Eating takes up a big part of our day, does it not?? There are so many options available to us; do we buy a few simple things from the supermarket each day and make a meal for ourselves at work? A can of tuna, microwavable rice pouch, salad bowl..
Should you opt for the fast-food option, which always leaves you feeling bloated, moody and hungry for more
Or, should you choose something ‘healthy’ from the local cafe?
What about a ready-made meal? Will it be tasteless and boring? Is it REALLY all that healthy?
Decisions, decisions eh?
A study by NobleOak states that the average Australian spends 32% of their weekly food budget on fast food.
Pretty significant portion, right? This is attributed mainly to the convenience and price of fast food – especially for young people. We’re looking at you, millennials
If you actually took note of how much you were spending on fast food in a week, would that statistic hit close to home for you too? Wouldn't that money be better spent on healthy ready made meals instead? We promise our meals will keep you feeling fuller for longer & be kinder on your waistline too!
When it comes to choosing ready made meals, there’s some things you ought to know when deciding where to buy from and what sets us apart here at Activate Foods. Read on, Ron if you’re stuck for where to buy some healthy ready made meals, keto ready made meals or vegan ready made meals.
WHO IS EATING HEALTHY READY MADE MEALS?
What type of people eat ready made meals? You might have all these preconceived ideas about who chooses to eat this way, so we thought we’d share with you who our customers are:
- BUSY working professionals
- BUSY parents who want to take meal prep off their to-do list
- Pregnant or breastfeeding women who are time poor
- Those with strict dietary requirements eg Keto, vegan, vegetarian, gluten free
- Regular Ron’s (or, Rebecca’s) who just don’t enjoy cooking and meal prep and want to delegate that to someone else!
- People recovering from surgery or illness who are in desperate need of healthy nutritious meals but who cannot prepare them themselves
HOW OUR READY MADE MEALS MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER
THE PERFECT SERVE
Our resident Dietitian, Nicky, recently wrote an article for us titled: “How To Build A Healthy Main Meal” and you can read that over here, if you wish but essentially she outlined the three main components to a balanced, nutritious meal:
You should include a carb source, a protein source, a fat source plus some vegetables and/or salad. Now, to some that may be obvious, but to others - this raises many subsequent questions;
“But, how much protein? Fifty grams or one hundred and fifty grams??”
“Are all carbs created equal? Because, if so; I’ll have hot chips - not brown rice - thank you”
Fear not, this is why so many Australians are turning to our healthy ready made meals. Our meals are Dietitian approved AND chef prepared with the best quality ingredients and no nasty additives or preservatives. It’s like having your own personal chef (AKA Marty) in your kitchen each week - minus the mess and time lost! Our meals are portioned appropriately and there’s even a handy nutritional panel on the side - which leads us to our next point.
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION / MACROS ON PACKAGING
Choosing to fuel your body with macro-balanced, ready made, Activate Foods meals is just another reason our customers report that our tasty foods make their lives easier! Someone else has taken the guesswork out of the carbs/fat/protein components and it’s all conveniently written on the label of your Activate Foods Meal.
Macro WHAAAT?? Naturopath & Women’s Fertility Specialist, Jennifer Ward, recently wrote an article for us ‘Understanding Macronutrients’ (read it here) wherein she explains that “eating well starts with understanding the basics of nutrition.'' To be able to do so, she says, requires you to understand two very important groupings - micronutrients (small) and macronutrients (big). We require both to survive and we can manipulate our intake to thrive”. She goes on to explain that once you understand your macros and micros, you can begin to 'read' each meal you eat, to see whether it is balanced.”
It’s just another perk to having healthy, ready made meals delivered to your doorstep.
DIETARY REQUIREMENTS - Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian, Dairy Free
Imagine having a coeliac daughter/partner/toddler and having the task of preparing not 3 meals a day but 6!! That’s right, your gluten-adverse, digestion-challenged darling needs to be fed and needs to be fed something that won’t make their body go haywire.
Besides cooking twice or feeding yourself/the whole family according to their strict dietary requirements, what else can you do?
Well that’s where we come in. We offer a huge range with yummy gluten free, vegetarian, low carb, paleo and vegan options for you to choose from. Now you can rest assured that they’re getting a healthy, balanced meal (to suit their diet) without you or anyone else having to compromise on your food choices. Big win.
One of our customers, Felicity says:
“Very yummy, very healthy!!! I am a vegetarian who needs gluten-free and they have some great options even for me. Great delivery even up here to Newcastle!”
Sharni agrees, she says that:
“As someone who is gluten free, I have always missed out on being able to order meal prep foods as there’s only ever a few GF options but the Activate Foods kitchen is COMPLETELY GF and their food is amazing! So glad to have found them!”
We won’t go on, we’ll just share one more:
Diane gave us a 5-star rating, saying: “Highly recommend, great quality and variety of meals from gluten free to paleo!”
We feel so lucky to have such a supportive community of loyal customers around us.
REDUCES FOOD WASTE
Home delivered meals can slash food waste by more than two-thirds, says an article written by The Guardian.
Eating our delicious ready made meals saves waste by providing you with precise amounts of food in the form of a portion controlled meal, reducing the chance you’ll overbuy fresh ingredients from the supermarket which will end up in the bin.
For anyone with an empty nest still cooking for the hoards of absent children, you’ll know the pain of eating the SAME meal for an entire week or throwing away the leftovers. It’s hard to get out of those habits
FAMILY SIZE READY MADE MEALS
Need to feed more mouths than just your own? No problem, as you might have seen on our website, we’ve recently introduced family meals to take care of the whole family. You can pop a Beef & Mushroom Cottage Pie in the oven at 5.30pm and dinner is ready by 6:10pm - so easy! You can even mix & match with your families favourite sides such as Steamed Veg or Mashed Potato.
OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY OUR ACTIVATE FOODS
If you like to switch up your meals each week and get tired of eating the same thing repeatedly, you’ll be happy to hear that we offer a weekly rotating menu of over 70 fresh & frozen meals to choose from, we’ve got something to feed everyone.
Less than 1 in 10 adults met the recommendations for daily vegetable consumption in 2017–18. So if you want to add leafy greens and or salad/vegetables to any of your Activate Foods meals, we support you! Based on self-reported data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2017–18 National Health Survey (NHS), 1 in 2 people aged 18 and over (49%) did not eat the recommended 2 serves of fruit, while over 9 in 10 (92%) did not eat the recommended 5–6 serves of vegetables (ABS 2018). Yikes!
You might have seen that we also offer convenient ready made meals for families, which is the main protein serving done (all you need to do is cook it or heat it). The only thing you need to worry about is what you choose to serve it with. For example, you might choose to chop up a nutrient packed salad of spinach and cabbage to serve with our Family Size Beef Lasagne. What about our delish Butter Chicken? All you need to do is heat up some rice and maybe chop up some fresh coriander and lemon to serve!
You could probably trick your family into thinking that you cooked it, after all, we’ve been told time and time again by our wonderful customers that our food tastes homemade ;)
We hope this mother-of-all-guides has been helpful to you on your nutrition journey & we hope to see you pop in to our Erina Store, soon!
Written by Rebecca Achelles for Activate Foods
See more at: That Achelles Girl
