Jun 18

Jun 18 Mindful Chef - the best way to eat well at home

Whether you live alone, like I do, or are cooking for a family, preparing varied, healthy meals every day isn’t always easy, is it? And as now, more than ever (for reasons I explain below), eating healthily couldn’t be more vital, and when shopping for food can be so tricky, the delicious recipes developed and delivered to your door, ready for you to cook, by the good folk at Mindful Chef is - I have discovered - the very best and easiest way to eat well at home.

Each Mindful Chef meal comes with all the ingredients measured out and ready to prepare. Easy-to-follow instructions are in the colourful accompanying booklet.

Eating well - why it matters

Let’s start with the stuff about why you really, really want to be eating as healthily as possible, generally of course, but particularly right now.

In May this year, 120 leading scientists wrote a letter to the government highlighting a growing body of what they described as ‘compelling research’ that showed that people with poor gut health, which compromises immune system response, are at a higher risk of suffering severely from COVID-19.

Your healthy gut

Keeping your gut healthy is achieved by eating a balanced and varied diet, rich in leafy vegetables and fruit, with enough probiotics and prebiotics to stimulate the 'good' gut bacteria that keep the digestive system healthy, so the scientists wanted the government to be more proactive in promoting the importance of diet in the fight against COVID-19.

There’s lots more good stuff about about why gut health is so important and the way diet plays such a crucial part in keeping your gut and your system healthy in this blog post, but that’s enough of the science for now.

Next let me take you back two years…

That was when I tried the make-it-at-home deliveries from Gusto. You can see what I thought of them here and how one of the reasons I decided not to continue using their perfectly tasty recipes was because they didn’t do them in quantities for just one.

…and now forward

Fast forward to the beginning of March this year and you join me at a the Live Well Festival (where I discovered the brilliant neck stretcher I now use all the time). I’m chatting, since you ask, to the guys on the Mindful Chef stand where they explain that their delicious-looking, cook-at-home meals can be ordered in portions for just one. Interesting.

Aware that I’m not eating as varied a diet as I might, (and mindful - see what I did there? - of the special show discount they are offering) I consider giving the whole make-it-yourself meals another go.

Blimey, am I glad I did!

Within a matter of weeks we were confined to our homes and shopping for and preparing meals took on a whole new dimension.

I did wonder whether the Mindful Chef team, headed by school-friend founders Myles and Giles, would manage to continue to supply the ethically and responsibly sourced ingredients for their recipes that form the foundation of their offering.

Reader, I can report that they absolutely have.

Every week, without fail, my Mindful Chef box has arrived containing the exact amount of ingredients I need to make myself the three tasty, healthy meals I’ve selected from the week’s menu, with the chilled goods cocooned in recycled cotton wadding and environmentally friendly gel cool packs so that when I haven’t been home for the delivery, the produce has stayed cold and fresh until I can unpack the box.

The Mindful Chef delivery box with the chilled items packed in their recycled cotton wadding

You choose your recipes from the menu selection

Recipes and more

The simple-to-follow, speedy-to-prepare recipes are presented in a colourfully designed booklet peppered (pun entirely intended) with news about their other products, which include ready-to-prepare smoothies and frozen ready meals, and services, including their app and YouTube channel full of chefs cooking tips, and their one-off care boxes.

Each recipe has easy to follow instructions and a useful pic of the finished product

From their launch five years ago, Myles and Giles wanted their company to do more than ‘just’ provide healthy, nutritious meals. Their commitment to community development and support has seen them bring together people to clear plastic from beaches, partner with charity One Feeds Two so that for every meal you order they donate one to a school child living in poverty (they’ve provided 3 million to date), and, more recently, delivering 50,000 discounted meals to NHS frontline workers.

Mindful Chef founders, Myles and Giles, celebrating their charity partnership with One Feeds Two

Does what it says on the tin

All of that is great, no, more than that, it’s brilliant, obviously, but what about the food itself? Well, I’ve been preparing the dishes for three months now and I can report that with only one exception - entirely caused by my own inattentiveness rather than any failure in the instructions - EVERY one has turned out not just exactly as it looks in the picture, but been completely delicious.

Looking exactly as it does in the pic and tasting delicious!

I’m eating better than I have in a long time, trying ingredients and flavours I haven’t before, and adding new recipes to my regular repertoire.

I’ve happily encouraged a number of my friends and family members to give the Mindful Chef offering a go, and I would unhesitatingly do the same to you. Obviously the cost depends on how many meals you choose to have a week and for how many people. But the fact that the produce is always top quality and there’s no waste help to make it great value in my book.

(This hasn’t been a paid-for post, just my honest, unbiased opinion)