You can’t deny the convenience of meal kit delivery services.

They deliver pre-packaged and proportioned ingredients and recipes to your door, freeing you from the hassle of shopping for ingredients.

Some environmentally conscious consumers, however, have been feeling a little guilty about the plastic and cardboard that it takes to make that happen.

Good news for all you eco-friendly meal-kit loving folks out there – your guilt may be misplaced.

A new study reveals that meal kit delivery services have a smaller carbon footprint than equivalent meals bought from a grocery store and prepared at home.

Here’s NPR:

The study, published in the scientific journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, examines the whole life cycle — from farm to garbage can — of meal kits and their grocery store equivalents, and finds that, on average, store meals produce 33% more greenhouse gas emissions than their equivalents from meal kit delivery services.

Much of the reduced emissions stems from less food waste and a more streamlined supply chain, according to the study.

Most people look at plastic in meal kits as the main cause of environmental damage, but that’s not necessarily the case.

Brent Heard, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan and first author of the study, says, “When you zoom out and look at the whole life cycle, packaging is a relatively small contributor to the overall environmental impacts of a meal. What really ends up mattering is the quantity of food wasted throughout the supply chain.”

For more on that study, read here.

Closer to home, some South African meal kit delivery services are taking their commitment to environmental conservation even further.

Earlier this year, Daily Dish upgraded their packaging to make it even more environmentally friendly.

The ingredients now come in a recyclable paper bag, which limits the use of plastics and ups the convenience factor.

You can also return your empty box to Daily Dish for recycling, when they deliver your fresh box at the start of the week, which will be reused to further reduce their environmental footprint.

Dinners sorted, conscience at ease, and you didn’t have to lift a finger.

If you want to get involved, 2oceansvibe and Daily Dish are teaming up to make dinner time easier and more nature-friendly for you.

First, go HERE for a chance to win a four-day Classic Dinner box for four people – but be quick, because the competition closes on Wednesday, May 22, at 10AM (that’s tomorrow).

For those who don’t win, you can still sign up for Daily Dish and you’ll get up to R250 off your first Dinner Box.

It’s not often that the convenient option is also an environmentally conscious one.

Congrats, everyone’s a winner.

[source:npr]