After I had my first baby, I wanted to get my body back as soon as possible. And I don’t mean just losing the baby weight – I mean getting my energy and strength back. Post-partum, I wasn’t about to start cooking for myself, so I researched meal delivery services and settled on Sakara Life. I had never tried a plant-only diet before so I figured it would be a good test. At an average of $27/meal, it was also an expensive test. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about the meal plan and my advice if you want to try it!
*This is NOT a paid advertisement, this is just something I tried myself and paid for with my own money.
Pros
Very fresh ingredients and tasty meals. As a foodie and omnivore, I had high expectations on flavor and I was not disappointed.
Meals were generally filling, with the exception of most of the breakfast meals. I never went to bed hungry, which I was worried about on a plant-based diet.
Delivery was always prompt and well-packaged. I was never afraid if I missed the delivery by a few hours, the food would go bad, because it was always cooled and insulated.
“Freebies” included every week like detox tea, chocolate, chips, and their detox waters. Of course, I would never pay separately for those things (like “beauty water” which can be purchased for $39 each on the Sakara website), but it was nice to get them free with my meals.
Cons
Expensive, obviously. At an average cost of $27/meal, it’s hard to justify some of the meals especially since they don’t contain meat.
I didn’t like that they don’t believe in including nutrition facts and caloric content on the labels. Sakara isn’t marketed as a weight loss diet, but I personally think it’s important to know how many calories you’re taking in regardless. Some of their meals were really heavy on creamy dressings and starchy veggies and I personally would like to know if I’m eating like 800 calories worth of carbs in a meal.
Not a lot of variety in flavor profiles. Eventually, it just started seeming like it was the same three sauces over different veggies each week.
Is Sakara Life A Good Meal Delivery Plan For Post-Partum Recovery?
As I mentioned, I did Sakara Life right after I gave birth for several weeks. TL;DR I would recommend Sakara life for post-partum recovery if you want the convenience of eating healthy without having to cook and are able to stomach the high cost. It’s hard to say if it had any impact on my energy levels or weight loss as the post-partum period is such a mess anyway, but at least psychologically it gave me a boost to know I was eating clean and healthy. Also, I had no problems producing enough milk supply to breastfeed on this diet, but there’s no real way to pinpoint if the effect of the diet was positive, negative, or neutral.
What Kind Of Meals Do You Get With Sakara Life?
Sakara offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner options. My recommendation would be to skip breakfast and maybe even lunch. I started Sakara by ordering breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 days a week. I quickly learned that breakfast was TINY and definitely not worth $27. The following week, I did 4 days a week of just lunch and dinner for about the same price as doing all three meals for 3 days a week. I felt like I was getting more value with the larger portions of lunch and dinner. After doing that for a couple weeks, I eventually stopped getting lunch, too. Instead, I changed to dinner 5 days a week instead. This is because lunch was almost always a salad and I like to eat different textures and flavors. And the salads were heavy on the filler – think LOTS of arugula.
Here are some pictures of the food I received:
A tiny ass yogurt with fruit for breakfast- This soup smelled good but the container didn’t say “do not microwave” and I’m an idiot
- Delicious dressing
- These “pizzas” were really good
- Yum these “quesadillas” were good
- Another salad for lunch
- Tiny french toast breakfast (that plate is a tea saucer size for reference)
A tiny ass yogurt with fruit for breakfast
This soup smelled good but the container didn’t say “do not microwave” and I’m an idiot
Delicious dressing
These “pizzas” were really good
Yum these “quesadillas” were good
Another salad for lunch
Tiny french toast breakfast (that plate is a tea saucer size for reference)Is Sakara Life Worth The Money?
For me, even though Sakara was within my household budget, it was not worth $27/meal. While almost everything was filling and tasty, there are so many great food choices in NYC that cost less that it was hard to justify. So, here are my ultimate recommendations:
I would say if you want to try Sakara, do a two-week detox with them instead of considering it a long-term meal plan.
Alternatively, if you have lots of money and don’t care about the cost as much (but still want to get the most value), use Sakara for lunch and dinner and skip breakfast.
Ok, hope you enjoyed reading my review. If you found it helpful or have questions, please leave a comment!
