I would love to have a personal chef.
Someone to take on all of the time and effort that goes into meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking. Someone who knows about nutrition, and knows how to create healthy, balanced meals, containing all of the things that I need in my diet.
Sadly, I don't have a personal chef, nor am I ever likely to have a personal chef. So I've gone for the next best thing - a Mindful Chef weekly recipe box.
A minimal effort, healthy eating plan
If you've been following my weight loss journey, you'll know already that my healthy eating plan has been entirely based around a weekly Mindful Chef recipe box. The reason that this has worked so well for me is that it enables me to follow a healthy diet with an absolute minimal amount of effort, a minimal amount of time invested, and a minimal amount of knowledge on nutrition and cooking.
Each week, I choose my recipes from a menu of around 20 different choices. Here are a few examples from this week's menu:
I choose my delivery day (delivery is free across the whole of the UK, and can be scheduled for any day of the week). The box is delivered between 8am - 7pm on my chosen delivery day, and if I'm not in, it conveniently gets left on the doorstep for me.
Do Mindful Chef meals help with weight loss?
I've been averaging around 3 kilos of weight loss per month since I started eating Mindful Chef meals. So I'd say yes! Definitely! Mindful Chef meals are great for weight loss! You can see the visual results of my weight loss journey in the article below:
Lisa
I've been doing other things too.
I've cut out unhealthy snacks and now only eat things like fruit, plain yoghurt, or nut and seed mixes in-between meals. I've been doing personal training sessions twice a week, and I've been getting plenty of exercise in addition to the training. Those things will have had a positive effect on my weight loss.
But definitely, the Mindful Chef meals have played a huge part.
And of course, it's not just about the weight loss. It's about feeling good, feeling energetic, feeling well and feeling healthy. And I do feel all of these things. I feel amazing!
I've been feeling better and better every week. And again, whilst this is in part due to the exercise I've been doing, it is also in a large part due to the varied and balanced nutrition that I'm getting every day, from the Mindful Chef recipes.
25% discount code for Mindful Chef recipe boxes
If you'd like to try out Mindful Chef for yourself there's currently a 25% discount code available for new customers. You'll get 25% off the first 4 boxes ordered.
The above offer is for new customers only. There is no long-term commitment - once you're signed up you can pause, skip or completely cancel your subscription at any time within your account settings.
How much does a Mindful Chef recipe box cost?
This depends on the box size you select and the exact recipes you choose. Each recipe is priced individually to reflect both the ingredients used and the number of people the recipe is for.
Mindful Chef recipe box sizes
With Mindful Chef you can choose between a 1 person, 2 person or 4 person recipe box. The number of recipes you can add to your box depends on the number of people the box is for (as illustrated in the table below).
Number of recipes you can choose for each box size
| Box size | Number of recipes |
|---|---|
| 1 person box | 3, 4 or 5 |
| 2 person box | 2, 3, 4 or 5 |
| 4 person box | 2, 3 or 4 |
The 4 person recipe box option
As you might expect, the 4 person meals represent the best value for money overall. The 4 person recipes range in price from around £18.50 up to around £28 per meal. The table below gives an idea of the price you can expect to pay, based on an average price of £23.25 per 4 person meal.
Average cost for a 4 person box containing 4 recipes
| Per box | Per meal | Per portion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Price | £93 | £23.25 | £5.81 |
| 25% discount (for new customers) | £69.75 | £17.44 | £4.36 |
The 2 person recipe box option
The 2 person recipe boxes start at around £12.50 per meal and go up to around £18.50 per recipe at the higher end. The table below gives an idea of the price you can expect to pay, based on an average price of £15.50 per 2 person meal.
Average cost for a 2 person box containing 4 recipes
| Per box | Per meal | Per portion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Price | £62 | £15.50 | £7.75 |
| 25% discount (for new customers) | £46.50 | £11.63 | £5.82 |
The 1 person recipe box option
With the 1 person recipe box you can expect to pay somewhere between £8.50 and £13.50 per meal. The table below gives an idea of the price you can expect to pay, based on an average price of £11.00 per 1 person meal.
| Per box | Per meal | Per portion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Price | £44 | £11.00 | £11.00 |
| 25% discount (for new customers) | £33 | £8.25 | £8.25 |
Mindful Chef - the only UK recipe box providing recipes for one person
Mindful Chef market themselves as being the only UK recipe box to provide recipes for one person. Whilst this is true, you do have to pay quite a premium if you order the 1 person meals.
Personally, I think it's more money efficient to simply order the 2 person recipes and eat the second portion the following day. Or, depending on the 'freezability' of the meal, stick the second portion in the freezer for a later date.
Are Mindful Chef recipe boxes too expensive?
Mindful Chef are not the cheapest recipe boxes out there.
However, I have come to realise more than ever since starting my weight loss journey, that my health is priceless. One of my main motivations for starting a weight loss journey was seeing friends and family members around me in poor states of health. People who are still relatively young, perhaps only twenty years or so older than me, struggling with basic day-to-day activities.
