Episode #99: Meal Kits with Lindsey Kane

This week’s episode features Lindsey Kane, the Director of Nutrition at Sunbasket. I started getting meal kits for family meals because cooking (and planning, shopping, and putting together meals) just hasn’t been that fun lately! Ordering meal kits has been easy, enjoyable, and oh so delicious. AND….once I was on Sunbasket’s email list I started getting messages about intuitive eating. How amazing! Since the messages were being written by Lindsey, I knew we had to talk!

*If you decide to try Sunbasket from my link, I get a little bonus (and you get $35 off PLUS 4 free bonus gifts)! But I promise, I’m only recommending them because I’ve been using and loving the products.

How Lindsey Got Her Start

Lindsey, a registered dietitian based out of San Francisco, shares that Sunbasket is a meal kit delivery company. They have pre-prepped meals, as well as oven-ready options. You can get organic produce, clean ingredients, and delicious recipes delivered weekly!

Growing up, food was a big part of Lindsey’s family. She associated it with family and memories. She also loved the independence of packing her own lunches and creating wonderful food. As she went on to study science & anatomy and play various sports, she started getting more interested in nutrition and its role in our lives.

The concept of food as medicine got Lindsey excited to weave her passions together and become a dietitian! However, she realized she didn’t want a “traditional” dietary career. In fact, at the end of her schooling she was afraid she might have picked the wrong major. She didn’t want to have a reactive role; instead, she wanted to work with prevention!

First stop? A grocery store job that let her interact with customers, provide workshops, and really get engaged with nutrition on the ground level.

I Don’t Know That the “Dieting” Method Works….

It didn’t take Lindsey long to start feeling that the dieting method wasn’t working in real life. Clearly not everything from the classroom was translating into real life success in the real world.

Looking back, this is where she started shifting towards a different message. When she arrived in San Francisco, she joined the start up world and started applying all the feedback she had been getting from her previous work in nutrition. Her experience and new found confidence inspired her to change her messaging and really engage with the intuitive eating world.

Knowing that traditional messages about food, health, and dieting weren’t working for people gave Lindsey the drive to share a different message. Part of that included realizing that “health” involved so many more components than just food. Your social, mental, emotional, and physical lives are all part of your overall health.

Meal Planning & Diet Messages

Lots of diets really on strict meal plans that advocate restricting various foods or food groups. Planning your meals does NOT have to be about following a diet, though!

Lindsey acknowledges that meal kits sometimes play into this. In fact, some meal kit companies actually have pretty heavy diet-related messaging. However, you don’t need to feed into that!

When you look at meal kits and other meal planning services, you get to make choices based on what appeals to your needs and tastebuds. Lindsey shares that she makes her choices based on what looks good when she chooses. She knows the meals will have a variety of vegetables and proteins, but she doesn’t examine all the nutritional details.

She advises you sign up with any “meal plan” you want (Chef’s Choice, vegetarian, etc) and, within that, feel free to mix and match to choose the meals that appeal to you. Based on customer ordering habits, Lindsey has seen that many customers are searching key words (like paleo, keto, grain free, etc) to find meal planning services that will work for them. For that reason, Sunbasket does arrange their meal kits within those parameters. However, she is pleased to notice that many customers don’t restrict themselves to only those meals.

Fighting Diet Culture

As a practitioner, Lindsey notes that having a safe space to process your own food beliefs is so important. And if you found your way to Sunbasket because they offered a sort of meal plan that you see through the lens of dieting, that’s fine! Once you’re there, however, she hopes you might expand your understanding of what it means to eat intuitively and to enjoy fresh, exciting meal choices.

Not to be pessimistic, but Lindsey also points out that diet culture isn’t going away any time soon. For that reason, she’s a believer in developing coping skills and resiliency. Sometimes you have to put your own blinders on!

At the end of the day, ask yourself: Will this food serve me? This question applies to your physical body, your emotional needs, and your overall sense of wellness.

Does Lindsey Use Meal Kits Herself?

When Lindsey first started at Sunbasket, she could see how awesome it was…but she didn’t plan to use it. After all, she figured she enjoyed doing her own shopping and cooking. (She didn’t “need” help!)

Now, however, she finds herself ordering frequently. She loves making the decision about what to eat at the beginning of the week, and knowing she’ll have the ingredients she needs to make fun, creative meals. Sunbasket helps her stay out of a rut of repeatedly making the same basic meals, and helps her continue to feel creative and inspired in the kitchen as she tries new recipes.

In addition to her Sunbasket meals, Lindsey notes that she still likes to frequent her local farmer’s market to get extra veggies and other fresh goods.

Satisfy Yourself

Lindsey loves the intuitive eating principle of the “satisfaction factor”. At Sunbasket, she works hard to make sure that taste and satisfaction are major priorities.

As people are able to focus on being hands on and creating flavorful meals, she hopes they’ll begin to enjoy their food journeys more. Personally, I really appreciate this! I enjoy cooking, and I want to make real food that truly tastes good.

After a whole lot of takeout (that was fun for a while, and then felt really blah), I’ve really enjoyed coming back to the kitchen and making food again. I’ve REALLY enjoyed not having to go shopping for ingredients. In addition, ordering meal kits has made the end of this pregnancy so much simpler.

The variety and new flavors, choosing my new recipes each week, and being back in the kitchen has truly satisfied me — and that’s something I can get excited about!

If you’re getting curious about meal kits, I’d invite you to check out Sunbasket and save $35 on your first order today!