being complex. Honestly if you want to up your cooking game by spending money buy a nice recipe app like Paprika (I'm in love with this app) and plan your meals out before you go to the store. It takes me at most 20 minutes to find new or pick existing recipes and make my shopping list for the week. Then a quick trip to the store to grab it all (<30min in store as long as I go alone + 15-20min total driving). Call it just over an hour. Yes I could bill for an hour for more money than I save with groceries vs plated but grocery trips are unavoidable so really we are talking about 20min. And the end result is I make much healthier meals than Plated/Blue Apron/etc and I make what I like.

selectout 9y ago

Agreed 100% on these points. My traditional behavior now is to stop all shipments, if there is a new type of meal/technique in one of the weeks then I order there. Typically get about 1 shipment every 4-5 weeks instead of weekly.

joshstrange 9y ago

That was my experience with Plated as well a couple years ago. I'm sure I'm bias because I don't really mind grocery shopping and I enjoy cooking. That said I didn't enjoy cooking the Plated meals as much as I do one from a recipe I find online. I completely agree on the "Food wasn't hard to prepare, but it was much more cumbersome than most of the things I make in a hurry". I'm not looking for 3 step recipes but a lot of it felt unnecessarily complex for the sake of being complex. Honestly if you want to up your cooking game by spending money buy a nice recipe app like Paprika (I'm in love with this app) and plan your meals out before you go to the store. It takes me at most 20 minutes to find new or pick existing recipes and make my shopping list for the week. Then a quick trip to the store to grab it all (<30min in store as long as I go alone + 15-20min total driving). Call it just over an hour. Yes I could bill for an hour for more money than I save with groceries vs plated but grocery trips are unavoidable so really we are talking about 20min. And the end result is I make much healthier meals than Plated/Blue Apron/etc and I make what I like.