If you haven't embraced plant-based eating, it's time to start now and prepare your immune system for COVID-19
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It’s time to prepare your immune system to fight COVID-19.
More and more, people will choose to eat in. Choose the right meal plan to eat well and stay healthy as COVID-19 continues to spread.
Eating plant-based foods will help improve immune function, so embrace plant-based eating now.
Recently Professor Marc Lipsitch from Harvard predicted that 40 to 70 percent of the world’s population will experience COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) in 2020. Many experts agree with him. (1) If this is true, then it’s not a question about if four to seven in ten people will develop COVID-19 , but a question about when. This clearly means you and I need to prepare our bodies and immune systems to fight off COVID-19 and recover from it, along with continuing to focus our energy on disease prevention.
One way to start is to eat more plant-based meals. Eating clean, plant-based meals may bring us a plethora of short term benefits including increased energy, better sleep, a healthy glow, stress reduction, and a confidence boost. Vegetarian diets provide “modulation of the immune system and the gut microbiota.” (2, 3) In addition, eating plant-based meals is good for our environment, and reduces our carbon footprints. (4)
“Vegetables and fruits are especially important; choosing a colorful array — perhaps carrots, peppers, oranges, leafy greens, berries or apples — will provide vitamins A and C, which both play important roles in immune function. It is also vital to get enough vitamin D, because vitamin D deficiency is linked to an increased susceptibility to infection.”-The Washington Post
It’s difficult to change our habits, including the way we eat. My family and I love to eat out, so even though Seattle has become a COVID-19 hotbed, my family and I have ventured out to eat at restaurants. Recently at these restaurants, I noticed our waiters touching the rims of our glasses and utensils with their bare hands and fingers, and retrieving our used napkins and towels with bare hands. I wondered, “Do they wash their hands each time they touch a different surface?” I doubted it. (At one restaurant, we ordered hot sake so we could use it to wipe down our utensils.)
At usually popular restaurants, there are still crowds, and close contact with other people is hard to avoid.
As we’re going to have to eat at home more, I’m going to get busier with cooking and preparing our meals. Luckily I do have some help. Since 2017, I’ve been eating Splendid Spoon’s ready-to-eat plant-based meals, including their plant-based smoothies, soups and all-new grain bowls. Splendid Spoon meals are packed with gluten-free, GMO-free, mostly-organic, plant-based, and clean whole ingredients. (You can too, for just $7 a meal, with $25 off your first purchase of Splendid Spoon meals! New customers get a free wellness shot until 3/26/2020!)
Busy can be healthy.
A few years ago, a busy mother, Nicole Centeno, founded Splendid Spoon, a company based in Brooklyn, New York. Nicole once struggled with an eating disorder. Having healed her relationship with food and conquered her eating disorder, Nicole built her company and centered its mission in helping busy people feel good about food again, and to help nourish their bodies the clean, plant-based foods.
Splendid Spoon meals are delivered straight to your door from Brooklyn, New York. They are fully-prepared and ready-to-eat meals. They come frozen, thanks to dry ice. Splendid Spoon’s sourcing and production facilities follow Safe Quality Food (SQF) guidelines to ensure the ingredients used and the meals made are safe to consume. Splendid Spoon’s ready-to-eat meal plans and delivery service is a game changer during these times, especially now when eating out may increased one’s risk of getting sick. (5)
“…we currently cannot rule out the possibility of occasional transmission from infected food handlers. The virus would likely be killed by cooking the food.”-Harvard Health Publishing
Splendid Spoon meals are delicious, and everything that comes in the delivery box is recyclable. I love drinking my smoothies for lunch (I intermittently fast) and then have one of the bowls for dinner. Sometimes I heat the soups over the stove or microwave (especially during winter time) or eat them straight from their containers. The meals are so flavorful, and so easy to hack with your own favorite additions.
Here I added nutritional yeast, organic mushrooms, and kimchi to my Moroccan Spiced Buckwheat Bowl. (Kimchi and nutritional yeast have so much umami.)
In case you have to self-quarantine for two weeks or longer, Splendid Spoon deliveries will also keep you nourished and full. I’ve always felt satisfied with my Splendid Spoon meals. (Note that there are two servings in each of the smoothies.)
If you’d like to try Splendid Spoon meals, and start eating clean, plant-based foods, click here for $25 off your first week. (You’ll get free shipping, and one free ginger wellness shot if you order before 3/26/2020.) Then choose your plan. (If you want to order smoothies only, you can do that but you’ll have to reach out to Splendid Spoon for a special link.)
