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I've always felt a little guilty about my addiction to sustainable food delivery services. I mean, can online food delivery truly be sustainable with all that shipping and packaging? But when we went into the quarantine lockdown, I realized online food delivery services are here to stay, so picking the most sustainability-mind options are better than nothing. Here are a few of my favorites.
Imperfect Foods ugly food delivery service
Imperfect Foods has been my go-to delivery service for years. They deliver ugly produce that grocery stores don't want because the fruit, veggies, eggs, and other foods are oddly shaped or otherwise imperfect. Those oddly shaped apples and carrots are often wasted because stores and consumers don't want those weird-looking goodies either.
We're used to seeing food that looks the same, but that's not how nature works. This desire for perfectly shaped produce causes a lot of food waste. Food waste is responsible for up to 8% of global emissions, according to Drawdown.org. That's a major environmental issue!
A third of the food raised or prepared does not make it from farm or factory to fork. Producing uneaten food squanders a whole host of resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital—and generates greenhouse gases at every stage—including methane when organic matter lands in the global rubbish bin.”
– Reduced Food Waste, Drawdown.org
Imperfect Produce delivers farm-fresh groceries for about 30% less than you pay at a retail grocery store. That's an awesome discount when you consider how expensive fruits and veggies can be at the grocery store. But if you've been following the blog for a while, you know that as much as I love a good deal and my mission is supporting sustainability-minded companies, my number one priority is keeping my family healthy.
Imperfect Produce makes it easy for me to always have fresh fruits and veggies to cook for dinner or just to eat as a snack. Honestly, some days I'm so busy (especially now that the kids are home all the time due to the quarantine) that I literally just have time to grab a carrot and then it's back to homeschooling!
Learn more about the Imperfect Foods online delivery service.
Daily Harvest smoothie and soup delivery
I didn't want to love the Daily Harvest online delivery service! My friend recommended it and I waited for weeks to try it. But after I found myself scrambling for breakfast at 10 am one morning I realized it was time to give it a try. I'm so glad I did. This is my latest obsession and I'm afraid this addiction will last for a long, long time.
Here's the thing. The Daily Harvest is a sustainably-minded food delivery service that sells pre-packaged smoothies, soups, harvest bowls, and other fruit and veggie-based foods. I hesitated to subscribe because, seriously, I can make my own smoothies! I mean, it's just a combination of frozen fruits, veggies, and seeds. Yet for some reason, when I'm in a rush I simply can't pull it all together and I end up binge eating bread and butter. So I gave it a try, and it's made a huge difference for my blood sugar levels and overall health and happiness every morning.
Finally, if you're trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies into your diet and you want it to be delicious and convenient, I have to say, this is the subscription box for you. Did I mention the produce is organic and frozen at the source and that most of the containers are compostable? Yep. It's that good.
Thrive Market food delivery
Thrive Market is another sustainable food delivery service that's convenient and focused on natural groceries and household products. I feel a bit lazy writing this, but it's just so easy to simply type in my grocery list and then have it magically appear at my doorstep. It makes meal planning much easier because when I'm at the grocery store I get overwhelmed and forget at least one key ingredient every single time. Ugh.
Thrive Market has many products similar to Whole Foods, so I've gone back and forth for the past year on whether or not to keep the subscription. However, since the quarantine I'm trying to get as much food delivered as possible, so I'm back to Thrive.
Thrive Market is a subscription service similar to Costco, but instead, the food is delivered right to your door and focuses on healthy food and household products.
Butcher Box online meat delivery
I’ve hesitated to write about Butcher Box because the way most cattle is raised in the United States is terrible for the environment. The other issue with Butcher Box is that much of their grass-fed beef comes from Australia, and I firmly believe that local is the most sustainable choice whenever possible. However, sustainable meat can be hard to find at grocery stores in the United States. In fact, most grass-fed beef you buy originates in other countries.
If you're trying to embrace a more sustainable diet, the most sustainable choices are to cut back on beef and pork, support regenerative agriculture, and embrace other sustainable meat options. To make it even more simple “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” as Michael Pollan writes in Food Rules.
Although I rarely eat beef for environmental and health reasons, I do cook chicken fairly often. I could buy similar cuts of meat at a natural grocery store and then freeze it myself, but sometimes it's all about the convenience. It comes in perfect proportions, ready to pop into the freezer for a day when I'm scrambling to figure out what's for dinner.
All the meat from Butcher Box is humanely raised with no antibiotics or added hormones according to the company. Their beef is 100% grass-fed & grass-finished, and their chickens are organic and free-range.
