We chose CookUnity as our favorite meal delivery service for foodies because of its unique “chef collective” model. It aims to provide fresh, individual, restaurant-quality meals at a reasonable price — and from what our reviewer tasted, it delivers. There’s no specific anti-inflammatory meal plan, but there’s a setting to adjust your meal options for vegetarian, Mediterranean, vegan, gluten-free, low-carb, and lower-calorie meals, among others. Using that basic filter, combined with setting dietary restrictions for allergens or ingredients you want to avoid, you can find a good selection of meals to fit an anti-inflammatory eating plan.
The CookUnity website clearly labels meals by dietary preference, so it’s easy to pick the right one for you, explains Mary Sauer, a freelance health writer in Kansas City, Missouri who tested CookUnity for Everyday Health. You always have the option to choose something outside of your previously indicated preference, so if you picked Mediterranean, you could still change filters and see meals of different types, such as vegetarian or low-carb. There’s also a very hands-off option: The “automatic order” system follows your indicated preferences and restrictions but chooses the meals for you. CookUnity doesn’t offer add-ons, but there are some meals that are labeled for multiple servings, and certain items are marked with a “Flexible Portions” tag, such as prepared proteins that don’t come with anything else (good for meal prepping or feeding extra folks at the table).
Plan sizes range from 4 to 16 meals per order, and the chef instructions recommend how to heat up your meal (oven, stovetop, or microwave). It’s important to note that since all of the meals are fresh, the shelf life is only three to seven days. You can freeze meals, but that may affect the texture and taste of ingredients like eggs, dairy, or leafy greens. You can change your plan size, and the menus come out two weeks in advance, so you can look at your schedule and decide how many meals you’ll actually be able to eat prior to ordering.
“My favorite meals included the Sesame Salmon that had steamed bok choy on the side, and the Beef Birria Quesadillas, which had a great cinnamon flavor and delicious, melty cheese,” says Sauer. “I also liked the Mission-Style Chicken Burrito, which my kids and I split — we even had a friendly argument over who would get the last bite.” Of note are the new “Lines” offered by CookUnity: a Clean Eating Line, a Green Eating Line, and a Kids Line, which also appear on the filtering mechanism. The Clean Eating Line, billed as offering “whole, minimally processed, and nutrient-rich ingredients,” may be helpful for narrowing down choices for anti-inflammatory eating.
Dining and Cooking