Review: Fresh N Lean Meal Delivery Service

Fresh n' Lean drew my attention with their ingredients - organic, fresh, farm to table, gluten free, and plant based. Plus they deliver!! Just looking at their website, my mouth started to water for how good the meals look. While browsing Fresh n' Lean’s Facebook, I loved how many posts there were on exercise. I have a Master’s degree in Exercise Science and Health Promotion and believe exercise and healthy eating habits must go together for optimal good health.

Actual good healthy meals delivered? This had to be a joke right? Nope, not a joke, a FedEx box arrived with a cooler inside to keep fresh 5 meals and 3 breakfasts.

Fresh N Lean believes it should be easy to provide healthy meals for you and your family. This philosophy is right in line with my priorities for me and my family.  My professional background is in grounded in holistic nutrition - when I think of food I go through the process of the soil that grew it, the farmer that cared for it, those that picked, transported, and prepared it. So, I was very excited to enjoy a “break” from cooking for a few days and know we were still be nourished.

Shipments are on Fridays, so Friday evening a FedEx box arrived on my door step. I liked that I was not required to be home to sign for the box (you never know when boxes are going to come and who really wants to be at home all day waiting for a delivery?). Inside of the FedEx box was a cooler with the meals and cooling system.

The meals are in individual containers with the nutrition label and ingredients provided. I’m a earth friendly kind of person so I loved that everything is recyclable! Convenient, earth friendly, and healthy!

All you are required to do is get them in the fridge as soon as you can, warming up the meal when you are ready for it, and enjoying a convenient healthy meal. You have the option of puncturing holes and microwaving your meal in the container it comes in for 2-3 minutes. If you’re not a fan of the microwave, like me, you can transfer the meal to an oven safe dish and heat for 15 minutes at 350 degrees (I don’t like to wait for my oven to preheat so I use the broil setting on high for just a few minutes). The last option is to transfer the meal to a pot and warm it up on the stove top.

So how do they taste?

Menus change weekly and are posted on their site. Here’s what I received and how it tasted:

Tropical Peach Mango Chia - chia seed, coconut milk, coconut cream, Grade B maple syrup, vanilla, mango, peach, sea salt, and filtered water. This was my favorite breakfast! I loved the fruit in the chai seed pudding. You can warm this up, but it’s hot here in the desert, so I loved it cold.

Raspberry Poppy Seed Muffin - gluten free flour, grade b maple syrup, lemon zest, raspberry, baking soda, vanilla extract, and sea salt. I’m not a muffin fan, but did try these and actually really liked them. They crumble a little easy (I did not warm them up so that may change the crumble) so it’s good to be sitting down at a table with a plate.

Hearty Granola - gluten free rolled oat, walnut, almond, sunflower seed, vanilla, grade b maple and syrup. This one had 2 servings so I split it in half for my son and me. Fresh n' Lean recommends adding almond milk with fresh apple or banana. I did not have these, so I added coconut oil to moisten it. Turned out great and my son ate an entire serving (awesome for a picky toddler).

Cauliflower Medley with Quinoa  - quinoa, rainbow chard, red chard, eggplant, yellow cauliflower, green cauliflower, purple cauliflower, almond, onion, carrot, celery, artichoke heart, kalamata olive, tomato, garlic, nutritional yeast, marjoram, black pepper, sea salt, and filtered water. Quinoa is a staple to my diet so this dish tasted similar to ones we make. The almonds stood out to me as one of the main flavors. I loved the nutritional yeast!

Curried Rice with Vegetables - brown rice, onion, shiitake mushrooms, cremini mushroom, carrot, yellow bell pepper, orange bell pepper, broccoli, red cabbage, garlic, ginger, tumeric, coconut amino, coconut oil, lemongrass shallot, galangal, dried red chili, coriander, kaffir lime peel, cumin, cinnamon, mace, cardamom black pepper, sea salt and filtered water. This one was my favorite meal! I loved all the flavors it had.

Spiced Lentils with Dino Kale - green lentil, coconut oil, onion, carrot, celery, zucchini, dino kale, tomato, turmeric, ginger, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, paprika, garlic, black pepper, sea salt, and filtered water. This was my second favorite, I love Indian dishes and it reminded me of that flavor profile.

Spinach Florentine Pasta - brown rice pasta, broccoli, portobello mushroom, spinach, zucchini, carrot, onion, celery, cherry, tomato, garlic, oregano, tomato, thyme, nutritional yeast, sweet basil, marjoram, black pepper, sea salt and filtered water. When I opened this meal I realized I had not eaten pasta in a very long time. I really liked that the pasta was from brown rice.

Eggplant Alfredo - brown rice pasta, yellow cauliflower, green cauliflower, purple cauliflower, spinach, eggplant, carrot, onion, garlic, nutritional yeast, rosemary, sweet basil, parsley, thyme, coconut oil, black pepper, sea salt, and filtered water. Of the two pasta dishes I enjoyed this one best!

Did they fill me up?

Breakfast and lunch filled me up. For dinner I am used to eating a larger portion. Part of their goal is to create portion control (which is a great goal). I workout every morning for an hour, move a lot throughout my day to keep up with a toddler, and breastfeed so I had to add a snack in. I have been thinking about how I will need to change my portions once I am no longer breastfeeding so this was a good trial for me to see where my portions are currently at and go off how I feel.

If you prefer some meat in your diet Fresh N Lean does have a cousin site - IONutrition. I’m a vegetarian/ mostly vegan so Fresh n' Lean fit perfectly for our home.

There are an abundance of options to choose which plan is right for you:

5 or 7 days a week

For 1 person:

• Fresh N Lean Standard Plan -  3 meals a day $27.99 per day
• I Entree Per Day - $14.99 per day
• The Lunch and Dinner Meal for 1 person - $21.99 per day

For 2 people

• Family Plan for 2 - 3 meals a day per person $50.39
• 1 Entree Per Day for 2 - $23.99
• Lunch and Dinner for 2  - 2 lunch and 2 dinner for 2 adults per day $39.99 per day

Shipping is free. 

The ability to select fine-tuned options for your particular meal plan, including 'Seniors', 'Low-Calorie', 'Fitness', 'Gluten-Free', as well as several others.

When you sign up for a plan you will be automatically billed each week.  There is also the al la carte option to choose whatever you would like.

On their website there is a tab for menu where you can see what will be coming for the week or what you would like to order from the al la carte option.

When you select a meal plan, each week your delivery will be on your door step. When you need to make changes you are required to call or email by the weekly cutoff of Monday 12:00 noon PST. An a la carte order is a one time order and you must place a new order for each delivery.

I live in a place where eating out is not an option because there is nothing but fast food. Anytime I want a “break” and to know we are continuing to be nourished through our meals, I will definitely be keeping Fresh n' Lean in mind!  Most of them freeze well for later use, and they will even deliver to a hotel when you're traveling, as long as you notify them of where to deliver by the deadline!

If you'd like to give them a try, you can use the Promo Code RCH at check out (excluding the a la carte menu) to get 15% off your purchase!  There's no expiration date for this code, so enjoy!

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