Diet delivery services, where you get healthy, ready-made meals delivered to your door, are starting to take off in the UK. Total Diet Food is one of these, offering three low fat meals and two snacks per day, delivered seven days a week before 6 am.
I’m trying out the plan for one day only, so I’m assessing the food on taste and whether I feel peckish 20 minutes after eating.
Food arrives in a sturdy cooler bag which handily includes cutlery and napkins, in case you’re at work (there is in fact a specific diet plan tailored to work, with just breakfast, two snacks and lunch).
Breakfast is chopped juicy mango and peanut butter on two slices of rye bread, and the mid-morning snack is hummus with some tasty salted corn chips. The latter feels a bit naughty, but who am I to argue with their nutritional experts?
For lunch there is a pasta salad with wholemeal fusilli, Bulgarian peppers and dill chicken. The dressing is a little bland but warming it up and adding salt and pepper makes a vast improvement, and the pleasing combination of chopped cucumber, sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh coriander and crunchy green beans is bound to provide much-needed vitamins.
There’s a snack of walnuts and chopped pineapple which puts a halt to the mid-afternoon slump, but the last meal turns out to be the best. Pearl barley risotto with feta, wild mushrooms, courgettes and cherry tomatoes provides a good mix of flavours, and I feel surprisingly active after eating instead of falling into a more familiar post-dinner vegetation.
Total Diet Food doesn’t come cheap, as the plan starts from £29.99 per day (as long as you commit to 90 days or more). Aside from this, meals are nutritionally balanced, low fat, and there are no processed or artificial foods; the other obvious advantage is saving time if you’re not keen on planning meals, shopping and cooking.