You may ask, what is the Reset? The Breakfast + Lunch + Rest plan includes 5 light soups. Choose a day during the week in which you’ll only eat/drink those soups.
After you choose your plan, you’ll be asked to enter your email address and your zip code to see if Splendid Spoon can deliver to your area. (Splendid Spoon has no problems delivering to Seattle from Brooklyn, via FedEx usually.) Then you enter your full address and delivery preference. For each week, you can customize and edit your future orders, so be sure to do that so your favorite smoothies and soups/bowls will be included.
How can you edit a delivery
Splendid Spoon meals and deliveries are flexible. Go to My Deliveries and see which smoothies and soups are picked. You can add a smoothie or soup by pressing the + button, or remove a selection with the — button. Make sure to click on the orange “Click Here to Save Changes” button to save your changes.
HOW CAN YOU SKIP A DELIVERY?
“If you would like to skip a week of your subscription, please note Splendid Spoon’s cut-off times to be sure that you aren’t too late to skip the week’s delivery: For Wednesday deliveries, you must make changes by 4pm ET on Thursday. For Friday deliveries, you must make changes by 4pm ET on Sunday. We cannot refund, cancel, or make changes to an order after the cut-off time.
To skip a delivery:
Log into your account.
At the top of the homepage, click on My Deliveries.
Your upcoming orders will be organized by their scheduled delivery dates.
Locate the week you would like to skip and select Skip on the right side of that bar.”- splendidspoon.com
Once you try Splendid Spoon, there’s a high chance you’ll become a fan. You’ll be able to give your friends and family members $25 off their first order of Splendid Spoon meals.
Give $25, Get $25!
“For every friend you refer to Splendid Spoon you’ll receive 25 Loyalty Points (worth $25!), and they’ll get $25 off their first order.”-splendidspoon.com
Along with eating well, treating your body right, and preparing your immune system, you may even lose a little weight while on a predominantly plant-based diet. (6) To help your change your habits, develop a love for plant-based foods, choose a meal delivery service like Splendid Spoon. You’ll be eating clean, plant-based food throughout the week, treating your gut bacteria to plenty of fiber, and improving your immune system. Hopefully then you’ll be well prepared to fight COVID-19. Eating well will not prevent you from getting the disease. But it certainly will help if you get the disease (since it’s predicted that 40-70% of the world will get it.) Stay safe, healthy, and informed everyone. Feel free to leave a comment or question, and let me know what you think about Splendid Spoon and other meal delivery services. Are you using any meal delivery services at this time?
Splendid Spoon FAQs
Which Splendid SPoon smoothies taste the best?
My five favorite smoothies (out of the 13 available) from Splendid Spoon taste sweeter than their other smoothies. I do have a sweet tooth! My top five favorite smoothies are: Banana Flax, Chocolate Cherry, Blueberry Coconut, Cacao Almond, and Raspberry Cacao. The new Dragon Fruit Berry smoothie may soon become one of my new favorites!
WHICH SPLENDID SPOON bowls or soups taste the best?
My two favorite bowls (out of the 26 available, including the soup and grain bowls) are the Cumin Sweet Potato (chock full of umami) and the Kabocha Congee (full of protein, fiber, and chewing-goodness!).
HOW many calories are in Splendid Spoon?
The grain bowls are about 350 calories each (per full serving). The smoothies are usually under 300 calories (per full serving). The soups are about 380 calories each (per full serving).
Is Splendid Spoon healthy?
Splendid Spoon is portioned well, made with whole, plant-based ingredients, and none of the ingredients are deep-fried. Everything is gluten-free and GMO-free, and most of the ingredients are organic. Splendid Spoon meals are definitely healthier than fast food and your usual takeout food. Additionally everything comes frozen thanks to the included dry ice.
What are some Splendid Spoon alternatives out there?
Other plant-based meals delivery programs include Thistle, Sakara Life, Veestro, and Purple Carrot.
References:
(1) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
(2) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2018.00908/full
(3) https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/can-plant-based-diets-actually-improve-your-immune-system-20190307-p512b9.html
(4) https://www.philandmama.com/adventures/2019/9/22/you-dont-need-to-be-a-vegan-or-vegetarian-to-save-the-planet-start-with-one-plant-based-meal-a-day-50-off-splendid-spoon
(5) https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-coronavirus-spreads-the-people-who-prepare-your-food-probably-dont-have-paid-sick-leave/2020/03/04/7b35965a-5d51-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html
(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893503/