The Service
Balance box is the slightly more affordable little sister of the luxury diet delivery service, The Pure Package. They provide healthy, pre-made meals to any door nationwide. The service is designed with weight-loss in mind and customers are able to choose from either a lighter plan of 1200kcals or their less restrictive 1800kcal market plan.
They deliver these calories within three meals and two snacks each day. The plans have been designed to provide balanced meals that result in less sugar cravings and boosted energy levels, helping customers to stick with their lower calorie plans. These two options come in a number of packages which include; classic (includes meat), veggie, pescatarian, free-from (no meat, fish, gluten or cow’s milk). We were disappointed to see that a vegan choice is currently not available.
Although prices are lower than at The Pure package, they still can’t be classed as a low-cost option. Their 1200 calorie plans are priced at £26.99 each day while the 1800 calorie plans come in at £32.99, both have an additional £4.95 delivery charge for any orders outside of London. However, there is an opportunity to subscribe to the service which does reduce these costs. Considering balance box does not allow for any preference on personal tastes, and it’s a one size fits all type service, we think it is quite pricey in terms of value for money.
One point that we think is certainly worth noting, if you want to sign up to the service, for nationwide delivery you must book a week in advance. We were very keen to get cracking and felt that this was quite a lengthy lead time!
The Taste
Ok, so up until now we haven’t been totally positive about Balance Box, but we have to say, they have hit the nail on the head in terms of food quality and taste. The meals taste super fresh and the food is varied and flavoursome.
We really enjoyed their date bircher, a mixture of blitzed dates, low fat yogurt, oats and a little lemon juice. It was the perfect breakfast, tasty while also filling us up until our elevenses snack. The wild mushroom stroganoff was another favourite, the slow cooking lead to a creamy, intensely flavoured meal.
We do wish that balance box gave us at least one or two exclusions. Although we aren’t picky eaters – everyone has one food they can’t stand right? Although some of the more common dislikes have been avoided entirely on the Balance Box plan such as offal, shellfish and wheat. A couple of the meals we skipped as they were the ‘can’t stand’ category of food, and we did find this frustrating since supplementing the exact number of calories for the meal, particularly on a busy work day, can be difficult.
Health
All of the food is free from refined sugar, refined carbohydrates and unnecessary additives or preservatives. Their meat and eggs are both free-range. On their website it states, ‘food is organic – where appropriate’, we aren’t too sure what this actually means!
The meals have all been created by nutritionists and dietary experts – they are absolutely chock-a-block with fruit and vegetables which is a real plus for us. They are geared towards individuals who would like to lose weight and we have heard good things about the weight loss results achieved from the plans. We chose the 1200kcal plan and did find that we were left feeling hungry and struggling on some days, particularly if we had booked onto an exercise class.
Sustainability
For London clients, Balance Box will pick up the boxes, insulation and icepacks when they are next delivering to your house. This allows them to be re-used by the company – a great perk of the service. However, those outside of the M25 must recycle everything themselves. The boxes, pots, menus ad insulation are all recyclable. This is great, however considering the sheer number of plastic pots used on the service and the low percentage of plastic actually recycled in the UK (even when you put it into the recycling bin!), this isn’t ideal.
The website states that their meat is ethically sourced, and the seafood comes from sustainable stocks.
Final Verdict
Overall a good service with high quality, tasty food. It’s great for helping with weight loss or maintaining a healthy lifestyle, particularly for those who are time-poor. It also gives you a really good indication of meal sizes – we have certainly stopped piling are plates sky high! Balance Box looks after the shopping, cooking, shipping and delivery of your meals, leaving you with more time and less hassle.
We do think that the service is quite pricey, particularly considering that they offer no exclusions to clients however it may just be the kick start needed to get that fat loss diet rolling.
