This plant-based food subscription brought flavour to our lunch hour
Healthy vegan food made easy, Tyme takes a fresh approach to work week mealtimes
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Let’s be honest, incorporating a balanced diet into the working week can be a bit of a struggle. Whether that’s because you don’t have a fridge full of ingredients, the culinary finesse or simply the time to dedicate to cooking, it can be hard to make nutritious meals that are worth getting excited about.
In fact, our work week follows a set menu of bland, easy breakfasts and lunches that we haven’t yet found the momentum to switch up. It includes a less than varied scattering of fruits and vegetables and certainly not as much plant-based protein and fibre as we would like.
Ready to subscribe now? Find the full Tyme menu at Tymefood.com
Of course, there’s always the option of meal prepping well balanced meals on the Sunday night, but this level of organisation isn’t going to be for everyone (we include ourselves in that bracket). Even when we do go into the office, shop-bought sandwiches quickly become repetitive and often come in plastic packaging that’s hard to recycle.
This is the struggle plant-based food subscription service Tyme wants to solve, with balanced meals and snacks packed with plant fibres to keep you energised throughout the working day, from morning until dinnertime.
The focus falls on nutritious and sustainably sourced produce, fresh and made to order every week, and everything on the menu is vegan and ready to eat (straight from the packet if you so wish). All you need to do is find room in the fridge.
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How we tested
To see whether Tyme’s plant-based subscription service was worth giving a whirl, we incorporated the vegan menu of breakfasts and smoothies, lunches, snacks and shots into our working week. While assessing the quality and variety of food available, we also considered the pricing, user-friendliness and any environmental considerations. Here’s what we made of Tyme’s plant-based subscription service.
Tyme subscription: From £30 weekly, Tymefood.com
How it works
As a subscription service delivering weekly, Tyme currently offers a flexi-box plan which contains any combination of food and drink for a minimum of £30 a week, whether that be breakfast or a breakfast smoothie, a shot, lunch or snack – which is helpful if you’re not a breakfast person or prefer to give health shots and snacking a miss.
The menu includes photographs of each item, along with a breakdown of ingredients, health benefits and an environmental impact rating so you know exactly what you’re getting. The food doesn’t look exactly like the photos of course – the elements are stacked in packets – but the flavours are all there so we’re not concerned with how it looks.
The actual ordering is done on a seperate page and is pretty straightforward; just select the items you want that week, and the price helpfully tots up on screen as you go along. Your choices will automatically roll over each week for delivery on Monday or Sunday night, depending on where you live, and helpfully, you can also skip weeks whenever you need to.
What’s inside the box?
Our food arrived on Sunday evening, with everything still cool owing to wool insulation. One of the brand’s main selling points is convenience – breakfast and lunch is thoughtfully packaged and can be eaten straight our of their packets – you just need to tear the top off– which is ideal if you don’t have bowls at work. Slim and seemingly spill-free for slipping in your bag too, the packets keep toppings in a seperate pouch to preserve their crunch.
As for the food, the entire selection is prepared by chefs and nutritionists and we were really impressed with the freshness and vibrancy of flavours. For breakfast, we loved the blueberry acai with no-too-sweet granola sprinkled on top, but our favourite was the spiced oats topped with cinnamon cereal for crunch, which reminded us of apple pie.
Alternatively, breakfast smoothies are perfect for the commute – as peanut butter fiends we loved the peanut butter and moringa smoothie, an energy-packed treat that tasted like dessert for breakfast.
The shots are packed with goodness designed to boost your immunity, reduce inflammation and improve your gut health, but the the spicy citrus shot with cayenne pepper practically blew our heads off – although the fiery kick did revive us from our afternoon slump. If you’re after a smoother ride, we would recommend the elderberry and beetroot or kale and chlorella flavour instead.
Come lunchtime, we wonderered whether the flavours would fall flat as they often do with pre-made meals, but the dishes we tried were bursting with flavourful herbs and spices. Our favourite was the smoky middle eastern; a satisfying mix of creamy, smoky tahini, parsley and dill-seasoned sweet potato and cracked freekeh topped with tomato, cucumber and za'atar.
We also really enjoyed the golden Californian with chilli and lime squash, turmeric tahini and cauliflower rice. It looked quite stodgy in the packet, but the raw slaw with crunchy broccoli, kale and mixed seeds made it feel more like a salad, with slightly charred roasted squash that felt more homemade than emptied out of a packet.
There are 12 lunchtime dishes in total and seasonal meals will be introduced throughout the year – some can be eaten hot or cold (we stuck with cold) – and everything was so quick and easy that we could really make the most of our lunch hour.
Tyme’s selection of snacks is just big enough with five sweet snack bags, but we would like to see some savoury options in there too. Although as someone who snacks on toast, we thrived on having nutritious nibbles at our desk.
The pecan tahini trail mix is wonderuly caramelised with maple syrup and chewy pieces of coconut, but we loved the richness of the picn n’ mix style chocolate orange and cashew trail mix. The energy balls were great for quick and convenient snacking – like fudgy balls of deliciousness, the cashew and matcha were our favourite.
Environmental considerations
A vegan or plant-based diet is widely considered better for the planet, but Tyme has also secured a B corp accreditation which is no mean feat. This highlights the brand’s commitment to more sustainable practices, from reducing food waste to sourcing ingredients from forward-thinking farms.
To reduce food waste everything is made to order, while we really rate that Tyme uses herbs grown at Harvest London, a B corp hydroponic farm that grows crops in water rather than soil which uses less space and is less environmentally harmful.
Read more: The B Corp certified brands doing good for the planet and its people
Every item on the menu has an impact rating that has been calculated by sustainability tracker, Foodsteps, and the rating is either very low, low, medium or high depending on its carbon footprint, land and water use, and contribution to pollution. We were surprised to find two of the shots were labelled with a high impact rating, but knowing what to avoid is helpful if that’s a deal breaker for you.
We were skeptical about receiving food in plastic packaging, but if you’re looking for individually wrapped pre-made meals delivered to your door, Tyme says that these lightweight plastic pouches have a lower carbon footprint than alternative packaging options. This is because they require less energy to transport and are fully recyclable – but we did wonder whether they could be made with recycled plastic in future.
The verdict: Tyme subscription
Beautifully fresh, vibrant and full with flavour, we have Tyme’s plant-based subscription to thank for getting us out of our bland work week food rut. The quality of lunch dishes was especially impressive for us, and left us satisfied, energised and always excited to try our next dish.
Ingredients are sourced mindfully and transparency around the environmental impact of each item of food is refreshing to see, while the convenience of healthy, ready-made breakfasts, lunches and snacks throughout the day is something we could definitely get used to.
With a minumum spend of £30 a week and lunches costing up to £7.50 this isn’t a cheap way to eat, but if you’ve been hungry for a healthier, wide variety of work-week food, Tyme offers a delicious solution.
Voucher codes
For the latest discounts on recipe boxes and other food offers, try the links below:
Could Mindful chef help us break free from our food rut? Read our review of the recipe box subscription
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