Best Meal Kit Delivery Services
Purple Carrot is a delivery service that provides plant-based meal kits for people to prepare at home. These kits are suitable for people already following a vegan diet or those looking to increase their consumption of plant-based foods.
It’s all vegan, plant-based cuisine, you don’t have to choose from a slate of meal plans. It’s also worth noting that this is a subscription service, meaning meal kits will come every week, but you are free to cancel or pause anytime with no penalty, so don’t be deterred if you want to try it out.
In this article, we look at how the service works and the menu options. We also discuss the possible health benefits of a plant-based diet, including what the research says.
What is Purple Carrot ?
Purple Carrot is a plant-based meal kit delivery service. Customers sign up to receive a meal box each week.
A weekly box contains a recipe booklet and ingredients for vegan breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. People can prepare the meals at home by adding basic ingredients, such as cooking oil and plant milk.
The ingredients arrive in a box containing nontoxic ice packs, and all of the packaging is recyclable.There is no membership fee, and customers can cancel at any time.
Please note that no one at Medical News today, including the writer, has tried this product. All information is research-based.Purple Carrot is available for purchase online.
From there, you’ll have 8 vegan dinner recipes to pick from each week for the following week’s delivery, which is less choice than most meal kits but considering this is vegan food only, it felt like enough of a selection to me.
While those may be the weekly dinner meal minimums, Purple Carrot also allows you to add breakfast and lunch meal kits as well as vegan snacks to your weekly shipments if you choose — more on this later.
Unlike some meal kit services, Purple Carrot picks your shipping day based on your proximity to fulfillment centers. Ingredients arrive in cooler bags and are said to keep for as long as 72 hours.
That’s longer than most meal kits and likely due to them not containing any meat. Shipping is always free, which helps offset the higher overall price
Purple Carrot Best Menu
In addition to the weekly meal kits, Purple Carrot has breakfast and lunch meal kits as well as snacks you can add to your delivery a la carte.
Lunch meal kits are two servings and clock in at $9 per serving while breakfast kits, like tropical coconut pancakes with fresh fruit are under $5 per serving but come in four serving portions only.
Snacks are priced individually and include sweet and savory munchies such as mushroom jerky, vegan chocolate and peanut butter truffles.
Most Purple Carrot meals take about 30 minutes give or take and rarely longer than 45.There is nothing too extraordinarily good or bad about the recipe cards.
All of the meals on offer are suitable for vegan diets.
People can choose from different types of meals, including:
- quick and easy
- high protein
- gluten-free
- chef’s choice dinners
The company also offer a variety of packaged snacks. All products include nutritional information.
Here is an example of the menu options:
- Breakfast: Caramelized pear oats or white bean melts
- Lunch: Crispy sumac brown rice rolls or curried cauliflower tartine
- Dinner: Refried butternut tacos or rosemary leek fritters
- Snacks: Superfood nut blend or chocolate cookie dough chunk
Learn more about a vegan diet here.
vegan diet benefit
Purple Carrot meals are 100% vegan and healthy, although not necessarily low-carb or low calorie. Most are centered on whole foods and vegetables with no meat, dairy or animal products of any sort.
A vegetarian meal kit can help with both, providing veggie-based recipe ideas along with all the know-how and correct ingredients to execute vegan and vegetarian dinners that taste great without the help of lab-produced imitation meats.
Purple Carrot doesn’t allow swaps or upgrades but there’s not much that you really could swap anyways.
It’s one of the reasons Purple Carrot has become a popular meal kit option in the past few years,Research suggests that sticking to a plant-based diet provides a variety of health benefits.
Weightloss and diabetes
According to the authors of a 2017 review Trusted Source, doctors should consider plant-based diets a viable option for the treatment and prevention of obesity.
However, they note that there is a need to study the effects of this diet in a more diverse range of people. For example, few studies look into the relationship between plant-based diets and obesity prevention in people aged 65 years or older.
A 2019 systematic reviewTrusted Source of 32 studies concluded that eating a plant-based diet typically leads to short-term or moderate-term reductions in body weight and inflammation. Metabolic improvements include a reduction in the levels of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), a long-term marker for blood glucose in people with diabetes.
Other researchTrusted Source suggests that the high fiber content of a plant-based diet is a protective factor against diabetes.
Reduce Cardiovascular disease risk
Research Trusted Source indicates that plant-based diets reduce risk factors that contribute to heart disease, including raised cholesterol and high blood pressure.
A study in the Journal of the American Heart Association Trusted Source followed middle-aged adults for 25 years.
Those who stuck more closely to a healthful plant-based diet had a 19% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and an 11% lower risk of dying from all causes than those with the least healthful diets.
Blood pressure support
A 2017 reviewTrusted Source suggested that there is strong evidence that plant-based diets are beneficial for hypertension.
The reviewers noted that in studies of vegetarian diets, blood pressure reduction is independent of salt intake, exercise levels, and having overweight.
kidney disease
Doctors often recommend that people with kidney disease limit their intake of fruits and vegetables because of their high potassium content.
However, more recent research, including a review article in the journal Nutrients Trusted Source, suggests that plant-based diets may be beneficial for those with chronic kidney disease.
The reviewers note that certain cooking methods can help minimize the amount of potassium that the body absorbs. They also advise those on a strict vegan diet to ensure that they consume enough essential nutrients.
People living with chronic kidney disease need to consider the risks and benefits of a plant-based diet and discuss them with their doctor.
Similar plant-based meal box alternatives
People can choose from several plant-based meal delivery options. Some are meal kits that people prepare themselves while following a recipe, and others include ready meals. People can also opt for a meal kit service that is not specifically plant-based but offers vegan choices.
Other plant-based meal kit delivery services include:
- Daily Harvest
- Green Chef
- Freshly
Some meal delivery services offer ready-prepared plant-based meals that the customer simply needs to heat. These services include:
Some meal kit delivery services are not specifically plant-based but do offer vegan options. Options include:
- Chefs Plate
- Blue Apron
- Martha & Marley Spoon
- HelloFresh(US )
- home chef
- Every plate
- Gobble
- PlateJoy
- The Dinner Daily
- Hello Fresh(Canada )
- Full Circle
Purple Carrot meal kits cost
Purple Carrot meals are either $9 to $12 a serving, depending on how many servings per meal you order. A box of three meals per week for two people will cost about $75.92.
You can add, change or cancel meals easily through the app or through the website. You can also skip a week’s delivery or cancel anytime prior to the weekly cut off.
FINAL WORDS
You can find tasty plant-based recipes in the menus of most meal kit companies, but Purple Carrot is one of the only completely vegan meal kit services available.
Purple Carrot provides a way for people to include more fruits and vegetables in their diet to lead a more healthful lifestyle. People who are new to plant-based eating may find this service helpful, as it can teach them new ways to cook with ingredients with which they may not be familiar.
These meal kits are great for vegans or vegetarians or folks trying to incorporate more plant-based cooking into their diet.It was a good way to learn to cook vegan staples and work with some ingredients I’m not as familiar with like lentils, nori and butternut squash.
Eating a plant-based diet may benefit people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure. Research suggests that this diet can also aid weight loss. Those with chronic kidney disease should speak to their doctor before switching to a plant-based diet.