My health is priceless.
It makes me sad to see people I care about struggling to live a full life due to poor health and fitness. But, it also makes me think, I really don't want that to be me in twenty years time.
We can't control everything that happens to us in the future. But I'd like to give myself the best chance possible of living a long, healthy and active life.
The importance of priorities
For this reason I don't think Mindful Chef are over-priced or expensive at all - it is our priorities, and where we spend most of our money, which sometimes needs re-evaluating. Perhaps we should be spending less on over-priced, burnt-tasting cups of 'coffee' from places like Starbucks, and perhaps we should be spending less on things like Netflix and other streaming services, which add very little real value to our lives. Perhaps instead, we should be choosing to spend more of our money on things like the food we eat.
Taking greater care over, and assigning more importance to the food we choose to put into our bodies, has the potential to make a real and significant difference to our lives - not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too.
More reasons why Mindful Chef recipe boxes are the best
High quality ingredients
One of the key things that makes Mindful Chef stand out above other recipe boxes is the high quality of the ingredients - all of their ingredients are sustainably sourced from small suppliers across the UK. They use no refined carbs like white pasta, bread or white rice, and all meals are dairy free and gluten free.
I've tried other recipe boxes in the past, where I've sometimes received slightly sorry looking vegetables, even occasionally mouldy vegetables. With Mindful Chef though, the quality is always evident. The vegetables are plump and firm - and in the last four months of ordering weekly boxes I have never received any mouldy vegetables.
And of course, higher quality, more fresh ingredients ultimately translates into higher nutritional content going into our bodies.
Diversity of ingredients
It's not just the high quality of the ingredients; It's also the diversity of ingredients included in the recipes that makes Mindful Chef so great.
I've been introduced to so many ingredients that I'd never tried, or sometimes even heard of before. I've massively increased the variety of things I'm eating each week - and diversity in the diet is a good thing. I've even realised that actually, I do like some of the things that I thought I didn't like.
Mushrooms, for example!
I always thought I didn't like mushrooms. I thought they were rubbery and weird. But, as they pop up in a lot of the recipes, I decided that I'd give them another go - and as it turns out, I actually do like mushrooms! They seem to mostly soak up the flavour of the sauce that they're cooked in - and, on reflection, that rubbery texture is quite appealing.
An ethical company
Another reason I love Mindful Chef is the knowledge that I'm purchasing from an ethical company. They are one of a small but growing number of companies certified as B Corp, which means they balance making profit with being mindful of the community and environment within which they operate. An example of this is their One Feeds Two scheme. They're also climate neutral and intend to be Net Zero by 2030. You can read more about their high operating standards here.
It feels good to know that the money I'm spending is not just creating profit for the company and lining people's pockets; some of the money is going back into the community, supporting good causes, and making the world a slightly better place.
A constantly changing recipe menu
The Mindful Chef recipe menu is completely changed over every week. In fact, on their blog they state that a recipe is not repeated within a 12 week period. So whilst the menu is not as vast as some other recipe boxes, you can be sure to experience new creations each week.
An innovative menu with unique recipes
In their quest to be super healthy, Mindful Chef have managed to come up with some quite unique takes on classic recipes. Unhealthy ingredients often found in popular British comfort foods, such as cheese, or white pasta, are replaced with creative alternatives, resulting in refreshingly tasty twists on familiar favourites.
So even if you're a pretty good cook already, the Mindful Chef menu is a fantastic place to get some inspiration and ideas for your own healthy creations.
Mindful Chef healthy recipe library
If you decide you'd rather just use Mindful Chef as a starting point for inspiration, you could just use the online Mindful Chef healthy recipe library. Here you can browse the entire collection of over 800 healthy Mindful Chef recipes, with the full lists of ingredients, nutritional values and cooking instructions.
Mindful Chef recipe book
Or, if you prefer a more traditional approach for healthy recipe inspiration, there is also the Mindful Chef recipe book.
The Mindful Chef shop range
In addition to the recipe boxes there is now an ever increasing range of shop items available to purchase, including healthy ready meals, soups & broths, nutritious smoothies, healthy(ish!) desserts, and gut-boosting breakfasts.
The healthy ready meals are perfect for those times when you're too busy to cook but don't want to sacrifice eating healthily. Similarly, the nutritious smoothies are a tasty, quick and fun way to give your diet a nutritional boost.
It's also worth noting that Mindful Chef have recently teamed up with Waitrose, meaning that you can now also purchase the Mindful Chef ready meals directly from Waitrose.
25% discount code for Mindful Chef recipe boxes
If you'd like to try out Mindful Chef for yourself there's currently a 25% discount code available for new customers. You'll get 25% off the first 4 boxes ordered.
The above offer is for new customers only. There is no long-term commitment - once you're signed up you can pause, skip or completely cancel your subscription at any time within your account settings.
You may also like.
Lisa
Lisa
