Tag: allergies

Home Chef-A Review

Lauren2 Comments

So the hubs and I have been getting Home Chef meal delivery service for about seven months now.  Suffice it to say, this is going to be a positive review.

Home Chef is a DIY meal delivery service.  Meaning they send you the ingredients and you make the food.  I love cooking, so naturally, I enjoy this.  The meals range from easy to expert level.  Most meals can be cooked in 30 minutes.  Some recipes are done in an hour.  They even have some recipes that can be cooked in 15 minutes!

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We picked Tuesday delivery for our meals and, with one exception due to a holiday falling at an inopportune time, all of our meals arrived on time.  The box that didn’t, well, that arrived too hot to eat the meat.  Home Chef gave us credit towards our next box of meals equal to what we paid for the original box.  Since it wasn’t Home Chef’s fault the food was late, we gave them another chance and everything has been great since!

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The food arrives in an insulated box with the freezer packs on the bottom, over the meat.  I’ve noticed that the warmer the weather forecast, the more freezer packs there seem to be.  Huzzah!

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The meal ingredients come separated in their own bags and are labeled.  I use each bag as my garbage bag when I am cooking, so that’s helpful too.  The meat also comes individually wrapped and sealed, which is nice.

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Each meal comes with easy to read (and follow) instructions.  As long as you read over the instructions carefully before you start making each meal, you won’t have any problems.  There have been times where I missed a step because I didn’t read the recipe over once before I started cooking, and well, I should know better because I cooked with recipes all the time!   User error is always fun.

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It’s good for people who have allergies. like me, because they tell you before you select your recipes for the week what allergens are in what items!  Since I am allergic to eggs (is anyone getting tired of me bringing that up yet?), having the allergens laid out like that is invaluable.

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Obviously, if we’ve been eating it for seven months, we love the food.

I can tell you, that out of seven months of doing this, we have had only one or two times where we really didn’t like the meal to the point of not wanting to finish it.  Okay, maybe three times.  That’s not a bad track record when you think about it.  And since it’s cheaper than a restaurant meal at (usually) $10 a serving, that’s not bad at all.

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All in all, and with a smile on my face, I recommend Home Chef.

 

 

I’m Now A Flexitarian

LaurenLeave a comment

I went to the doctor yesterday for a follow-up visit to find out how my medications were working.

Turns out they are working fine.  But me, well I could be working better.

See, the last time I went my doctor told me I had to lose some weight.  Not a lot.  Just about 30 pounds or so.  Nothing major.

I cut out Cokes and most processed foods.  The egg allergy has kinda helped with that and with cutting out most fast foods and fried foods from my life.  It also helped with cutting out things like cookies and cakes and other sweet treats as well.

I also started to do some light yoga a couple of times a week.

Needless to say, I have lost zero pounds.

Why?  Well, for all the cutting out I did, I can still eat at Taco Bell.

Not anymore.  No more tacos for me.

The doctor has told me that while she does want me to lose weight, but not on any on the fancy diets, like keto.  No, she wants me to become something called a flexitarian.

According to dictionary.com, a flexitarian is someone whose diet is mostly vegetarian but does eat some meat, poultry, or fish.

I also have to cut out added sugars, most dairy, some carbs (not all carbs though), and red meat.

Bye bye hamburgers.  Hello Impossible Burgers.

 

Allergies Suck

Lauren2 Comments

How many people out there know the pain and anguish of a food allergy?

First, you get the “why does this keep happening to me?” feeling.  Then a vampire (nurse) takes your blood for an allergy test and you find out you are allergic to a food of some kind.

At first, you feel great, cause answers!  Then you feel dread, cause you can no longer eat that food or foods with that food in it.

I found out right before Christmas this past year that I was allergic to eggs.

It sucks all the levels of suck.

I count myself lucky that I have a mild reaction to eggs.  I did, however, find out that one way food allergies work is they can leave you with a mildly compromised immune system, I.E. my colds last a month instead of a week.

This is a thing that happened to me every time I got sick.  I would get a mild illness and stay sick twice or three times as long as the average person.  All because I would eat things that contain eggs.

I was told not to do that anymore.

So I waved goodbye to certain foods and invited new things into my life, like vegan mayo.  I also discovered an egg replacer by Bob’s Red Mill that works in all the baked goods!  This is a product that you need to follow the directions for.  It is for baking, not for making omelets.  Its just, no, don’t do that to yourself.  I didn’t even try cause that would just be, eww.

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It has worked great in cookies, cupcakes, pancakes so far.  The hubs agrees that you can’t tell a difference between this and real eggs in any of those things.

I do miss being able to go to a restaurant and order whatever I want, but boy have I had a craving for that eggiest of egg dishes, eggs benedict.

I will get used to this in time, which is all one can ask for. So I guess I say goodbye to that grand old food staple, the chicken egg.