What would you do with the extra time returned to you if you didn't have to go through pondering about what to have for breakfast, lunch, or dinner on a daily basis? Sure, it's fun to go through your to-eat list, but on the weekdays where we spend a majority of our time giving it our 110% it can be a breathe of fresh air having my meals sorted and planned out.
Such is TAF Meals' premise, a new food service that creates ready-to-eat meals for the whole day rather than for a single occurrence. And the kicker? TAF Meals' promises nutritious recipes created by a passionate team of chefs who have help from nutritionist and dietitian Adele Wong of Nutrition Track.
Your order will include five meals for the day – breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, and dinner. Meals for the day pack approximately 1700 calories to keep you fuelled up, and come with all the relevant nutritional information right on the box (and the website) so you know what you're signing up for.
TAF Meals comes from Botanica + Co and Entier's masterminds, taking that ethos for good, wholesome food and dialling that "healthy" focus to 11. Naturally, this means fresh ingredients become all the more critical, and dishes are cooked with little manipulation to allow the produce to speak for themselves.
I recently got to try Wednesday's meals for myself, which were delivered to me at around eight thirty in the morning. The day started with a nourishing eggs Florentine (368 calories), featuring two poached eggs, baby spinach, leek, greek yoghurt, honey and masala spice. About an hour and a half after breakfast, I tucked into a watercress and cucumber sandwich (151 calories) made with homemade gluten-free bread, watercress, Japanese cucumber, cream cheese, sour cream, salt, pepper, and a dash of lemon juice.
Wednesday's lunch was a Japanese beef bowl (528 calories) – stir-fried karubi, onion, mushroom, leek, sweet pea, salt and pepper served on brown rice with a side of togarashi. When I was feeling peckish at four, there was the incredibly refreshing pineapple carpaccio snack (102 calories), which was essentially fresh pineapple served with a dipping sauce made from mango juice, lemon juice and greek yoghurt.
Come dinnertime, I had grilled seabass served with kailan, broccoli, almond, and cauliflower rice together with red capsicum, salt, pepper, onion, and a drizzle of olive oil (510 calories). Instead of popping this in the microwave, I opted to lightly toss it in the pan. This actually proved to be my favourite dish of the day, as it had good flavours while still having that light and healthy feel.
As someone who struggles making healthy choices when it comes to food, often due to the pursuit of flavour, I especially enjoyed knowing how many calories and what went into each and every dish I was consuming for the day all laid out for me. I typically try to keep my calorific intake under 2000 a day, but that's easier said than done. Thankfully, regular exercise helps me to maintain my weight.
Meal plans can be purchased by a single day (RM80 nett), a five-day plan (RM375 nett), and a seven-day plan (RM490). Those interested should note that one's TAF Meals are to be picked up from Botanica Deli in Bangsar South daily from 8:30am onwards, and all orders need to be placed two days in advance. Alternatively, you can arrange for a pick-up service such as Grab and Lalamove to get the meals for you.
So what do you think about this fascinating new model? Is TAF Meals going to like the Netflix of meals? Like any good subscription service that knows how to keep its audience hooked, I asked the good folks running TAF Meals how often new dishes will be introduced. It's tough to say for now as it's still brand new and demand is still being sussed out, but TAF currently has one whole week's worth of meals available for order (Monday to Sunday). A new weekly menu is in the works, which intends to switch out with the current weekly menu alternatively.
If convenient healthy eating sounds like something that interests you, especially one that's backed by a nutritionist, check them out.