Healthy Meal Delivery – Equals Health Review
Ever tried a healthy meal delivery company and been disappointed with the bland, over cooked tray of overpriced sludge? Equals Health are determined to change that, so I ordered myself some meals to review.
If you watched BBC’s ‘Apprentice’ with Lord Sugar in 2017 you’ll remember Harrison Jones, who was in his element when one week’s task was to create a meal delivery brand which they presented to the Hello Fresh team.
Harrison’s business plan was to create a healthy meal delivery company that not only ticked the nutritional boxes but tasted amazing too.
He didn’t win over Lord Sugar but Harrison did manage to secure investment from elsewhere and Equals Health has proven good enough for gyms, businesses, schools and families around the country, and even fed Rugby Union team Saracens and professional boxer Liam Shinkwin!
There are options for breakfast as well as light or main meals, snacks and smoothies, including fish, meat, dairy and egg based options as well as vegan meals. Calorie and macronutrient information is on the website for all dishes, so you can choose items to suit your needs. If you need help with that there’s a calculator on the website to help you determine what you need, or get in touch with me and I’ll help.
You can choose from 2 to 6 meals a day, 4-6 days a week, but serve them in any routine you like. For example if you had family to stay and didn’t want to cook at the weekend, just order enough of the same meal to serve everyone!
Meals are delivered on the day of your choosing and you get a 1 hour delivery time slot texted to you on the day, so you don’t need to worry about not being in on the right day.
So far, so helpful, but what’s so special?
The difference between Equals Health and other similar companies is that aside from impeccable customer service (5* reviews on Trustpilot!) the food has all been created and cooked by a Michelin star chef who has worked alongside Gordon Ramsey and Richard Corrigan! I met chef Vingaudas Raulinaitis at the London launch party of Equals Health in May 2018 and his passion for tasty food is only surpassed by his incredible ability to appreciate that the food needs to be nutritious too. Chefs love to smother everything in butter, cream and salt for flavour, but ‘Vinnie’ really has grasped the ‘health’ concept and is determined to cater for this while still making the food really tasty.
And tasty it IS. I sampled various meals at the launch party and all of it is utterly delicious, even things like couscous and tofu which I’m not that keen on I would happily eat again like that. Maybe my cooking skills aren’t as good as I though?!
I ordered four from the breakfast selection and four main meals:
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Egg White Omelette with Chestnut Mushrooms
This is very low calorie (most of an egg’s calories are in the yolk) so depending on your needs you might want to add a slice of toast, or have it as a snack. Egg whites tend to be fairly tasteless so these were a pleasant surprise. The spring onion definitely helped.
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Protein Pancakes
Protein pancakes are one of my favourite breakfasts and these were really yummy and filling. They came with a tiny pot of berry compote and a dollop of peanut butter and I would have likes way more fruit than PB (there was about double PB to compote, as you can see in the picture) and as listed on the website the PB is the last ingredient, so maybe it was a serving error? Peanut butter is very high calorie (albeit nutritious and delicious) so I had half and scooped the rest into a jar I had in the cupboard. I defrosted a bowl of blackberries to have alongside too, and I wasn’t hungry all morning.
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Overnight Oats
Soaked in apple juice and flavoured with cinnamon and cocoa, I prefer some protein at breakfast so split the portion into two and added protein powder, and chopped apple on top. Apple and cocoa sounds odd but it somehow works! This can be eaten either hot or cold (I tried both).
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Frittata
Made with red peppers and with a side of spinach and turkey. I gave these to 6 year old Bella as she loves anything with eggs, and wolfed them down despite normally only liking raw peppers, not cooked. I gave her the potatoes from the cod meal too; I have a ‘nightshade’ vegetable intolerance so can’t eat tomatoes, peppers, or white potatoes.
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Chicken Breast, Lemon & Thyme
This came with a with sweet potato and kale and I had it cold. The chicken was incredibly tender, the potato was tender but not overcooked, and the kale was bright green and fresh not soggy, which is easily done.
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Teriyaki Trout
Hubby’s first thought was that the portion wasn’t big enough for him, but I know it would definitely suit most people (plus he’d skipped lunch…..no wonder he was hungry….). It was way tastier than he was expecting, especially since he microwaved it which can make fish tough and noodles soggy (it didn’t). Since he often works late and doesn’t have much energy to cook in the evenings if I’ve eaten earlier with the kids, he really appreciated the ease of having a meal ready in 2 minutes.
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Smoked Tofu
This came with brown rice, bok choi, truffle oil and soy dressing and was another one James had. He really liked it and his only criticism was that it was too small, but of course you can’t have one meal to suit everyone. Perhaps this could be a future feature; different sized meals.
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Steamed Cod
I was concerned microwaving white fish would make it tough and chewy, but somehow it didn’t even without adding the pot of oily dressing that came with it. This was a bit plain (though the texture was great) without the dressing but nothing some salt, pepper, and a good squeeze of lemon couldn’t fix.
Would have liked more vegetables with each meal so I made my own extra to have with them, and it would be great if meals could be customised more easily (see aforementioned nightshade intolerance). I could probably have phoned and asked to do this since there was no customisation feature on the website, but I wanted to review them objectively as they came for this purpose. Each meal also came with a little pot of dressing or oil which I didn’t use (as a very small female I don’t have very high calorie needs) but they’re handily sitting in pots in the fridge for future use!
I also want to point out that I was not asked to do this review, was not paid or compensated in any way for it, and paid for my meals at the normal prices. It’s an honest, objective review, and I love what Harrison has created.