Everything arrives in a box, these days. From pre-made meals, to yoga clothes, to loot crates bursting with objects of nerdy desire. They’re called “Subscription Boxes”, and over the past few years they’ve exploded in popularity. You pay a monthly subscription fee, you get a monthly box. In the words of George Constanza: “Everybody loves a package!” However, my biggest hang-up with many of these Subscription Box services based on my (admittedly-limited) experience with them: they tend to be more quantity than quality. You pay too much, but get too little.
But then I heard about TruLocal, a Milton-based company that brings local, antibiotic-free, free run, no hormones-added meat right to your doorstep. Now that concept ticks a lot of boxes (*pun*). All of that good stuff, in meat-form, delivered straight to my door? Could it be real?
It turns out that it could be real. It is real. The ordering process is very user-friendly. You simply set up an account on TruLocal’s website. Pick a 1 or 2-person box, then and add the meats you like in it. It even tells you where the meat comes from, a feature which I love. The box is shipped directly to your house. The products are frozen and packed in dry ice so the meat just chills on your porch waiting for you to get home. Somewhere out there, Ron Swanson sheds a single, happy tear.
The big thing that I like about TruLocal’s foods: they come from locally-sourced farms. The boneless skinless chicken breast, for example, is from a farm in South Western Ontario. The chicken breasts are antibiotic free and air-chilled instead of the conventional water chilling. Normally, the typical grocery store’s chicken breasts will shrink significantly after cooking, but TruLocal’s chicken retain their size throughout the cooking process since their chicken doesn’t retain any water during the chilling process. The beauty of air-chilled meats. Because, really, who wants to pay for water in their chicken?
I was super-excited to get cooking with all these amazing ingredients. If you’re ever stuck on recipes, TruLocal includes beautiful recipe cards inside the box as well.
The recipe cards were easy to follow and inspired me to try out some different flavours. Here are my delicious meals:
I love how all the meats were individually-vacuumed sealed, which locked-in their freshness and also had the added benefit of making it easy to defrost only the portions that I planned on cooking. And since I know which farms the meats came from I felt really good about what I was cooking. Living proof that good, sustainable guilt-free meat is possible.
It doesn’t get any easier than products being delivered right to your door. It’s easier than heading to the local grocer. But more importantly, there are no more excuses not to pay attention to where your food comes from and buying non sustainable meats. TruLocal is doing huge things. I’m on-board. Because you are what you eat… and what you eat can now be brought to your door step.
Thank you to the team at TruLocal for providing a box for me to sample! I can’t wait to try more products in the future. The Subscription Box market just got themselves a new fan. Woo!
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