CASE STUDY: Marjorie
Frustrated with Spending Way too Much Time in the Kitchen?

At first I hesitated about spending money on something that I could do myself. And I could do all this myself but I wasn’t.

I’m a really good at food. I’m good at cooking. I’m really interested in it, so I should be able to do it.

But with the meal plans it’s all here. You’ve done it all.

It’s so easy.

My husband and I work together, and if we’re coming home and it’s late you think ‘oh lets just pick something up’… It’s so easy to use the meal plans. It keeps us from eating out when sometimes we would.

Then you realize if it keeps you from going out even once then that’s like $12. If you can afford to go out to dinner then you can afford to do this. Because it’s going to save you at least that amount of money.

Then there were the monthly payments. And that makes you stop but I realized pretty quickly the value.

At first I really doubted that we would like it. Or that it would taste good because of the limited amount of ingredients.

I’m used to putting garlic and onion into everything so it felt funny not to do that. But I followed it. And I was surprised that everything tasted good.

I was thinking ‘alright this is just going to be bare bones healthy meal on the table’

BUT it was delicious!

The other thing I hesitated about was seasonality. We live in an agricultural area we have very specific local things available at certain times. So not being able to shop specifically towards sales when they came up. Like ’spinach is on sale’ or ‘kale is on sale’ or whatever.

Then I also have a garden. So having the seasonal meal plans has been really helpful. Very much so.

I like cooking and the meal plan stops me from going ‘oh that sounds really good’ when it’s the middle of the week and I’m working and I’m trying to work on my side hustle stuff. So I don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking like I used to when the kids were here and I was in the kitchen anyhow when they were doing their homework.

Now I just want to get ‘in and out’.

The plan keeps me honest. It keeps me focused.

And I really trust you a lot. Something important that sets you aside from a lot of people is your background as a food scientist. That brings a lot to the table.

When you say in your storage options that you can keep something this long. And to trust smelling and tasting things yourself. That made me hang onto things longer and avoid getting rid of food before I needed.

I also found I was able to cook on my own very easily rather than following recipes. Because I used to be a big recipe follower. Now I’m able to open up the fridge on the fly and go ‘I’ve got this, and this and this’ and I’m going to trust that it will taste good.

So that was a big result that was different from how I cooked before. I can trust myself to do my own thing.

Every so often my husband cooks. I forward the meal plan to him so he can see what’s going to be happening for the week. Sometimes he will cook one of them.

Now he’s buying into it.

Initially, when I first did this he had a lot of hesitations about liking it. He was worried we were going to change completely how we eat. But it really didn’t change a lot how we eat.

It just changed the amount of time I put into the meals.

However, I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t really healthy to begin with.

So it was really really important to tick both boxes.

Then I got diagnosed with pre-diabetes even though I’m eating so well. And when you also got diagnosed I knew you were very conscious with your recipes for the meal plans for that. Very helpful. We had done the Whole 30 and this just fits right into it.

I love to have a lot of vegetables. So I usually supplement the meal plans with a side. I often do some extra roast veg or a salad. Just something thats really easy so it’s not an issue.

The shopping list gets me in and out of the grocery store really fast. Because I’m really slow, I don’t know what happens when I go into the grocery store. So I just shop from Jules Clancy’s list. And I go in and just get whats on the list. And that’s it.

So the shopping list is a huge deal for me and it for sure saves me money.

And what you’ve done with the variations.

So you’ve got your meal and then you go ‘more veg’, ‘more carb’, ‘no dairy’. You’ve got all these options. It’s all there. It’s just really, crazily well thought out. I can’t imagine how much time it’s taken you over the years to get to this point but it is organised.

The flexibility, making it easy to adjust. It’s very unique.

Because we feel good.

Sometimes I think is that going to be enough of a meal? And it is enough. Because we add the vegetables, I’ll often divide it into 3 so my husband and I will have dinner and then he has lunch the next day.

And I tell people you save time and money by shopping for just what you need.

I have friends and relatives who use Blue Apron and this is way faster than that. And Blue Apron is expensive. And the packaging all those ice packs and all the stuff you have to throw away. I feel bad about that so I think ‘just do Soupstones Meal Plans’ .