You got my curiosity tweaked with this one so I went browsing. Needless to say, I hate to cook for just myself so I'm always interested in the easy peasy approach. ☺

I found all sorts of good information at Business Insider comparing Hello Fresh, Blue Apron and Plated. Check it out.

If cost isn't a factor and you enjoy cooking, you might be interested. The prices are way above my food budget. :-(

It's just me in the house and I waste a lot of food. I find myself eating out a lot now and in my little town there isn't a lot of good (healthy) choices. So, I decided to go ahead and try Hellofresh for a month. My first box doesn't come until October 7th. I got this first box for 39.00.

I'll be curious how you like the concept, Kathsgrdn. I hope you will come back and post your results.

I will. Sounds expensive, until I think of all the food I toss all the time. I hardly buy bread anymore, the small loaves I like from Kroger are even too big now. Half the loaf or more gets tossed before it's eaten. I now buy one big onion every two weeks, instead of the bags I used to. Sometimes throw out portions I had put in the fridge. I know I have rotten carrots in there now...I need to throw out.

If you can buy Killer Dave's breads in your grocery store, try it. I store it in my refrigerator and it lasts a long time and stays fresh and moist.

Sheilajoyce, I've never seen that bread around here. I had to google it. They look about the same size as the Kroger brand I like. It's the Premium Select Flax and Whole Grain or something like that. My freezer is tiny with a non-working ice cube maker that takes up even more space.

We use HelloFresh for 2 and overall have been very pleased with it. The items come packed in a box slightly larger than a banker's box. There is an insulated liner on the top, bottom and sides. The veggies and other stable ingredients are packed on top and on the bottom are several ice packs with the meat, fish, etc, separated by a piece of cardboard. Any herbs will come in a large white envelope.

The instructions are very straight forward, and the recipes tend to be fairly healthy for the most part. All of the vegetables and meat we have received have been fresh and of good quality. The meals usually take ~45 minutes to prepare, some less than that. The portions are very generous. We have not once felt like we didn't get enough food in a meal.

A few of the reasons I like the service are: 1) It is very convenient. Aside from olive oil, salt and pepper, you do not need to have anything else on-hand. Any special spices are included in small packets. It saves us 2-3 trips to the grocery store per week. 2) It allows us to cook foods that we would have never imagined cooking otherwise. Probably like most folks, we fall into a routine of "favorites" that seem to be cooked regularly. With HelloFresh, we get to cook and try completely new dishes every week. 3) It has drastically cut down on the amount of food we waste, both in terms of cooked food and ingredients. For example, we no longer find ourselves buying an entire bottle of a particular spice that we only need a pinch of and then are left with the remainder that we'll likely never use again. Or buying a dozen eggs to only use 1-2 of them.

Some words of caution: 1) We tend to avoid the dishes that contain fish. So far the fish dishes are the only ones that were just OK. They often use recipes that call for red fish, which has a strong fish taste that we just don't care for. The shrimp dishes are good, however; the paella was one of our favorites. 2) if you know you are going out of town, remember to put the service on pause for that week. You have to do it a fair bit in advance, so just be aware.

If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I hope you let us all know what you think of it after you've received your first box.

Thanks Atomicjay.

Those services are way out of my budget too. But if you're eating out a lot, Kath, HelloFresh might actually be economical.

Still, I'm thinking there must be a way for you to prepare most of your own meals without a lot of waste. I live alone and don't waste much food, and I'm sure many singles can say that. It sounds like you've made some positive changes to your food buying habits; maybe you could do some more evaluating of which foods get wasted, and why. It might be a simple as eating more of the vegetables you buy. :-)

If having more freezer space would help, a small chest models are available for less than the cost of 20 HelloFresh meals.

Coincidentally, this was on NPR this week:

Tips to Cut Kitchen Food Waste